From Barcelona, thru Uk and central Europe to Spain - a true odyssey!!

okk
i know, i know i have been really really lazy with my blog thingy! But I have a good excuse- I have been meandering the globe in search of understanding and community and finding adventures I never imagined, beautiful people and a whole new sense of myself. (then again maybe thats not such a good excuse....)
You have probably read all these before but in benefit of those who haven't I am going to paste in some of the group emails I sent since my Barcelona sojourn and then after that (probably tomorrow... I am knackered today) attempt to recap the last four months!


Okay first step... I flew to England via France and then worked there for a month and hang around for another... to read the story in full and why i abandoned a round the world trip you will firsthave to overcome a bout of soliloquoy:

I was thinking recently of the all those faces I have discovered and lost on the way due to time and distance. I have been lucky enough to experience much love and acceptance along this path we call life and though I try to keep in touch with so many of those people sometimes with the marvellous tool of email, we still lose touch and the tide moves in to wash away those memories slowly. Then one day, something, a song with a nostalgic edge, a photo from my travelling past or simply a resemblance of that character makes the memories come flooding back and a tear comes to my eye. The contribution could have been small but well-timed or extended and prevailing but the effect is equally satisfying as I peer into that past full of tiny shining memories that beam their light out through the darkness.

Many of these people will have been fully aware of their contribution and probably decided to feed something into my life as a matter of course because their personalities naturally ooze this love and service, either through a positive nature or nurture. To these people I owe the greatest debt. They have put up with my idiosyncrasies to respect and value me, giving so much more than I can repay. I am who I am because of you people.

Then there are those who have seen something in me or my circumstance that has prompted them to act in my favour and though many of those will never read this I also owe them so much – their unexpected outreached hand has also lightened my burden.

I suppose I could carry on from here but I won't. Maybe more next time if I feel similarly inspired to bore you senseless. I know some of you may enjoy my sentimentalist nostalgic meanderings, but it is not everyone's cup of tea.

As you may have imagined, I didn't get to go round the world. To cut a long story short a cancer was found and extracted from my mother's fallopian tube. She is now taking a four month chemotherapy course to try to terminate any possible re-occurrence and hopefully things should be fine from now on.

On deciding to stay here I reverted to Plan B – a hike through central and eastern Europe. But before that I took advantage of some very financially healthy English teaching positions that were on offer around the UK. Accepting a post at a centre offering around £300 a week in Leicester I arrived at a place that was always going to be hard after the freedom of Barcelona.

However, what could have broken me also had the potential to make me stronger and though the going was tough at times some of those sources of light have again touched my life and let my expression run free to the tune of the young students' cheery smiles or warm embraces of new acquaintances.

So yeah, you guessed it!! Been teaching mainly Italian kids plus a number of Turks who left me totally breathless with the chaos they could drum up in their rooms. Maybe I am far too leisurely and conducive to identification and creativity rather than discipline but these 12-year-olds made my life hell for two weeks and at the end I would just give up with them through sheer exhaustion. The Italians were much better, being 16-17, and having some interesting conversations with some of them was definitely one of the highlights of my trip here as it gave me a brand new point of view of the country of my descent and inspired to try to visit it this summer.

I also connected with some of the Leicester locals too, some of which I found surprisingly open and friendly, with some random spontaneous meetings having resounding success.

Leicester is a very multi-cultural city with 400,000 people where ethnic friction is practically unheard of and asian numbers rise to nearly half of the population. Cultural tolerance and a strong alternative scene made this place a very acceptable place to spend a month and I feel all the richer for having been there.

After that I hitchhiked to Manchester and then travelled down to Devon for a music festival and to see some old friends with my brother. Like the last time it was a fantastic time with lots of surf and healthy communication with old and new friends.

After that I hitched to London in a record time of 4 hours and got a 15 quid coach down to Amsterdam. On writing this i am in antwerp visiting some cool hitchhikers i picked up in spain a year ago. they have been cool to me and shown me around a bit. I was also in Amsterdam with its pretty canals and hordes of tourists, its coffeeshops with marijuana smoke streaming out and its somewhat disturbing red light district with its prostitutes selling themselves on shop windows. I visited a cute little town called katwijk and also eindhoven and today i will be in brussels..
catch some cool pics on my pics website where ued you can also read my new blog i havent updated much recently:
www.picasaweb.google.com/john.culatto

the next step: settling into the rhythm of hitching...

Wow – I love the travelling life… I mean, apart from these keyboards from foreign lands that make it impossible to found the exclamation mark, everything is good….

I am so happy to have found hitchhiking as a travel medium. It has given me such an incredible medium to explore central Europe on my own and meeting different people from the countries you are travelling thru or fellow travellers in a similar place as myself. It also gives you an amazing opportunity to walk into someone's life in that same place and my knowledge of languages has helped me in this respect, allowing me to get underneath the skin of these individuals, especially as most of these people tend to be pre-disposed to either share or listen. It is maybe more than I ever imagined but then I never really needed it before as my love of surfing and independent travel necessitates a need for your own transport.

So, as I told you last time my life took some cool twists and turns since I arrived in mainland Europe . When in Amsterdam with its libertarian lifestyle I experienced a liberalisation I had not seen before but not surprisingly it is populated by an ever-increasing reserved upper middle class feeding on its tourism value rather than a bohemian set of bohemian arty types.

Onto Katwijk with Kock, Jaap and the boys and we see the workings of a small typical Dutch town with an emphasis on work, responsibility and duty, standards of small town Western society. They treated me well and were good hosts for a few days relaxing there, making me feel at home and unload some stuff. Next stop I tried to hitch to Eindhoven from just before Rotterdam but a lack of rides meant I had to get into Rotterdam and catch a train instead.

I stayed with my Russian Couchsurfer friend and talked long and deep about some interesting topics. He also gave me a great backpack which would be key in the rest on my journey – wow, its great!! Then, I then hitched to Antwerp where I met up 2 hitchers I had met myself in South Spain and picked up. I stayed with them a night and made some more inroads into Belgian culture, finding Belgians very friendly and open-minded people speaking a French language but not as proud or boisterous as the French or a Flemish and not spitting out much Flem (lol!)

Soon, it was onto Brussels where a few nights with a girl I met on the internet (yeh I am sad I know, but it was when I was in Gib suffering total estrangement) was a strange experience in taking relationships into real life which seemed to work quite well on the whole. I washed some clothes and chartered my plans for the future in between some sobering chats that informed us how different people can be outside the projections we cast on the internet. Still, it was edifying and allowed me to move on, getting on the road to Geneva . I didn't expect to arrive anywhere near there in one day but it turned out that as I got to the departure point (appropriately called Delta station) I found a hippie looking girl approaching the same point. We joined forces and found how easy hitching can be with a girl, strangely softening my bearded face from that of a wandering Al Qaeda terrorist with a backpack of plastic explosive to a resigned boyfriend look. It was an interesting union and ride after ride I started enjoying this company on the road, taking away some of my anxiety and giving me more perseverance. Soon, around Luxembourg , we found some interesting Italian guys doing summer fruitpicking. They were keen to drive us down and eventually ended up taking us to the farm of my fellow hitcher deep in the French Alps. The French girl seemed to guide us endlessly through these hills always saying it was half an hour away and then finding out it was further and further and soon we found ourselves deep in our reserve tank, only reaching the farm by the skin of the teeth- made me laugh a lot!!! Waking from our tents in the morning we had homemade goats cheese for breakfast with the lovely alternative and humble Italian couple overlooking a beautiful green valley with Alps on every side- a wonderful experience!

Afterwards I said my goodbyes and hitched over the mountains and onto Geneva where I met up with my friend from Morocco, Stephane.

The last few days have been a bit chaotic with a heap of meeting with his friends and some slightly exuberant partying I do try to shy away from when I can. Stephane, who i had met in morocco was now trying to accomodate himself to real life using parties and social life to fill the vacuum of a travelling life... He was also super kind to me and made me feel so at home even cooking a fondue for me and giving me some great times. When i left i felt the pinch of loneliness as i parted towards the mountains to see friends of my dad at L Abri in the mountains which was a great experience...

Next stop was a hippy festival in Liguria, Italy where some couchsurfer had invited me. Hitching was impossible in Italy compared to Switzerland where even lone women picked me up, so i had to take the train.
Finding this place was a total mission as it was sited in the middle of nowhere literally. Some great Italian hospitality and empathy opened my eyes to the fact that italians were not just smarmy, greasy closed ppl as i was given a place to sleep in a tent and given a ride 5km down a 10km track which eventually led me to the rainbow gathering after a gruelling slog uphill thru dense forest with my packpack on my tired shoulders.

This gathering was a great experience with some simple, non-materialistic individuals living in community, sharing their affection and belongings and all in the midst of thick forest on the banks of a cold, dark stream where you could wash and bathe on the warmer days. Despite a disturbing esoteric edge it was a generally good experience as it put me in touch with like-minded ppl who i felt comfortable with and received some mystical hugs from some wonderful persons. I also made some good friendships which i hope i can be in touch with in the future.
I eventually took a ride with a cool italian called david who took me as far as modena where some ppl i met hitching drove me close to venice from where i got a train that got me to venice. then i walked all night aound the town of vemice which was quite trrrippyy as a big storm came in and i reached the sides of the island various times and tried to hide from the rain under bridges and beside canals.. hehe...and then i went to trieste and slovenia followed by some adventures in krk where i slept under trees and in shut-down hostels!!

Then i got a long ride from krk island to slovenia and some girl that picked me up took me to a friend´s place who was on couchsurfing. After a night partying in some random village i took a trip to graz on train after trying to hitch for 3 hours. I managed to avoid paying too much and ended up in austria where i was with the austrian friend for a week. It was cool to share stuff walking thru the countryside and now i am in graz town on some slow connection in an alternative centre on a linux DOS (if u no wot that means). Goin out and about this weekend a bit but may see lea again on monday b4 going to vienna, hungary, poland and germany where i hope to buy the van that will take me to north Spain. If you wanna hook up i would love to have some cool conversations and company somewhere drop us a line. my necxt moves are vienna, hungary, and germany where i will buy a van to take me down to north spain via france...

okay - here i will have to fill in between these two places where there seems to be a gap... i stayed with a really cool friend of a friend of a friend in central Vienna. It seemed like it was a posh lawyers building but then in the middle of it was this alternative community with massive rooms and a quirky guy with a snake around his neck a lot of the time! He would even go to the park and the snake would encircle his body under his clothes - i even tried it for myself and it gave me a great sense of companionship as the serpent's scales carressed by skin. Some other CSer i came up with was quite scared but on the whole it was interesting!! I also went out on teh town as it was a Saturday and then the next day tried to hitch and then eventually took a coach to Slovakia where I was supposed to couchsurf. Walking around the rather grim town of Bratislava looking for a cheap hostel I eventually found someone who looked more alternative and thene ended up being a CSer too who let me look use his phone to ring the guy i was going to stay with! I was a bit late for the party he still obligated me to consume large amounts of the borovitchka local brew which ended up getting me pretty plastered after which we went to what must be the worst nightclub in Europe called the Harley Davidoson Club, full of empty-faced people and definitely not my scene! We ate some more traditional food and I circulated with easily the fastest driver i have ever been with thru bratislava in one of those rides where you dont say wnything until the end and then you get off totally muted... hehehe
a cheap bus - only 3 euros - to Budapest made me quit hitching for a bit, and soon I arrived in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe on a par with Prague. I stayed in the countryside with an English teacher CSer and then after a night moved into the capital with lovely Gyorgy where I stayed two nights and also met Kazi's friend!

I left Budapest to hitchhike to Poland with the help of www.hitchbase.com which is a great resource for finding places to hitch from! I found the spot listed there with the help of another guy who was hitching from a 6 month trip in Asia and heading to Helsinki!! He was neater than me, though, and found a lift pretty quick. Alone again I started to get that sinking feeling again which increased when the rain started to fall incessantly around me! I was getting nowhere fast and things got worse when i found myself in the middle of a biggish town with no way out and still raining on me without waterproofs! Still only about 30km outside budapest i started to get desperate and after a funny conversation with some local kids decided to catch a local train to the border which was always a good idea as people normally dont like crossing borders with people on board.

As the local train whizzed by a number of small isolated hungarian villages with old grannies peering out of wooden shacks and local boys smoked cigarettes with their girlfriends in the latter recesses of the carriage, I started to ponder my experiences as I sat in wait for my arrival, the green leaves on the trees beginning to take a more yellowish appearance as autumn signalled the end of the summer season. It was a relief from the torrent of thoughts that flood your loneliness to finally arrive at my destination, where I walked along the small patchy road to find a bus to take me to the frontier itself. Three kids orientated me and a drunkard followed me up the steps seeming to motion to me that i didnt have to pay until the driver came back in search of his 200 forint which i handed over with a sidelook at the now distracted drunk old man, possibly a victim of a circumstance more than decision.

Arriving at the border I started to cross into Slovakia again and was greeted with a glorious site. The sun was now setting and lighting up with powerful hues of orange and red the whole sky, creating a scene to inspire me and lift me from the doom and gloom of my self-pity. For a second I paused, my heart lifted by the massive painting before me a present from above for my toils and the contemplation of the clouds moving in such varying shades of red and yellow above me like a huge fire where the clouds were the flames and the sky the fireplace.

I thought back to the many sunsets I had seen, so many over the beloved ocean and I could smile.

Almost instictively through the frontier control where the officers acknowledged my British passport with respect, I stuck out my thumb. The second car stopped and I got the next lift to my spirits. A well-dressed, white-collar computers guy welcomed me in and ended up chatting for a couple of hours as he took me to the centre of the Slovakian mountains where I learnt more about how things were, changed and are in the area. Next I was picked up by some dodgy looking guys in a dark van, just farm workers returning from a day at work but the lack of communication and their burly appearance left me a tad nervous. A call from the driver's sister comforted me and they left me at another petrol station just south of the polish border. There I stood at a traffic light in the middle of the night trying my luck with any drivers. The second vehicle in the right direction stopped, a white van with slovakian plates and some guy invited me in. Andrei turned out to be a real gentle father and husband and through the long drive to Warsaw we exchanged views and vocabulary session as he tried to improve a practically non-existent English. I even slept in the back of the van while he slept at the front, so much was our confidence.

Arriving sleepily in Warsaw I soon learnt that 85% of the city had been destroyed by the Nazis in the Great War as the Soviets looked on mercilessly from the other side of the river, while nearly everyone was killed in the occupation. Obviously, there was not much to see and I got stuck at some suburban area where I could not hitch from so I took the bus to Pulawy (pronounced pu-wa-ve) where a friend of my sis lived. It was rainy and gridlocked with traffic as i kept the back of the bus entertained with variations on the dont worry be happy song still ringing in my head from the night before.

The next few days I relaxed with Asia and her cool young friends in Pulawy, their local knowledge and alternative feel, allowing me to feel at home for the first time in a while, take some pretty pics, eat lots of good food and party a bit too, vodka being commonplace!

With warm memories in my heart and my friendship with the cool Polish girl Asia cemented I hitched successfully to Krakow, where I stayed a night in a cheap hostel and explored the lively nightlife, even meeting some Spaniards there on Erasmus and some friendly locals.

My love of Poland increased when a really cool, friendly and alternative Polish guy and then some punk rockers picked me up on a truck and took me to an old friend from my London days in Gliwice. It was good to see Kasia, who since then had got married to a Portuguese guy and had a baby. We talked a lot and I adopted the cheerful baby Samu for a few days as I walked him in the park and played on the swings with him. Some chilled days were spent there it being a good time to take stock of my aims and analyse some things a bit further with a generous and openminded person like Kasia.

A perfect lift to the front door of the place I was staying at by a fellow traveller working in the area was a good way to come in to Wroclaw, another cool city and my last stop in Poland. Couchsurfers Agnieska and her flatmates kept me company for one night before I moved to a really cool guy called Manic (not maniac, he reminded me!- i didnt tell him wot manic meant - hehe). This guy treated me like his potter girlfriend who was in France and fed me good vegan food, took me round the town, smiled at my jokes and even let me sleep beside him in his double bed. i felt like kissing him at the end but I didnt ;)

Another horrible journey awaited me to the Czech border having not learnt from my past experiences, but it was lit up by a busload of drunk Polish countryfolk on holiday to a farm in south Poland. They gave me more vodka and for a moment the seratonin raced through my brain giving me some joy and allowing me to sample the swishing autumn leaves flying around the bus as I headed towards the border, the sun streaming through gathering rainclouds illuminating passing hills and meadows.

Not getting many lifts after being left in the middle of nowhere I eventually got taken to a town by an old man and he showed me the bus to near the border. It seemed logical as light was going fast and my luck was running low. However, the bus left me 5km from the border and when I was on board, to make matters worse, the heavens opened and it was getting shitty standing without any polish money so close and yet so far from the czech republic. There were no buses for an hour so I started trekking in the driving rain, still with no waterproofs. Eventually, soaked through and aching all over I spotted a taxi and with my last remaining slotis got a lift as far as I could go, eventually stretching it to the frontier with 200 forint i had left from hungary- which the guy must have thought were worth a lot but was less than a euro - i suppose ok for a km... In the still pouring rain and total darkness I crossed the border on foot and after chatting with a friendly border guard stood in the rain with low spirits knowing there was no buses and trying to find a lift. Half-an-hour later, tired and wet, a brand new Audi A4 pulls over and says he can drop me in Prague. Driving through the motorways at 180km/h and practicing his English we arrive at the metro station renewed by this guys positive spirit and ready to meet up with another couchsurfer with a quirky profile. A girl met on the metro platform accompanies me and then takes me to the coolest alternative club in Prague, Cross and I dance all night to some great techno. A tour of the visually impressive town walking is enough to kill me off the next day and ensure that I am physically tired and frustrated as I set off hitching to Dresden. Eventually, after a few hours at a petrol station a friendly Hungarian trucker agrees to take me to Dresden and as I scramble up the bank of the motorway I take my first steps in Germany.

Now, maybe I have been a bit critical of some of the German characteristics like their rigidity but in the former East Germany I found myself very much at home with the alternative youth. Staying with the lovely Stefan I met in Portugal 5 years ago in Portugal, a friend of Lea's and a really intellectual couchsurfer girl and a girl who became like a sister to me, Inez, Dresden proved a great stop and it was 'super gut'. From there, I got picked up by some funky guys i met in Morocco from near Berlin. Robert and Henry proved company fit for a king and just 2 days with them gave me such a good vibe i feel a tear bursting out of my eye right now. I woodchopped, ate a curry worstken and walked the countryside while staying in Robert's self-constructed home in Pristweld, where he had also hosted an illegal pub in the past.

Reluctantly, I got a lift to Berlin but there was even more acceptance there among the alternative crew in Berlin, the Friedricshain neighbourhood with all its community houses, graffiti art, squats and hausprojekt former squats providing a great place to make free parties and meet some cool people. From Fischladen with its tasty cheap food to the Schnarub, with its punk crew, to the basement next to Fischladen where i stayed one night until the early hours I simply loved Berlin and returned soon after to buy a van from a friend of a friend of Lea.

And to finish off, this from an email i sent from this carpet shop in central Marberg drinking Iranian black tea:

It would have been good to take a lift to holland as i had some problems getting lost with the train and then arrived late to the hitchhiking point. But within 15 minutes i got a ride with a lebanese guy except it was a bit in the wrong direction and he left me just north of frankfurt in the middle of the night at a petrol station... i was cold and feeling lonely and lost for 2 hours asking people to take me north or west. But no-one was going there and I felt a bit desperate and tired from going partying with some friends in the punk club the night before! When I was getting really desperate some friendly couple said they would take me to a better petrol station.

Two days later and I am still with the same couple as they took me to their house in the countryside and then the girl´s house in a small town. Now i am in Marburg with this guy and maybe stay here a day or 2 more discovering a different place as this guy makes for good conversation because he is involved in some environmental issues like fighting atomic energy and genetically modified foods!

He also knows about hitchhiking because he has done 60,000km like that and will help me find a good place to go to Netherlands.

Seeing as I am sitting in Kati's living room in Rigaerstrasse in Friedricshain, Berlin besieged by scores of thought-provoking images I thought I would choose this moment to keep up my record of the events that have sailed by me in the last 10 days or so. The length of time being shorter I hope the story is too. My deepest regret (lol!) must go out to those with busy schedules on whose lap I surplanted a ridiculously long account of my travels which had no bearing on their lives but was just a complication of that very schedule. I hope that some were inspired and filled by my stories and through these words given something to dream on or enthuse about. Sorry also for the creative language and complicated vocabulary. I know the beauty is its simplicity but perhaps I need to paint an intricate picture just to maintain my interest. The long words may exclude some people from relishing my narrative but I think I have selfish interest in maintaining my own attention in what I am writing to the extent that I don't mind letting my mind may wander.

Still fighting with those thoughts of taking on a Medusa-headed monster in the old Populous II freeware game I downloaded a while back, I will continue to to tell of those experiences of the past few days.

My escape from the student party world of Marberg was not effected with the panache and effectiveness I expected! In fact, the weekend went by in such a blur of activity, meeting new people in different house parties around town thanks to the expert guidance of Gwen who I met on my first night, that by the time Monday came and I was back on the road to Amsterdam, the sinking feeling in my stomach was ever deeper.

On top of that, I was forced to wait by the side of the road for a lift that never came, chillier temperatures meaning that I had to take an occasional walk around the services area to get warmed up. Even though one really friendly doctor guy bought me lunch it was soon obvious that the route recommended to me by Olaf, my host in Marburg, was next to impossible.

After a few hours of nothingness and with sun closing its eyes, I changed direction and headed north, evading the opportunity of taking the A3 all the way to Holland to the more uncertain route along the A45 to the maze around Dortmund. However, things started looking up quickly as I got transported closer to my destination, with a trip to the services area before Duisberg giving me the lucky break I needed to get back on the A3. And, just as I contemplated an overnight stay in a rather cosy-looking bin room around midnight as the wind and rain howled around the cafe I was stranded in, I met a couple of travelling Dutchies from Utrecht who offered me a lift to their hometown as well as a few hours' sleep in their humble abode.

This miraculous lift led me to getting into Amsterdam the next day where I remained for 3 days with a friend from my last stay there. The strange marihuana culture still made me laugh to myself while we also met some funky alternative people.

Next stop was Ernst's place in Rotterdam, a cool 3-storey home where I relished the opportunities of some accompanied and unaccompanied freedom to explore this modern masterpiece of a city with a cool squat bang in the centre too. There I met a very interesting couple (2 husbands) as well as some travelling Canadians and Rotters ...(lol)

It was great to see Ernst again and find out he had even been imprisoned by rebels in Ivory Coast during his trip through Africa!

Jaap picked me up and treated me to some Dutch hospitality at his new home in Katwijk too, as I ate some tasty homemade food at his mother's place, went to a meeting of the SICK group, who incidentally are not sick at all, but quite lively; and eventually dropped me at a petrol station on Tuesday from where I tried to hitch to Germany with all the stuff I had picked up at Jaap's place. However, the plumetting temperatures and lack of lifts meant I got stuck in Amsterdam all day and all the different spots yielded no real success. It soon got dark and I decided to hit plan B. I knew there was a mitfahrenheit.com (?!) lift from Groningen to Berlin and even though it was 25 euros I was so loaded and exhausted and cold I decided to go for it. Trusting on a few couchsurfing requests I had sent out the day before, I put up signs for the nearest towns in that direction. Immigrants were my salvation, as I was picked up by an Iranian, some Turks, and some Saddam Hussein-loving Iraqi to dismissed the Americans as liars and tyrants as he drove me all the way to Groningen with his friend.

I couchsurfed that night at a friendly traveller girl's place and left the next morning for the station where I was picked up by the mitfahr... guy who took me to Berlin with two other cool girls. He was going on to Russia where he was staying with his Russian wife. I have been staying in Berlin with Kati who is heavily involved in the activist scene here in Germany and helped organise the massive G8 protests in Rostok attended by 10,000 ppl!!

Some cool squats and co-operative bars have been my haunts as I get back into the cool alternative scene here in Berlin until I can buy a van and head south.

I even went to a spontaneous squat demo with black block people and other guys yesterday thurs. 15 nov, though the only black stuff I could find were black tracksuit bottoms and navy blue sweater. We marched against a police attempt to break down a door to one of the squats and it was great that so many people turned up – around 120 – on such short notice – four hours – with the riot police only arriving at the end. That's when we all split in different directions and had some exciting times as police vans encircled the area. Soon the Fischladen was packed out while the Schnarub had heaps of cakes at the bar. Another fun and chilled night of kicker (futbolin) and pool ensued in all the spots around Friedrichshain as the word got around about our hard-hitting action. Now it's Friday and there is around 20 different events organised according to our trusty alternative guide Stress Factor!

Lets see if I can send this email as I haven't been able to get internet at our flat this time around! Oh! And it just snowed for a bit – first snowfall of the winter. Yayyy!!

And then recently I was at a party and met some cool people before walking through the falling snow at 5am with a good friend. What a beautiful experience especially as we were throwing snowballs at people and having a really cool time. I am enjoying Berlin a lot and everyday meet people I connect with, have a story to tell or I can learn from. But the biting cold weather is getting to me a bit and I think Gib for Xmas with my bro and cuzin should be fun, with morocco beckoning after that!!

I left you from my berlin fortresses doing what i did best - hang out at all the hausprojekt bars and enjoy the company of a number of really interesting people who would keep me company over one euro Steinburgs and beer stained pool tables where the balls would rocket out of the sides two second after you potted them.

I even was invited to stay at the famous sharni itself - home of the schnarub-thumby - a small punk bar that had its own concert hall in the cellar for a whole week, and from there visited the home of many activists at the kopi, and the new york in kreuzberg which i loved!
During that time i was frustrated by the incompetency of my bank which time and again failed to get the money sent to my friends bank account! It was only when after 4 weeks and a number of cock-ups that they said they would send the money for free to a friends bank account by fax.

So i took my new van, that old 83' LT28 and drove with my trusty friend Robert south, first to see Ines in Dresden and then after a few days to go further southwest to Freiburg, where i stayed with a guy i met a few years ago on a portugal surf trip where hje was residing in a haippie house. It was a chilled time in their countryside home and had some nice evening in their sauna and by the fire sipping at cocktails! I also got ot frieburg taking 3 people to stuttgart on www.mitfahrgelegenheit.com, easily the best way to travel when no hitching in germany and the rest of europe and also good for getting other to pay your petrol costs ( i only paid 30 euros for a 7 hour trip).

leaving the house was hard, especially thinking of the 1000km trip that faced me to Biarritz all alone. No-one wanted lifts and no-one was hitching so one fine but chilly morning i started off on the road by myself. of course, i took a wrong turning in the first 15 minutes and that sidetracked me for 1 hour but soon i was in france and already felt the more chilled latin atmosphere hit me. Things were going ok until i went to a supermarket for a late night shop. when i clambered back into my van with some tasty lidl french food my ignition wouldnt turn. i tried everything and eventually found some cables were disconnected but that reconnectiong them wasnt helping. it was starting to freeze now as we were near the alps in a cold wave so i went for a walk armed with 5 layers of clothing and my trusty coat. soon i started feeling warmth in my body again and eventually passed a local garage in this cute village. i was trying to party the night away but the party was too far away and eventually ended up in a restaurant where a celtic band was playing before hitting the sack in my fridge of a van! i only slept a bit and in the end was forced to do pressups in the middle of the night to create some warmth!!!

At daybreak i rang up the guy and even tho it was sunday he came and started up the car by pulling it and rewired it so i could start it up again for only 50 euros coz he was a nice iranian immigrant. thats when i got on with driving to biarritz along all the N roads so I wouldnt have to pay tolls as i was only going at 80-90!! It took a while, and after another night in the freezing cold, i managed to once again scent the sweet smell of pines and the ocean in les landes. I arrived 2 days and a half after setting off and hung out with Tom and Dorte and the aussies i know in the Biarritz area. they were cool and even scored a surf in glassy 2ft Biarritz bay tho i freeze my bum off coz my wetsuit was held together with a bit of string substituting the broken zip

less than a day after arriving i picked my bro Paul and cuz Ian in san sebastian. with them we drove a treachorous and snowy mountain path with snow on the sides and ice on the road itself in what ended up being a tricky night driving mission. we slept by a small village and then got up in the morniong to drive to barcelona! we arrived and visited can masdeu and then went to see my two friends there, Eli and Roser, who now live together!

After two days there where we also visited a massive club with thousands of people called Razz, we set off down the coast and after many hours of driving and irritating truck drivers for going so slow we arrived in Malaga where we picked up my bro Andy and my sis Ana from the airport to arrive in Gibraltar a few hours short of the Christmas Eve dinner. We did get a surf in too before we saw our parents and have surfed three more times since then.

New Years was spent watching a stunning sunrise from the Tarifa sand-dunes tho i have picked up a flu and i am now trying to get better as it stops me doing stuff and i dont like the coughing! Now i need to insure my van and get it going soon so i can head to morocco or somewhere else!
hope you are all well ... i will post more pics soon on my picasa website and put these posts on the blog ..
happy new year and hope we meet again!