I've just realised that — so far — I've been in four countries, spanning four language families (Finno-Ugric / Romance / Slavic / Greek) and three different alphabets in a row!
No surprise that I feel so confused …
A note to our fellows western travellers: I'm sorry, but you can't beat the Old Continent!
I have a list of things to do in Thessaloniki:
I'm here in Varna since a week, so I can say that I know the centre very well — even if I think I've spent more time on the beach, anyway.
Back in my days we used to do some kind of brute-force tourism, seeing 20 cities in a fortnight.
But now I just prefer to stay more time in the same place, walk slowly down the roads, look at the people and the less important things, small shops, hidden corners. 
I just sit in a cafe with my notebook or a book, observing the flowing of everyday life. And it's also nice to meet the same people in the same places, as we were neighbours.
Maybe the whole point of doing such a long trip is for me that I'll learn more from people than from monuments.
People from Treviso maybe will appreciate this photo of the street were I live in Varna.
After a long bus trip from Bucharest, I eventually arrive to Constanţa. The trip includes a stop for the driver's lunch in some kind of spaghetti-western-saloon in the middle of nowhere (see photo).
Once at the train station (see photo), the "Quest For Useful Info" begins.
It seems that people working at information desks only know a few words in English: the numbers (for the prices) and "I don't know" (for everything else). Brilliant! No time wasting whatsoever.
Thus I ask somebody else for the bus station — that is just in the next block, as miss "I don't know" is probably aware of — and head for the Turkish agency: if you go to İstanbul you have to pass through Varna, don't you?
The man at the counter luckily speaks both languages: Turkish and Rumanian, but somehow I manage to eventually get my ticket to Varna.
And after a long bus trip from Constanţa, I eventually arrive to Varna.
On the train from budapest to Sighişoara, trying to sleep — with no success at all — I look over the window every now and then. I can assure you that Romania looks like you travelled in time kind of a century. In the past!
My camera battery is empty so I can't take pictures, thus you somehow has to believe me.
Apart of breath-taking landscapes — like moving 19th-century paintings — my attention is captured by farm workers.
An elder man is picking up with his hands the hay he just cut using a sickle. The most used transport — at least in Transilvania — seems to be the horse-driven cart, and crossing the countryside your sight may stumble upon semi-demolished warehouses, 18th-century houses and haylofts, women wearing traditional costumes for their daily life as well as some luxury-SUV waiting side by side with a horse cart at the rail-road crossing.
This really is the wild-west of Europe.
I'm now writing this notes sitting in front of my 0.71 EUR half liter of Ciuc beer (pronounced as in Italian) in a small deserted cafe in Braşov, listening to traditional music.
And no, I'm not in the 3rd stage cantos regionales!
Oh, and by the way, don't ask me about Sighişoara, because — not having sleeped all night — I fell asleep just during my station stop, proceeding happily to Braşov!
Notes to self
this kind of words in English!
After the first two nights in Budapest I had to change host. After a while that I was moving my casetta all around Budapest, I decided to just stop, have a beer, and — with a bit of luck — connect to some wireless connection waiting for my host to come home.
So, once arrived in my new host area, I chose a nice-looking bar. I asked the bartender about a wireless connection and she pointed me to the bar on the other side of the street. But, having been the bartender so nice to me, I just moved on the seat that were closer to that other bar, opened my laptop and checked the signal: it was fairly good.
After a while the other bartender noticed my computer, and smiled telling me that he has one too. We started the usual chat — where are you from, this is your first time in Budapest, how long you'll stay here, and so on — but when I was going with my good old « Treviso … — three seconds pause, just in case — … close to Venice » he smiled and said: « Ah, Treviso, I've been there! »
I almost fell off the chair, and asked more about it. It sorted out that fifteen years ago he and his wife used to go to Treviso to buy leather jackets, that in Hungary were too expensive!
When you travel alone you get more chances of knowing interesting people. The chances of getting bored to deeath are also high, but let's look at the silver lining :-)
First thing first: if you are in Budapest and you are the happy owner of a laptop — that's me — you'll notice soon that quite a few cafes have free wireless connection. I wrote this post while having a fresh beer in a random bar.
Me-so-happy!
Second thing you notice is that public transportation is quite efficient — although expensive. Young and not-so-young people — that's me, again — tend to go to clubs with tram or bus, avoiding the need of killing random people when driving home completely drunk after clubbing all night long.
Just in case you are wondering, the bus photograph was taken at 1:30 AM.
Valencia, tres de la tarde
I've just discovered — or re-discovered — that in some southern cities the lunch-break is a bit longer than those I'm used to. Like tath you can't do anything before 5PM — except having a beer and some tapas.
¿Qué le vamos a hacer?
Thus I just stopped by a Lebanese tapas-bar for my obligatory kebab and started a chat with the customers and the owners, and it sorted out that they were actually from Jordan (but, as they told me, "All in all it's always middle-east!")
I was rapidly involved into an animated discussion about which sea was the hottest: the Red Sea or the Dead Sea. It was kinda funny because 1) nobody in the room had ever stayed at both seas, and 2) they all were arguing in Spanish for my own entertainement!
I told them I was going to Jordan and Egypt too, just for measuring temperatures … They seemed happy with that!
I think this is one of the main reasons for me having such a trip: the possibility of chatting with perfect strangers just about everything.
Barcelona second stop: El raval
This is my now-favourite district: the cleaning is not — yet? — completed here.
Here you can still see the city as it once was. It seems that all the people I used to see in bars and streets have moved here. I'm in a bar surrounded by movie-like characters(?) and by the flavours — and smells — of the eighties. It's early afternoon, and the television is on "La Ruleta de la Suerte" with all of the customers trying to guess the words at a very loud voice. Priceless!
I can't help it.
This city has a special strength that pulls me towards her.
This time I bent westwards my counter clock-wise trip to see my old friends and spend some quality time with them.
First stop: La playa
The privilege of living in a city with a beach is something that you can't imagine until you actually try it. You have like a free hour so you just go down to the beach, take a dip, dry yourself under the sun and that's it! It feels like heaven.
On my way back from the playa I stopped by a kebab shop, and I had to take this picture. On the same street you can see those super-modern skyscrapers and 17th-Century buildings and roads. I love this city! :-)
So you want to go to India, don't you? Then you need a visa, and if you are Italian you can't do it at the airport or at the border, you have to apply for a tourist Visa at the Indian Consulate, that is in Milan.
So you go to their web site, you write down the address and the rules, you download and fill in the form.
Very easy, so far.
Then you search a suitable couch in Milan the usual way and just go there. First thing in the morning you go to the Indian Consulate, and as you get there you notice a sign saying « Consular Services » and you go there.
There you find yourself at the end of a line of Indians spanning two rooms and an aisle.
During your stay in the happy line, you can entertain yourself wondering why you are the only Italian: you look around, but there are no signs, and your waiting neighbours have no idea about visa for Italians — of course: as they all are Indians they have little use for such a thing.
After an hour of this, you eventually reach the counter, and that lady explains that they don't do visas any more, and you have to attend at another office — that's in another part of the city, lucky you, thus giving you the opportunity of site-seeing ten metro stations.
But when you have your receipt in your pocket you feel just very happy — and very sweaty too — and you just start thinking in the next beer.
Just for the record, the new visa service is located in Via Marostica 34, metro Gambare.
As a friend of mine use to say, when you succeed in escaping from your slavery you will have that big smile stuck in your face all of the time! Well, as far as I know, he is right :-D
So my passport will have the same big smile in it. I've two series of photos taken, one with beard and one without, for the visas I'll have to do during the trip — my shaving habit is on the lazy side.
I'm writing these lines in the plane to Madrid, going to attend the CS/HC First Madrid International Camp '08. Today is—for so to speak—the first day in this new phase of my life: yesterday I notified my boss about my decision to just quit and go somewhere else. And it was a relief. Really.
I'm now entering
If you're planning a year-long trip around the world, it is probably a good idea to sit for moment and try figuring out what you need for your trip—and what you don't. I'm going to fill two lists: one for the stuff that I'll need during the trip, and one for writing down stuff that I'll be tempted to bring over, but probably can avoid.
O.K. I need a third list: the to-do list, for things like passport and such. I'll call this one the Count-Down List.
This is what I have in it so far:
Any idea about stuff I should definitely do before leaving will be very appreciated.
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