Paco´s Life: Madrid

Easter Europe V: Riga y conclusiones / Riga and Conclussions

6 am and I just landed in Riga. I am tired, very tired. The aiport bus gets me to the center. Too early for calling the girl who is hosting me here, one thing is hospitality, a different one is to bother people. She had told me she was working till late so I will wait until her message. The problem is that is 7am and I am pretty fucked up. So I consider the hotel option… First try: 80 euros the night, second try: 95, third: 75… I think about it… bah, fuck it, I already spent enough money in this trip, I get rid of my luggage in the station lockers and eats this huge fried eggs, bacon plus potatoes breakfast after which the world suddenly looks brighter.

Let´s go for the sightseen then, map on my pocket and the whole city to walk around. 12 o clock and I am done with the city, nice place, full of parks, coffees and monuments. The weather, as it has been all over the trip, is on my side, sunny and hot. I beat the temptation of lying on the grass (later on I found out this is not allowed in Riga). So I end up in an internet place where I found out another person I had contacted in HC has invited me to a latvian party somewhere outside the city, some farewell party of someone, starting at 5 in the afternoon and lasting till the next day. Umm, promising… I seriously consider it but it is a too last minute plan, no idea how I am going to be able to be back in Riga on time for my plane and maybe I already did enough risky things in this trip, better to stick to the original plan. Besides, Eva contact me saying is already OK for me to get to her place. Great, I am not a homeless anymore. I just need to find her house, I gotta take some bus somewhere till the end of its route. No problem, it wasn’t so difficult in the end, Eva lives in an apartment in the outskirts of Riga and if she found strange that her Spanish guest could only say a few sentences before falling sleep slept in a sofa she pretended very well… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Two hours later, my host had to start working so I was in the street again, alone? Nooo, I still had another contact in Riga, Viktorija, another HC girl who had told me she couldn’t host me but she would happily take me out for a beer. Cooool At that point there was little for me to see in Riga but it is definitely better when you have someone local to tell you about the places, specially when is such an interesting person as Vicky (thanks!). So we spent the afternoon and got into the night, time to see what Riga´s nightlife was about. And same story as the Vilnius one, Vicky called another friend who called another one and I ended up partying with the three latvian girls. Well, better said, Russian – Latvians, Latvians or Russians, I wasn’t so sure in the end who was what. It seems that sometimes they were speaking Russian between them, some others latvian… Funny mixture they have. Anyway, what a “female” trip I have had, next one lets see if I can get in touch with local fellows, not that I was looking for girls, just that they were the ones replying to my messages.

So it ended up been a serious Riga’s nightlife tour, with different kind of places (of course some nargilee involved ;). And, specially remarkable was the last night club where I could see the way latvian guys try to hook up with girls. Uff! Terrible! After a minute been there, each of my latvian companions has a couple of guys dancing around and trying to approach her in a rather aggressive and persistent way. It was sort of surrealistic for me to be in the middle of that mess, absolutely sober and seen the carnage. One of them was so stubborn with one of the Latvians that he forced us to leave the place so he would not break her neck trying to get her mouth closer (not an exaggeration). I ain’t joking, Italians are shy people compared to these people. Funny to see but a bit pathetic and it also put an end to the night so I joined Eva who had finished work and went to sleep. It was 3 in the morning and the last and calm night of the trip was ending. And here I am, trying to find anything else about Riga to complete this post but there isn’t. The city is very nice, also the latvian girls and a bit less the latvian guys (at least the ones in the discos).

So let’s go straight to the last chapter. The eastern Europe Tour left behind important figures: 6 countries, 1500 km by car, 7 flights, two trains, one friend less, 5 friends more, 2 very drunken nights, 3 of fine party, very few hours sleeping and a lot walking, around 4 kilos more and, above all this the feeling of have lived a trip close to perfection. And it might sound unbelievable to use the word “perfect” when it had such a beginning but the fact is that, after that disgusting experience everything was just great. I felt at home in all places I was, the weather was good and the nights kept been alcoholic and funny but in the right measure. So, the way a trip has to be. And this trip has made me realize than I am starting to enjoy doing something I never really fancied before: to travel at my own, without depending on anybody and changing people from one day to the next one. It is not that I don’t like travelling with friends and of course I consider what happened with Giorgos a very unusual thing, I have travelled many times with different people without problems and I will keep doing that but, on the other hand, I am starting to feel very comfortable in this kind of “lonely traveler” situations. Specially if I get such a good welcome as I have had in all the cities I visited. So, I made it! Interesting or not, I wrote about the whole trip. I don’t know if this is funny to read but it definitely was to write it which is what it really matters

Istanbul II

All pictures from the second night of partying in Istambul are here!

The plan for the night was to seriously go out. Here it was when a group of people who would end up messing the situation was formed. Tel Aviv, Moscow, Bucharest and me got one of the apartments and started to drink the rum we had brought. Paris and Warsaw were lost with a friend of the second one and the girls were having a more relaxed plan so it was our obligation to get the night wild. Very serious drinking time we had, we ended up walking the center of Istambul with a huge bottle full of rum. The night had many anecdotes to tell about, but probably they are only funny if you were there to live them. Like the communication problems we had when I was trying to use Javi´s phone, that moment when I kicked mine directly towards the knee of a poor Turkish girl who was passing by or Moscow´s impressive ability to take pictures been drunk We got together in a nice Turkish place and the night happened to be very very funny :-)Great picture, the night punishers team almost complete, just Prague is missing

All pictures from New Year´s Eve in Istambul are here!

But Saturday´s though night had a high price: there was no way to get up on time for a cruise through the Bosforous we had planned. Regreteable, since I was left with the feeling that Istanbul has a lot to offer and I missed it. We spent the day doing nothing, smoking pipes, getting confused when meeting each other and with hangover. Absolutely nothing to remark about the day. For the night year´s eve Julia had arranged a very good plan, a typical Turkish restaurant had been booked and the idea was to eat some grapes in the house at 12 (Spanish tradition). But and this point things started to get wrong, the Tel Aviv – Moscow – Bucharest - Stockholm connexion had a messy result. While the rest of the people was heading for the restaurant, in which we had to arrive early, these four assholes decided to stay home for having the last drink. But this was not enough and, at a certain point, we had the nasty idea of forgetting about the dinner and just join them for the dessert. So we left the house very late and very drunk and here is when the mess started. Among with other ethylic state we had every kind of problems. Offline phones, confusion when finding the places to meet… A real mess, we pretty fucked up Julia´s dinner and ended up, the four of use, disconnected from the others. Eventually and seen it was impossible to get in touch with the others, we assumed we should spend the night at our own and, to be honest, in the end it happened to be very funny. We met three very friendly Turkish girls (hello Figen!) with whom we celebrated the entering of the new year with flares (apparently the typical thing to do in Turkey). They took us to the best places and the truth is that we had a very very funny night. As there is one hour time difference between Turkey and Spain we celebrated two times. We ended up in a very cool Turkish club where the lights went off for a while. The place had a few floor and there was a music band playing. One of the highest moments of the night occurred when I climbed to the stage and almost stole the microphone from the singer to offer my particular version of “Para bailar la bamba”. There is a video of this that I will only show to people willing to pay big money. By the time it was 12 pm Spanish time we were desperately asking the waiter for drinks that we needed in 2 minutes. No grapes, no nothing, this new year started with a drink on my hands. 2006 has definitely been an original year when talking of special dates: apart from the Turkish New Year´s Eve I just told you, I spent my birthday alone in Bangkok and Christmas night in San Francisco surrounded by globetrotters. But, thinking now, and even though the night happened to be very funny, I am very sorry we could not meet with the others. Besides, Nuria had a very bad time cause she needed to catch a flight early in the morning and we had the keys of the apartment and were unreachable. A little messy but luckily we reunited in the flat on time and, after the well deserved scolding, we could restore the good ICEX vibrations (at least I think so). As can be seen in the pictures we slept very close to each other

The fantastic 4

Javi fell in love

Hats

Turkish girls!

Before finishing the post, I have to speak about the turkish bath, better known as Hamman. Pretty curious thing, first you lay down in a huge and hot stone, like if you were a steak on the grill. Then this guy comes, puts soap all over your body and rub you with an special sponge to open your skin and all that stuff, at the same time he is massaging your body. The truth is that, once you manage to ignore that fact that the one touching you all over is a big guy with moustache, the experience happens to be very relaxing. In the end you get a shower and they take you to another room where you lay in a bed and you get another massage. It would even say I liked it more than the thai massage, I mean the “normal” thai massage, I didn’t try the “other” one So I ended up very “exfoliated” and clean.

Istanbul

All first night pictures here

Istambul, nice city located in the union of the european and asian continents. I think I said many times this is a year for travelling and, as far as I can remember, I always spent New Year´s Eve in Madrid so I decided this was a good chance to break this rule. As usual, the ICEX steel partners were ready for the call and 14 of us attended the Istanbul meeting. Apart from the usual suspects: Guerri – Warsaw, Chelo – Dublin, Julia – Istanbul, Nuria – Vilnius and Manuel – Paris, we had new people showing up; a few big night punishers such as Beni – Tel Aviv, Jesús – Moscow and Javi Bucharest and some people who could not make it for the other meetings like Elena – Athens and Rubén – Teheran. Fortunately Julia had two flats available in the same building, at least in theory, so we fit. As soon as I got to the city, Beni was waiting for me with a drink already prepared. With a welcome like this you immediately feel at home, this first night out proved Moscow and Bucarest night skills and also gave us a taste of the Turkish night. The environment is kinda curious, plenty of bars everywhere and people on the street. However you have to negociate prices for the drinks so they don’t cheat you and the feeling is still a bit machist. For example, there was a moment I was dancing (yes, sometimes I do dance) close to a turkish girl without any evil intention of course and then there was this guy coming to me and saying very politely that I should not get so close, that his brother was around and that was not the way things work in that country. No hard feelings neither bad attitude from him but he makes clear YOU are foreign there and there are some things you can´t do. Anyway, it was already very late and there isn’t much to say about the night. We discovered a place closed to Julia´s home for eating Turkish food. Sort of kebabs but slightly different, we got adictive to something called urfa, like a roll with meat and more stuff inside. The place was funny, as soon as you sit down you were served a dish with the most spicy green chillies I ever tried. I don’t know if you were supposed to eat them alone or put them into the urfa. The next night, been very drunk, we challenged each other to see who could eat more, very bad for the stomach… We also met a funny local, very old and full of alcohol who took a seat with us. A pity he did not speak any English other ways I am sure he would have told us plenty of interesting stories.

Dublin, Moscow and me getting to Istanbul

Stockholm, Dublin, Tel Aviv and Moscow

Our turkish friend

All tourism pictures hereNext morning, been culture lovers people as all ICEX are, we went to visit the city that is definitely beautiful. Plenty of Turkish churches all over form Istanbul landscape, the view from a high point is awesome. It is funny also to hear all over the city the call for praying early in the morning. Funny but also dangerous if you are next to a guy like Beni – Tel Aviv that, been a little drunk, joined the chorus, showing Julia´s neighbors how faithful he is. Anyway, back to Istambul, the city is divided by the Bosforouso, a strait which marks the border between the European and the Asiatic part. On the other side you have the main Turkish churches and the Great Bazaar. We visited Santa Sofia church and the Basilica Cistern, amazing subterranean space, used in ancient times for storing the water which is filtered through the roof. Very nice… We ended the tourist itinterary at the Istanbul Great Bazaar, huge commercial area full of every kind of shops. Here the girls went shopping as it could be expected. Moscow, Bucharest and me thought it was a better idea to have some beers so we went to a bar Bucharest knew from a previous visit to the city. The waiter there happened to be a very great guy, he remembered Javi from the previous visit (which was one year ago), he was a very clever fella, he even remembered what Javi had drunk that day and who he was going with. Besides, he could speak a very correct Spanish that I am sure he had learnt only by speaking with customers and some other languages. From time to time he sit down to speak to us, without been annoying at all. The other waiter there was also very cool, every time he was serving us a beer he was having one himself so he had quite a few. Honestly, a great place, makes you feel at home. And they were not so friendly because of getting our money, the invited us to some French fries and the guy even refused the tip we tried to give him. Before leaving we took some pictures and got his email address. I would recommend the bar to anyone hanging around in the Great Bazaar.

California Dreaming: San Francisco II

All pictures here!

When it got darker I started to feel weird about been there, walking alone on Christmas night, no family, no friends… So I went back to the hostel hoping to find more people in the same situation. Surprisingly the living room was pretty crowded, many people sitting there and watching Spiderman on TV, everybody seemed to be as lonely as I was. Funny situation, people looking around, like about to start a conversation: “eh, how are you doing?.. happy Christmas..:” At this point there was a guy who took a pack of cards and asked for players. Great, the ice was officially broken. A few of us got to a table and started to introduce ourselves, the game iniciator happened to be a guy from Stockholm who spoke fluent Spanish since he had lived in South America. The second one… a welsh guy, cool another coincidence, I spent 2 years living there. The rest of the people in the table were a couple of British guys and, of course, a representative of this country of travelers called Germany. For a while we also had a taiwanesse girl playing. And with these people the night happened to be very funny, is very easy to get well with this kind of characters, same profile, globetrotters and constant travelers who had been almost everywhere. People used to socialize, even more when a few bottles of wine are available. At a certain point, what was unavoidable happened, we moved to card drinking games. Quite a few ones were known in the table… Result: laughts and drinks until 3 am and a great Christmas night

Next morning I woke up with the taste of the crappy Spanish wine in my mouth but ready to walk around San Francisco typical neibourghoods. There aren’t actually too many monuments to see in this place, is more about feeling the atmosphere. Which must be great and very special as long as you don’t try it on Christmas day! Who the fuck is hanging around in the street this day? Obviously just the homeless and the stupid Spanish tourist. So I went through the gay neibourghood (The Castro). Yeah, another gay neibourghood here, is not that I am specially interested on that, is just that, for some reason, they are always recommended as a place for visiting in the guides. Who knows why… After that, I went to the Spanish area (The Mission), nothing special to talk about here. I ended my tour, after a few streets with plenty of posh houses, in the famous crossing between the Haigh and the Ashbury streets. Here, my friends, is where the hippie fashion was started. Here is where, in 1967, the Summer of Love was started, thousands and thousands of young people went to the street to smoke plenty of joints and have sex. Now there are just a few shops for buying t-shirts with the peace sign on them but… ops Christmas day, they are closed…

The Mission

The Castro

Haigh & Ashbury

So I went back to the hostel after my long and not too fortunate walk. At least a good plan was waiting for me there: a Christmas dinner had been organized for the sake of the family-less travelers. So we got together again, the same people from the previous night, with our pack or cards and two new members: another German girl and an American fella. When the dinner was over we took over a table and started the game marathon. I decided it was time for some serious drinking and got a bottle of rum (and ice cubes of course). Same deal dudes, hours and hours of card drink games and a very important drunkenness. I woke up next day without remembering when I went to hit the bed. A very important part of that night is actually missing in my memory. The most sadly thing is that my planned trip to Alcatraz fucked up. I had only time for running to the airport an take my plane back to my dear Stockholm. To make things even worse, Lufthansa suckers had the electronic system of my seat row offline so I had to spend 10 hours just waking around the plane, no sleeping, no TV, no reading, no nothing. A hell of trip. Just add 4 hours walking around Frankfurt, waiting for the next plane and you get a fucked up guy finally arriving to Stockholm. In any case, it was nice to get there and meet Henning, a german friend I knew in Cardiff who had been staying in my place a few days while visiting the city with his girlfriend. Very friendly people both of them but I was very very tired and had to hit the bed pretty soon. I did it, though, with a big smile due to the great end which San Francisco meant to an incredible trip.

Mark, Katia and Todd

Hampus and Karina

Rob

The american

It was quite clear this was gonna happen…

California Dreaming: Tijuana & San Diego

All pictures here!

San Diego was the next stop in our route.This nice south Californian city had an added interest because of been the place of residence of an old friend of mine, Sergio. I met this great guy during my Erasmus year at Newcastle (United Kingdom), back in 2003. I would say this Erasmus experience started my need of travelling and living in different places. If I hadn´t done that I wouldn’t probably be in Sweden right and the idea of spending Christmas travelling in the States would be out of the question. But the fact is I did it and since then I could not stop. Once you leave home you just can not be back. Apparently the same thing happened to Sergio, he spent quite a few periods abroad until he got the chance to get to San Diego for teaching Spanish. This is his second year there and it was time for me to pay a visit. The trip from LA was a pain, traffic jams and bad weather got us there much later than expected. At least we did not have too much trouble finding the address and meeting Sergio who was hanging around with a couple of friends, also Spanish teachers. Christian and Enric, another two great guys to add to the collection of characters we found in this trip. The first one gave us accommodation for a couple of days and the second one offered us a very tasty Spanish omelette

Erasmus reunion

Christian, great guy

Wellcome to Tijuana, tequila, sexo y marihuana, Manu Chao says. Well, the truth is that the city seems to be the real chaos. From San Diego we drove to the border, left the car there and crossed walking. In the pocket just a bunch of dollars and the passport, well kept, loosing it would result on not been able to get back to the States. So you pass this mechanical door along with all the Americans looking for getting very drunk and you get into another world. Mexicans all over the place offering taxis, liquor shops, sex shops…As we were going with Sergio who had already been there a few times we knew where the more Mexican and less yanqui area was and there we went. What to say about the place… Plenty of people all over, very loud music, bars everywhere. Absolutely the opposite than what we had experienced in the States, an atmosphere closer to what a typical party area in Europe could be. Appart from that, believe me, there was nothing too extraordinary that night. Maybe that epic moment, right after we got into the first place, when they started playing “La Chispa Adecuada”, one of the best songs made by Heroes del Silencio. The Mexicans got craxy with the song, these guys were very popular there. Appart from that, we could check out that in Mexico every woman has a man behind, looking around like a lighthouse and that, even though we could speak the language we would pay same price as the Americans. But, my friends, this is not USA, here you can party until 6 am and we really appreciated that. Something to remember about that night is the best hotdog I ever ate. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the mexican experience, after all we had heard, it didn’t seem such a good idea to bring a camera with us. However I didn’t really feel the place was extraordinary dangerous, nothing unusual at least, maybe because our friends knew where to go so we didn’t get into the wrong places. In any case, only a few hours there but another country to add to the list.

After the mexican gap it was time to get to know San Diego, nice coast city. We started the visit in the center, the restaurant area and continued to the gay area (Hillcrest). According to the Lonely Planet guide, the reason why there is a gay community in San Diego is that, after the II World War, many soldiers ended up there and, of course, so many men so close… By the way, having this guide is very adviceable for a trip like this. You get plenty of information about the places you are visiting, maps of the main cities and recommendations about accommodation and restaurants which were most of them successful. I would say is a must to buy it. Anyway, San Diego has, of course, a skycrappers downtown and close by there is a reconstruction of a typical western village. Very fake but anyway, it was the tourist attraction and we were tourists so we had to go. Buying the Mexican hat was part of the plan for properly fooling around. After that we went to the beach, the most famous one there is La Jolla but we did not made it so far and stayed in the closest one. Not much to do there in winter and also, for the first time in this trip, we get pretty lost driving around and missed a couple of interesting places because we got there too late. Still, we could get a couple of night pictures of the californian sunset.

For dinner, the locals took us to a great place where you get very full eating meat you cook yourself in a grill they have in the middle of the restaurant. Talking about restaurants in the States, is unbelievable how well you can eat there or, been more precise, how much you eat there. They really load the dishes not like some other places I know (yeah I am been critic with Stockholmagain). It does not matter if the place was Mexican, chinese, Italian…you weren’t hungry afterwards. The prices are affordable and the service is great, all the staff is very friendly and nice and you hardly wait for your meal. There is a trick here though. In the States the customer is supposed to leave tip, between 10 and 20% of the meal. You can get away without leaving the tip but that would be extremely unpolite. The waitress who served the table gets the tip so he/she better be nice. In fact, the basic salary these people get already reflects that they are supposed to get plenty of money in tips, they normally get around 1,5 dollars per hour. If they are reasonably friendly they will highly raise this amount, ending up with a more than decent salary. In my opinion, this is a good system, you give between 10 and 20%, depending on how good you feel they threat you. This way you normally get a very good service, chezcq waiters here wouldn’t make business. The negative thing is that as soon you finish your food they are already looking forward for you to leave so they can give your table to someone else and in some places they tend to rush you. No Spanish after – lunch – talking here.

The woman at the back of the picture is a regular customer of the place

And here some funny pictures form San Diego zoo

California Dreaming: Los Angeles

All pictures here!

The next stop of our trip could not be more cinematographic: Los Angeles, capital of the cinema and one of the most worldwide known cities. Once you pass the cliffs I was talking about in the previous post, the road 1 continues through the wine region of California, most of the wine produced in the States comes from this place. Which actually we did not really care about since we didn’t stop here but in Santa Barbara, a place I guess you all heard about. This is the funny thing about the american supremacy in cinema, you come here and all the time you see names that sounds familiar. In any case, we hang around for a while there, nice city with a beautiful beach which must be great in summer. But it was not summer and the weather wasn’t good enough to take a bath so we just visit a couple of historical Spanish buildings.

Patriotic moment

What the fuck he was talking about?

One hour after that we hit LA. The first impression you get about the city is pretty negative, the neibourghoods in the outskirts are very ugly, lot of homeless walking around and pollution everywhere. The city is huge and you don’t know where to head. But, an ICEX guy always has resources for this kind of situations, before we started this trip I got in touch with one of the interns in the commercial office of the Spanish embassy in LA, María, who happened to be a very friendly girl who told us the route we should follow. So we called her asking for advice on finding accommodation in LA and she recommended us to go to the Santa Monica area. Hotels there are pretty expensive so we ended up in a youth hostel, not very luxury but close to the beach. The ICEX help did not stop there, they were so nice to take us out that night. Around 10 pm the plan was already organized, they picked up us in the hostel and it didn’t matter we were six in a car. We had dinner in a Chinese place and then we head to a club they knew. The place was really cool already from the beginning when these two huge black bouncers asked us for passports. When they saw we were Spanish they did some jokes. Same as the Swedish ones eh? So, the night passed very happily inside there, chatting and laughing with all the LA ICEX interns and another visitor, a very funny guy coming from New York. We even managed to socialize a bit with the locals. However, at 2 o clock the place closed down and then they took us to a libian place, opened till very late, to smoke pipes. Kind of weird place, it was not the total party but ok for been there smoking and chatting. When we felt too tired we took a taxi back to the hostel. Thanks a lot to Montse, Juan Andrés and cia, very welcoming people!

I just realized I dint speak about the jetlag yet. There is a 9 hours time difference between the USA West Coast and Stockholm and you can feel it. Is a funny effect, you can´t sleep longer than 7-8am which is actually great for doing tourism so we were on the road pretty soon. However, at 6 pm you are totally fucked up. So we spent this first week having to sleep a 1-2 hours nap every day.

Anyway, let´s continue with LA. After the great night it was the time to get to know the city. As we only had one day we decided to hire one of these tours you get into a bus and they show you around, the driver explaining about the city. He was, of course, a very friendly guy (working for his tip) and was saying funny stuff at the same time he was describing the different places. We started in Sunset Boulevard where the rich guys and the cinema stars live. We saw Spielberg´s house, Kurt Russel´s and a few more whose owner I don’t remember. We ended this first part of the trip in Beverlly Hills were poor people go shopping. Everything very touristic. During the trip the guide was saying interesting stuff, for example “that corner over there is where Hugh Grant got a blowjob” or “this is where Michael Jackson got arrested”. Very instructive. No, we didn’t see any famous people but we did see some guys going to the shops by limousine. Exactly the same that I do when I get down to my local supermarket to get some frozen pizzas… After that the bus left the city and started to drive up to a hill and… opps there it was, the very famous Hollywood sign. The view over the city from there is pretty impressive too, you can see how big it is.

After the hill, the bus stopped in the Universal Studios where I could not resist the temptation of getting a couple of stupid pictures. You may be wondering why usually I am the one to show up in the pictures, well Giorgos does not like it too much and I thought so many lonely landscapes and monuments would end up been boring. Therefore I fool around as soon as I got any chance. We did not get into the studios cause it was very expensive and we didn’t have time either but I don’t think we missed much. Instead, we got down the city to the very famous “Walk of Fame”, yes where you find the starts with famous names on it all over the floor. Drinking all the rum in the world is not enough for getting a start there, you are required to have a certain amount of success and also, of course, to send a very big check to the LA city hall. There was plenty of people dressed like Elvis, Donald Duck and stuff like that hanging around over there, trying to get some dollars. So, the typical place, compulsory to visit, you get the pictures, hang around for a while and leave.

Of course, Captain Flint´s legend made it this far

The visit ended in LA downtown, that means, the bunch of skycrappers in the centre of the city, nothing new here, once you have seen one you have seen all. I like more a small street with Mexicans shops close by. I was about to buy a very cool poster with all the mafia guys of the american cinema until I understood there wouldn’t be any way to get it into the plane. In the meantime I was chatting with a couple of local Mexicans, funny thing, they were switching from Spanish to English all the time without realizing themselves. Here they started to scare me about our next destination: Tijuana, “be careful there”, “don’t get drunk”, “stay with more people”. I had already heard it was the most dangerous city in Mexico and these guys seemed to agree. We would see…

Varsovia / Warsav

So apparently I still dont know all the low cost airlines in the world, I got this new one: www.wizz.air.com. They happen to fly from Stockholm to… Warsav Place of residence of the only alcoholic italian working for the ICEX. So what a better reason for organizing the second european meeting, the same people who met in Prague show up for this one: great aggrupation of “night punishers” and “steel partners”, willing to have a lot of fun again. I am realizing that my travel posts are becoming repetitive, I always talk about parties when the interesting thing would be to tell about the countries I visit, a sort of traveller diary to encorauge you, my dear readers, to come over to these places. But the fact is that is pretty difficult to do tourism like this, I am ashamed to say it but I hardly saw Warsav. Anyway, I wil first try to put together all the polish information and then I will include a few party pictures that I guess some people will appreciate

The first impression I got from Warsav was pretty possitive. I guess that, unconsciously, the idea many of us have about the East Europe countrie is kinda decadent. We expect to find something sad and grey when in fact there is not a big difference between them and what we have in the rest of Europe. I dont know about the rest of the country but Warsaw is a proper city, a big financial centre with plenty of open spaces and skycrappers wellcomes the traveller coming from the aiport. In the middle of all this there is an impressive building called “Culture Palace”, a present from the soviets to the city.

By the way, this place was pretty funny, there was an exposition about the media in which one could do things like introducing the TV news or become a radio professional for a second. I dont know if this was supposed to be used by the visitor but, as Spanish people that we are, we had to try it…

After leaving the financial centre, you get into the old city. Warsaw was almost destroyed in the Second World War so all the centre had to be rebuild. For doing this, they used the few still standing pieces of building as models for the new stuff as well as the paints of the city which survived the war. The result is nice, a quiet place to walk arround, with houses painted in different colours, city walls, churches… Unfortunately I do not have to many pictures of these. Here you have a couple of ones with the real “steel partners”, a monument to the polish soldiers dead during the war and one of the churches…

Eating arround was also a must do and we did it in excess, affordable prices and very nice food. They say polish waittres are the slowest in the world, I dont think it was that bad. This place is specially advisible. One of the best restaurants I ever tried, hugh dishes and delicous beer. Next to Guerri´s place, if I was him I would eat there every day.

Not much else to say about the city, more information available here, let´s move to the party issue. This was mainly done in the spagethi´s house. First day we organized a very serious drinking party, for some of us this started at 5 pm and for almost everybody it ended very very late. A great night, I had a lot of fun. Plenty of pictures here, the best ones just below..

The three magic kings together again

And the second night … same thing. This time with some polish participation, steel partners joining against the polish vodka. A new member of the Captain Flint club (Tino), lot of fun in a night I ended up in a weird bar, opened till very late and sorrounded by polish people. In the end I slept in a huge house, property of a Spanish guy I just had met, he even had a jacuzzi! Sunday we were close to go out again but, just once and maybe motivated by the chezq experience, we chosen the quiet plan. We just went to the train station to say goodbye to the “chezq” friends and then for dinner to a french restaurant. This place happened to be the opposite to the one I mentioned before. Very sophisticaded but small dishes, you ordered a big piece of meat and you got a salad. French people..

Tino becoming Flint

Icex meeting

Bye bye…

Halloween Party

The previous night´s anger didnt have to last too long because Saturday night we had an original plan. Halloween party in the swedish way: 30 euros to get into the place + 50 euros the fancy dress. Posh party with models and cool people in general. In the end it was ok, yes there was very beuatiful women with fancy dresses but everybody was kinda quiet. Anyway, and comparing with previous experiences, I had fun. Nobody kicked me out of the place and the fancy dress thing was very funny Some pictures here…

Estocolmo empieza a tocarme los cojones / Stockholm is starting to piss me off

Definitely I am not getting well with this city. Friday night, we go out to the most popular place in Stockholm, the Blue moon bar, opening till late and supposed to have the best atomosphere. There I am in a corridor, speaking with the people who was coming with me when suddently a big bouncer approachs me. He tells me that I have to leave, that he thinks I am drunk. Those of you who know me may think that he was right, obviously I was not totally sober, we had been drinking something before but I can tell you I was not wasted, I was very quiet, speaking with another guy. I was not dancing weird and of course I was not disturbing anyone. I had recently entered the place and I hadnt had time even for ordering a beer. So I try to explain all this to my new friend using English, apparently he does not like too much when we say we are Spanish, by the way, why the fuck does he has to ask us where we come from? does it makes a difference or what? The sucker becomes agressive, is not only that he wants me to leave but also that I am pissing him off. He starts to push me downstairs and sends another bouncer to get my jacket. The feeling of frustration is total because just in a second your night is over. Is just 1am and you just spent arround 12 euros to stay just 20 minutes in that place.

And the worst is that there is no justification at all, if I was producing a mess I could manage to undersand it, but even if he thinks by looking at my face that I am wasted (that I wasnt) thats only my fucking problem, it only becomes his if I am disturbing someone. At my age nobody is gonna tell me what I can drink. The guy was obssesed about kicking me out of there, only he knows why, not even his own colleages could convince him that I was ok. Why me and not the people coming with me? Was it the long hair or what? I dont wanna jump into conclussions but I am starting to see xenofobia in these people. Because swedish get drunk like hell and nobody kicks them out. Because I have been in that place 3 times and the first time they already tried to kick me out but when the guy spoke to me he had to admit I was ok. Because every time we go there they ask us for IDs (and I dont think we look too young) and when we prove it they look pretty dissapointed. And the sad thing is that this happens very often, the previous IT intern ended up in the street a few times and some of them violently. There is a girl here whose recently ordered beer was taken by the bouncers and she was kicked out. They say in Sweden is illegal to serve alcohol to someone who is already drunk but, who is the one to decide that? Is the level of accepted alcohol different deppending on wheter you are local or not?

The thing is that you get the impression that going out here is a fucking lottery, the party might be finished at any time, deppending on the arbitrary decision of a motherfucker. And of course, the normal reaction would be to decide not to be back in that place ever, but the sadly fact is that there are not too many options to go out in this wonderfull city after 1am. So you better get home earlier or some sucker will help you to take this decision. You get very pissed and feel like sending the fucking country to the hell.
Anyway, I consider it is also important to discuss these issues here, those considering Stockholm to be a great destination better think twice about it. I have lived in quite a few places and never found this shit. I dont like the atmosphere here, appart from the bouncer problem people in general looks kind of proud and not easy to reach, showing their money arround with an arrogant face. If right now I have to fill that famous report with the good/bad things of the city I am afraid the score wont be too high. I dont know wether this a problem of the country or just concerns to the posh capital. Maybe I have been very unlucky and now I am pissed and exagerating. But I have been here more than a month and my first impression is not changing. So I will have to do something about it, for the time been I am organizing plenty of weekends plans so I dont have to spend them here. Heading back to the Erasmus world is another good option, apparently they go out on Wednesdays and on weekends they just organize parties at the uni, avoiding going to the center. I am starting to understand why…

Bangkok: Scotish Birthday / Cumpleaños Escocés

What a better way to celebrate my 26 birthday that going for an adventure in one of the most amazing cities I have ever visited. I have travelled quite a lot but never like this, totally alone, withouth knowing anyone in the place and withouth having accommodation there. I just had the address of what was supposed the street with hotels for foreign people in Bangkok. A typical backpacker place called Khao San Road. How to describe this city in a few words… amazing. It was only a couple of days but I got the impression that Bangkok is a place you either hate or fall in love with. Absolutely caotic, pollution everywhere, huge, you walk arround smelling every kind of stuff, with people trying to sell you whatever you may want. I got to Kaho San where, as I had read, there was foreign people all over and many affordable places to stay. The street itself is amazing, lights everywhere, backpackers coming and going, thai food places and every kind of shops. Definitely the place had nothing to do with the very tidy and clean Singapore, this is another world.

So I get my individual room, with AC and shower. Not luxury but fair enough..

Can you imagine how I spent the rest of the afternoon? Buying a new camera of course, first contact with the tahi culture, here you can negociate any price. Luckily, the change euro - bath (thai currency) is quite convinient so in the end you get good deals. After that, it was my birthday and I was about to celebrate it alone, besides, I was totally exhausted and sweating like hell. 10 pm, what should I do? Going to sleep? That would be sad… I decided to get down to the hotel bar and have a drink, this is also cheap here. So I sit down there, totally alone and sad and I start ordering mojitos. The good thing about these kind of places is that there are many people in the same situation, you see them hanging arround, having dinner alone or reading a book, normally after a while they leave. After I spent some time studying the situation and only when I got the inspiration that only a good rum can provide I started to expand my non-existing social circle. First I spoke with a lonely american guy, jajaja jojojojo and later on we also became friends of a group of scottish guys, finally we went out with them. So the night ended up been quite funny, much more than it was mean to be. Nothing spectacular, some temporarly friends so I dont spend my birthday alone