Sitting, waiting, wishing. Sitting here in my office doing nothing, waitting for news that will push my next professional / personal move, wishing a different future every five seconds. Two weeks ago I was said that my contract as Software Developer in Buongiorno will expire on the 31st of December. In other words, I will become unemployed. The new, that I have managed to assimilate in the last days, was originally not welcome at all. I guess the absence of this kind of post in this blog is probably a good indicator of how good I was feeling lately both with my professional and personal life. Buongiorno was, specially during the first months, the best job I ever had: plenty of money, nice people, total flexibility, non-limited holidays. These are the big advantages of been a freelance that I was talking about in my last personal post, the disadvantage has just arrived. When there is no more work to do we are the first people for the company to get rid of. And, to be honest, I find it totally right, it had already been a few weeks I was doing nothing at work and I was feeling guilty

So, as a life irony, for one time I am forced to take the very likely decision of leaving a place. After so much time willingy jumping from one to another, this time they are pushing me. First days after receiving the news were a bit hard, I created quite a nice world here in Madrid, I had a perfect job, a perfect flat and a perfect social life. I am losing the first one for sure and very likely the other too. And I am so sure about this because I believe it is quite difficult that I can get a job like then one I am loosing here in Madrid. I have got this certain feeling of knowing that whatever I may find out there is going to be worse, specially in terms of salary and flexibility. Sure, there are jobs around and, actually they are calling me almost daily but I know what it is about… I see the uncomfortable ties, the business rigid atmosphere, the client is always right and all that shit IT consultancies are based on. This is something I have already lived and I will do again if there is no other chance but I will do my best to get something better. And if that means leaving Madrid so be it.

I have to say, to be honest, that I am writing this a few days after the initial moment and in this time I have started to feel better about moving. This globetrotter who lives inside me and was dying lately due to my stable life has been resurrected by the news. I have started to think of my chances and the first still only “possible” opportunities in Netherlands or Germany made me realize that I am still very motivated about leaving my current life behind and build a new one. So, the situation is not a drama, whatever is coming in my future sounds good and I am probably still as unestable and “moving-ass” as always.

So here I am then. Sitting, waiting, wishing… Planning the next move, something that other times just meant sending a lot of CVs to find a new job. Well, I am definitely doing that but this time there is a second alternative. And this time the unresponsible plan is really unresponsible…if am not offered something I like very much or maybe even in that case, I plan to go travelling. And when I speak of travelling I mean real travelling not the amateur things I have been doing till now. The plan is to get a big pack in my back and spend between 4 and 7 months going all over one a continent I have never been so far: South America

Obviously it is a decision involving plenty of things. And the first and most important one is whether I really want to do it, if I would really enjoy a trip like that. The truth is that I don’t know if I am made for it. I mean, it is not lack of confidence nor fear of the dangers involved. It is rather the fear to the boreness, to find myself alone, going from one place to the next without enjoying what I see. Not having travel mates for this trip, makes me think about these issues. I get bored easily and my short lonely traveler experiences were not too satisfactory (I specially remember those 4 days alone in Phillipine Islands). I would not like to cancel the trip after one month because I am fucking bored. I would like to know for sure that it will be a great experience but I have doubts. Due to this, the decision is not 100% sure and leaves the door open to continue working if something really good comes up.

It is due to this, that days pass by in what seems to be and endless wait. Sitting, waiting, wishing, in this “expecting” state, without knowing what it is going to be, attending interviews for jobs I don’t want, sending CVs to jobs I want, looking at South America maps, travelers blogs… With the feeling that there is not much I can do right now and the issue will solved itself on its time. Sitting, waiting, wishing…

It took me a while but I finally found some time to drop a few lines here. My blogger spirit exits, is there, but upon him there is a big cover of laziness preventing him from coming up. I guess this also has a lot to do with the fact that I spent 8 hours per day sitting in from of a computer; I don’t exactly feel like coming back to him in my spare time. Having to write everything in two languages does not help either. But I just finished my big summer trip and it would not be correct to skip it here. The plan happened to be Asia again, it is becoming a custom in the last year, August comes and I get my ass to the oriental continent. It was Singapore and Bangkok in 2006, the big ICEX Asian Tour (China – Taiwan – Japan) this summer and, after many plans considered, Philippine Islands and China revisited this year. My first idea was South America but one Olympic Games, a surprisingly cheap KLM flight ticket and the hosting of the great José – Beijing were enough reason to put my eyes in Asia again.

So, I designed my master plan which would start in Shanghai, take me to Manila, then to Beijing and finally back to Shanghai for my flight back to Europe. On the contrary to the recent Eastern Europe Tour, there was no cultural goal involved here. I had already seen Beijing before, Shanghai would be a short stop and there was nothing to see in Manila. This trip was about resting, learning scuba – diving, seeing the atmosphere of one Olympic Games and partying. So simple, so ordinary. So, after plenty of research about flights, hospitality club and various burocratic issues to get my Chinese visa (they were specially annoying because of the Olympics), I ended up in Shanghai Saturday 9^th of August. That was the destination of the very cheap KLM flight (just 450 euros!) and it was good cause I would get to know a bit more of Chine before the wild Philippine – Beijing experiences.

I had no contacts in Shanghai so I had to use HC again which proved to be as effective in Asia as it was in Europe. I was hosted in Shanghai by Angel, a very friendly Chinese girl that took me out for dinner and drinks the first night. That was a fucking long day; for starting, the night before the trip, and following another of my destructive traditions, I partied till very late and got to work with just a couple of hours of sleep and plenty of rum in my veins. At 12 pm on Friday I rushed to the airport and slept the hangover part of the endless trip to Shanghai via Amsterdam. I got there at 13 pm Chinese time, courtesy of the 6 hours time difference and, while Angela was done with her job, I headed for Sony shop. Why the fuck this is the first thing I do in my trip? Well, the messy Katerini night didn’t cost me only Giorgos friendship but also my current camera (another tradition in my trips). However, I happened to have another one I have had useless in my room for two years. I destroyed it in another drunken night in Stockholm and when I tried to fix it in Madrid I was said it would cost me more than 100 euros and would take a few weeks to repair it. So, instead of that, I bought another one that I managed to keep until the tragic Greek night. For this trip, I planned to fix this one rather than buying a new one, believing this efficient Chinese’s would be more reliable than their Spanish mates. And, for one time, I was right; getting my camera fixed in Shanghai Sony cost me only 50 hours and one hour. This is the funny story of this camera that I bought in Bangkok, destroyed in Stockholm, ignored in Madrid and fixed in Shanghai.

With the camera issue I didn’t see much of Shanghai that afternoon, just the typical Chinese market, full of annoying people trying to sell you watches, suits, ceramic or their mothers if you would ask for that. Nothing too interesting down there but the night was coming already and Angela took me to a very nice and typical restaurant, in which I had to admit I didn’t dare to eat the frog dish and went for more conventional spicy pork. After that, we went for a walk in the more interesting and touristic part of the city, the Bund, a nice area around the river with an impressive view over Shanghai skyscrapers. A bit of history about them at this point, Building a big building in China has its own mystery, it is not just about putting some materials together. These interesting people seem to look for a symbolism in everything they do. The pictures following display two of the most important buildings there: the Jin Mao tower and the international financial center of Shanghai (SWFC). The first one is built as very long bamboo tree that opens in its top, as a representation of China’s economical grew. The history of the second one is even more interesting; it was built by the Japanese, China´s historical opponent. In the beginning it was planned that the top of this building would represent a big Japan flag, but Chinese’s didn’t fancy this too much and they put a lot of pressure to avoid it. In the end, the skyscraper had the form of a typical Japanese knife so the symbolism is still there in a different way. The SWFC is Japanese knife stabbed right in the middle of China financial center. What a funny people these japs J

Jin Mao Tower

SWFC Shanghai

Shanghai from the Bund

Shanghai at Night

Shanghai at Night II

Shanghai’s night continued after that, in the most typical partying area of the city which is called the French concession, a bunch of occidental buildings result of the colonial times when our French friends were around. It was a fast and nocturnal experience of the place but I found it quite nice to hang around. Quite more cosmopolitan and less Chinese than Beijing, with more occidentals hanging around, places with live music, huge night-clubs and very good atmosphere in general. Shanghai, from my very superficial experience, looks like an easier place to live than Beijing, not given up Chinese traditions but maybe a bit more open. I had till 4am to test it so the day happened to be very long, around 26 hours awake. No big surprise that I need almost 14 hours of sleep to recover…

I woke up very late next day and not feeling like doing much, besides there was another night flight to take for getting to Manila. So my second day in Shanghai just consisted on a great Chinese one hour and a half full body massage. One of the bests I ever tried, specially the 30 minutes she focused in my feet. It is surprising how relaxed you can become after a feet massage J So relaxed that I missed the last bus to the airport and had to take a taxi. The driver probably thought I was late because he started to drive very crazily through the highway. Or maybe this is a normal thing to do for Chinese taxi drivers when they are ask by an occidental. Right now I remember about that time in my other Asian trip when JuanPe – Dubai and I had to get to Hong Kong from the airport of a Chinese city in the south which name I don’t remember. We had this picture taken from a computer screen in which someone had written “get us to the train to Hong Kong” in Chinese. That’s something I will talk about again, in general Chinese people don’t speak English at all and, when it comes to move around, that’s a real pain. You need to have the directions written in Chinese for the guy, other ways he will never know where the fuck you are going. It does matter how experience traveler you are, it will be tough to find your way. Anyway, it was very late that night and we didn’t really know when the last train was leaving. So, after arguing quite a big about the price with the driver, he started to drive as if he was participating in a F1 race. Beeping the horn to slow cars in front of him, driving in zigzag, ignoring lights… At some point I saw he was ignoring a signal saying “Station” and I told him. The guy got totally mad and spent the rest of the trip yellowing as us while still driving in that crazy way. In the end, that city happened to have two stations and only from one of them trains to Hong Kong were departing. Moreover, we got there just 5min before the last one. We would have never made it if that guy wouldn’t have driven like that. Was that a coincidence of the driver knew about the time of the last train to Hong Kong? I really believe the second, that driver was very honest and I behaved like an asshole.

So the tip I should have given to that one I gave it to this one who got very happy about it and was about to hug me. I headed to the checking counter and there was still time for another “incident” when this Filipino woman asked me to check in part of her luggage. She didn’t look too suspicious too me but I guess we had heard too many sad stories of occidentals staying in dark jails because of being caught carrying drugs so I passed. The woman spent the rest of the queue looking at me with anger but I didn’t care. I was on my way to Philippine Islands and my only worry then was not to suffer a typhoon…

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

Lithuanian vodka must be good stuff cause I woke up in a very good condition. My two Lithuanians had to work but no problem, I still knew another Lithuanian girl in the city that called another one (a lot of Lithuanian girls I know…) and party animal became cultural animal and started the Vilnius tour with local guides included. Once a again, a very complete itinerary. Starting from the local castle, from which you have a complete view over the city. Vilnius is a curious place, few tall buildings and surrounded everywhere by forests. There is green all over and many churches spread all over the city. One of them is so nice that it is said that Napoleon wanted to take it back to France with him. Dovile and Kristine were, again, a perfect company for the visit, riding me by car from one interesting place to the next one. I was in a very typical place called Balmonte, looks like this kind of countryside villages we have in Spain where people go to marry. As usual, I totally fill my stomach with local food (the pink soup you can see in the pics is just delicious!) so I needed another of my already classical travelling siestas. After that…oh surprise! Around the corner an unique and delicious smell hit my nose… A nargilee place!! Someone said I would not be able to survive all the trip without smoking “cachimba” and she was right, Lithuanian nargilee moment  Besides, there was some sort of Baltic festival going on in the city: music, food an typical beer to spend the afternoon.

Anyway, the touristic tour did not finish there, back to the car and heading to Trakai castle,20 km away from Vilnius, in the middle of a national park containing more than 200 lakes. Very nice place, even though we could not get inside the castle, just the view was worth the trip. Besides, we arrived there with the sunset so we got quite a few very nice pictures. I really recommend the trip! The castle was started to be built in the XIV century and, after been abandon and reconstructed a few times, nowadays it´s been used for music concertas and opera. I couldn’t get it so there is not much else to say about the interior. Well, you know, culture is not my best, at least not the culture out of the bars.. So just have a look at the pics and here is the link to the Wikipedia

Not too much party that night. We got to Karolina´s place around 11 and I had to fly at 5am to Riga so getting drunk and risk the flight as I did in Budapest did not seem the best idea at this point of the trip. I just drunk the last shots of Lithuanian vodka with two (male!) friends of Karol. It might sound weird but I really appreciated some male company, some basketball chatting (basketball is very big in Lithuania) and a couple of hours of sleep before getting the taxi to the airport. It had been quite a rough week and my body was starting to seriously complain but that was the idea wasn’t it? It is not so easy to be in 6 countries in one week and good the trip ended up been by plane instead of car, otherways it would have been even harder.

So, once again, the local people were just perfect. This trip has made me reconsider my value as a host. Partying is the only thing I do with people coming to Madrid and only if I feel in the mood. I am hardly able to tell them what to visit in Madrid. My Lithuanian hosts, on the other hand, spend all their time with me, taking me to the places to visit. So, once again, a series of “thank you”, to Karolina, Raimunda, Doville and Kristine! You are welcome in Madrid any time, just tell me in advance so I can really plan some touristic stuff and not only drinking

I am aware that my posts are becoming less deep and what I write is probably less interesting but the fact is that I feel quite lazy to write about something that happened two weeks ago. And, besides, lets be honest, what is really interesting in these posts is when something goes wrong. Disgraces, funny histories, risky situations… Nothing of that happened in Vilnius nor in Lublin. Everything went just perfect from the beginning till the end. Just another great hospitalityclub experience. Very funny for me to live it but probably very boring for you to read it. Another nice and small town, more food degustation and, once again, I was leaving a place with the feeling I had seen everything which was to be seen there.

Anyway, let´s back to the issue: Lublin and Ula or, better said, Lublin, Ula and Ewa, Ula´s flatmate who also happened to be a very nice girl. Both of them took me for a walk into town and, more than the city itself, what I really enjoyed was the conversation. I happened to had just read a book about the II World War which described how germans and russians had taken their turn to invade and fuck the polish. After the Word, Poland ended up controlled by the URSS with all this fact implies: totally lack of thinking freedom, hard communism system, limited food allowance, a controlled government and all these kind of non-nice consequences. In Ula´s words, the polish would only be allowed, for example, to one packet of jam per month since most of the food produced in Poland would go to Moscow. No wonder they don’t like Ivan too much. It wasn’t till the end of the eighties when a movement conducted by work associations and students managed to get rid of the communism and started the current capitalism system, in line with the rest of Europe.

I spoke about all this with my hosts while I was having, as usual, a delicious polish lunch – dinner – whatever. Here you have some recommendations to fill your stomach in Poland: first some “bigos”, vegetable dish I don’t really remember much what it was, followed by “pierogis”, bread balls filled with different stuff and ending with a dish made of potatoes and meat called “placek po zbojnicku”. All very tasty, I probably gained around 5 kilos in this trip. It was 7 pm and I was totally full, good we had a good walk through the city afterwards. Lublin is the typical small student town, nice to walk around and a bit empty at this time of the year. Continuing the communism history overview, they took me to the soviet bar in Lublin. Well, maybe the ruskies were a bit bastards but the atmosphere of this kind of places is definitely cool, with all these soviet signs, propaganda, pictures of secret police and stuff like that. Not to mention the menu containing a lot of different varieties of vodka…

So, with my stomach feeling more comfortable thanks to the soviet alcohol, we continued the Lublin tour: people playing music in the middle of the street, pints of beer with a vodka shot at the bottom and a few funny pictures

The night ended up with a funny cultural exchange at Lula´s place: polish vodka vs the leftovers of my Pampero Special Edition bottle of rum, Spanish music vs polish hits. And, pay attention to the great musical finding of the trip, I am sure this will become a classic in Orense v2 parties! The guy with the beard is amazing, I could not stop laughing!! That´s the good thing about travelling, you come back home with new musical influences…

With such a good ingredients, the “party” kept going till very late so next day there was only time to visit the university and take the road again, well, I mean the train… Sitting in that wagon I did my balance of the Lublin stop and I got the conclusion it had been perfect even though it hadn’t been my typical way of travelling. Without any specially nice places to visit nor hard party, the polish experience had left a very good memory. I had the feeling of had been involved in that country more in a day than a normal tourist would do in a week. I had gained a friend I am sure I am going to meet again and the bad start of the trip had been definitely forgotten. I started to think that, as long as the rest of people I was going to meet were as good as Ula, the experience was going to be great. I realize there is starting to be a lot of “thank you”s here but they are more than deserved. Thanks a lot Ula Lula!!

Surprisingly that night I didnt drink a shitload of alcohol so next morning I could wake up at 8:30 (amazing) and start my touristic tour of the city. I think this time I made a good job and did all the sightseen I was supposed to do there. Budapest is actually the union of two different cities: Buda and Pest, separated by the Danubio. Buda is the old part, with its castle and narrow streets, Pest is more moderm with the parlament, bars, restaurants and table dance clubs. Remarkable things: the bridges joining the two cities, the view from the castle or the magnificient structure of the parlament. I even had time to go to the baths situated in a huge park in the northern part where I spent two hours getting relaxed in the different pools and saunas. Budapest was supposed to be the more culturally interesting stop of the trip and it didnt dissapoint. Its a very beautiful place. Great food as well, the first night with Nicola I ate this delicious cheese food inside a bread and the next day some Gulash, very tasty but maybe not the most appropiate thing to be eaten at 3 pm with 30 degrees temperature… And that delicious beer… Budapest is cool!

However, I still had to sort out the trip planification. Great bath and great food but I still didnt know where I was gonna spend next night. So I went to the Cervantes Institute in Budapest where Guerrino, Warsaw former ICEX and important night punisher, is workin. We are checking every possible combination of polish means of transportation, trains, 12h buses… At some point it looked impossible to went through Lublin as planned and cities such as Krakow or Warsaw seemed a better option. I even though of flying directly to Vilnius and skip Poland but, in the end, I take a decision: my trip was gonna be exactly the way I had planned it. No stupid incident was gonna make change it so, following my usual I-dont-give-a-shit-about-money policy, I booked three flights: Budapest - Warsaw, Warsaw - Vilnius and Vilnius - Riga and it between a train trip from Warsaw to Lublin. The only change ended up been the election of Vilnius instead of Kaunas but, in fact, I had always wanted to stop in Vilnius and it was Giorgos decision to select Kaunas instead. In Vilnius there was people I had hosted and, besides, avery lithuanian I had met told me it was a better place. So, no endless train trips and more time available to enjoy the places I was gonna visit. Besides, I dont think it was so expensive in the end, taking into acoount I was not exactly booking a lot of time in advance. I believe, and further experience proved it, that it was the right decision.

Once I had sorted out this little issue, it was time for the fun and well, I guess you imagine what I mean, meeting with Guerrino always ends up been a wild drinking night which you dont remember much about later. We burned Budapest nightlife. It is funny the Spanish idea of “botellón” (drinking in the street) is valid here too. There is this square in the center where everybody are drinking before going to clubs. So we drunk the rum bottle I still had from Spain with Nicola and another friend of Guerrino. After that we went to a club which probably was very nice but I cant tell much cause I dont remember nothing. Apparently, somehow I managed to reach Nicola´s place and get some little sleep before rushing to Budapest´s aiport to catch my flight to Warsaw. The second trip dissaster was close, just 5 minutes in advance but I got it. Still some little trouble in Warsaw but, in the end, I was comfortable settled in a polish train, watching the landscape and heading towards my next stop: Lublin.

All Budapest pictures here!

So, after Katerini, we went all the way up to Nis, in South Serbia where a serbian girl from hospitalityclub was gonna host us. We left Greece and crossed all over Macedona as fast as we could. The dessertic macedonian landscape gave way to a much nicer one. Serbia, at least in its southern part, is a nice country, green, full of small villages with reed-roofed houses, valleys and hills. Moreover, the weather was pretty good so, at least concerning the outside of the car, the trip happened to be nice. Dragana was waitting for us in a swimming pool so we just arrived and went straight to the water. After that we headed to her place where the real HC experience started. I am realizing I keep going over and over this topic and may be repetitive but what a great thing hospitality club is! We spent the afternoon at Dragana´s place, drinking home - made alcohol with all her family, from the grandmother to the one year old nephew. From my point of view it is not only the nightlife in a trip like this, I am starting to enjoy more and more moments like the ones we had with this serbian family. It is in this moments when I really feel I am getting to know a country and achieving the goal of the trip. The hospitality we got from Dragana and her family was simply perfect and helped to improve the complicated situation the trip was turned into.We were watching the Spanish victory in the Eurocup final surrounded by serbians, a pity I hadnt brought with me a Spanish shirt of something, I could have become the king of the party. It was curious to see how all serbians were supporting Spain rather than the germans. After that we went partying, more calmed and less alcoholic this time but still quite intense. We stayed till quite late with she and her friends. Nice bars with live music and cheap drinks. Not bad for a Sunday, thanks Dragana

Next day we walked through the city in which, in fact, there wasnt too much to see. A few curious things like parkings they pay with text messages or the fact that serbian people probably dont work too much cause all the tables were full all the day. In conclussion, a very interesting taste of Serbia, a great host and a European championship. Quite a good remedy for the greek disaster..

While I write this the traffic jump is starting to dissapear and now we are actually making progress. With a bit of luck my ass will be getting wet in the Aegean sea this afternoon. The first stop of our trip is Katherini, a city in the North of Greece from which neither Giorgos nor me know much appart from the fact that it has a beach. In this case we wont have local support and we will have to use the old way, looking for a hostel, place to go out etc… by ourselves. This first stop is primary nightlife based so there wont be much to tell about tomorrow, what happens in the night stays in the night I saw somewhere there is the Olympus montain nearby (where the Olympic Games started). If we make it up there I will tell you about but I honestly doubt it.

So, this is the first and hopefully not the last one entry for this trip. Lets hope so much time stuck in this car will help the writting. Talk to you soon…

• Saturday 28th: arrival in Athens and night in Katerini, northern Greece beach city.
• Sunday 29th: drive through Macedonia as fast as possible and night in Nis, Serbian southern city.
• Monday 30th and Tuesday 1st: Budapest
• Wednesday 2th: Lublin, eastern Poland
• Thursday 3th and Friday 4th: Kaunas, Lithuania
• Saturday 5th: Riga, Latvia
• Sunday 6th: back to Madrid

Road-trip with Giorgos is not something new, we already drove all over California in a similar trip. The new thing here is the HospitalityClub factor. In each of these stops we arranged a local contact, thanks to whom we wont pay an euro for accommodation and, what is more important, we will have someone to show us around, take us for party etc… So, definitely, a very promising trip through a part of Europe I hadnt explore so far.

Therefore, next Friday, there we go again, a bag loaded with rum, a cammera and 2800 km of fun

PD: There will be more coming soon…