Airplane to Lisbon
There’s nothing special about air transportation. I got to the airport way to early, checked in my backpack, except for my netbook which I kept in my cabin luggage, entered the plain after some boys yelled “Portugal!” expressing how fond they where of going to that country. Soon enough, they’ll get older and say “I’ve …
Dijon and on and on…
So I went on. Let’s tell the story of a typical hitchhiking day. The reason for hitchhiking is not saving money, but meeting people who are as different as possible, because that inspires. One or two of such days is advisable, not more.
Posting myself in Mainz near the Autobahnzubringer was easy. A man who …
Beautiful Rhine
As you can guess, the first weeks of the new year I spent laid-back with good friends. Refueling the inner engine after a round birthday (I got 30 on January 12th) takes a little time. Still, in those weeks I did one nice excursion in Germany. With my friend, I visited some medieval fortresses alongside …
Katowice to the Netherlands
Finally, a bus picked us up and drove to the Polish border. Border control took about two hours, they really took their time. But I didn’t care, because they played a movie on the in-bus television screen. It was a Russian remake of the action movie “commando” (1985), called “День Д”(Day D), brainless entertainment.
It …
Kiev to Lviv
After visiting the beautiful Crimea, I took the night train back to Kiev, where I spent a few more days writing and hanging out with very kind Ukraineans. My plan was to go hitchhiking to the Netherlands to celebrate Christmas with my family. Since I had good experiences fetching a ride up north, I thought …
Kiev #2. A walk through the city.
Another day spent writing in a kitchen, drinking cinnamon tea and concentrating on the narrative of my book. Life’s good. In the evening we went to the center (the apartment I stayed in was half an hour by maschrutka or minibus from the historical Kiev) for a walk. We saw the churches and buildings of …
Moscow #2. Great Art Collections.
The next day I visited the Pushkin museum, where I saw another vast collection of European Art. Especially the Dutch floor caught my attention, and in front of Rembrandt’s Old Lady I just had to spend several minutes. This canvas is just so great!
After the visit of this remarkable collection, I met with …
St Petersburg #3. Hermitage.
I was in to some culture, and the next day I found some time to realize an old dream of mine: Visiting the Hermitage museum. It is located in seven huge buildings, and its collection is just huge. I concentrated on impressionist paintings, with the side-effect that I didn’t feel like an absolute novice in …
St. Petersburg #1.
So I arrived in Saint Petersburg in the morning, in a huge train station, and I called Katja, the girl whom I had contacted on the couchsurfing network. It was quite easy to find my way around the city, since there are only four subway lines, neatly intertwined around four large ploshads (squares). So I …
Murmansk. Alyosha.
I waited my five days in three different places, with three totally different kinds of people, who were all so kind. The last two nights I stayed at Evelyn’s, a member of couchsurfing and a German who teaches Russian in Norwegian (!). So I enjoyed a conversation about linguistics, history, politics, which nourished my mind …
Kirkenes. Writing and a Do-it-yourself Crashcourse Russian.
I started to realize that getting to Russia from here was too easy to let the opportunity pass, and I got the necessary documents. The travel agency provided an “invitation”. So I was invited without knowing anybody in Russia. Well, they knew me, or they knew all they wanted to know about me, and that …