No thanks, I've seen enough

That's what I thought as I left the Central station after wandering in a circle in the "shopping" passages above the tracks. In front of me the Palace of Culture and Science, a remnant of the comnunist era, - which is worth a visit - behind me the "modern" - I'd rather say ugly - Warzawa Centralna and all around us the mix of old, half-demolished apartment buildings and huge advertisment boards, telling you about the latest offer at the Yellow M-shop.
I immediately made my way back to the station to head for Poznan. However, I wanted to give Warsaw a chance so I sat down in an internet cafe in one of the shopping passages to look for things to see in Warsaw. I previously had no luck with finding a host in Warsaw on couchsurfing, but I then received an answer from a girl I had asked and she offered me a place to stay. So I decided to stay for the night. I first went to see the old city before meeting up with my host. She showed me around a bit before we went to a hostel bar to chill. There we met a nice Swedish guy with whom we strolled around a bit more.
There's not much more to say really: Even though my host showed me some nicer parts of the city I still think it's a shithole...

Vilnius to Warsaw

Not staying in Vilnius for the night I headed straight for Poland. If you look at a train map of the Baltic states you will notice one thing: All trains go to Moscow. Looking on the internet the only official way to get from Tallinn to Warsaw via Riga and Vilnius on land was to use the bus and since the last and longest leg between Vilnius and Warsaw was the most expensive I thought I might as well hitchike from Vilnius. Even though upon arrival in Vilnius I realised there actually is a train connecting the two capitals I decided to stick to my plan. Luckily I met a German who was also hitchiking and who gave me a few tips. After an hour's walk to the border of the city I waited not long before catching a ride to Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania. There I was until it got dark; after all it was already quite late. Two friendly but dodgy guys gave me a lift to Augustinov, Poland, from where my interrail ticket was valid again.
The guys dropped me in front of a hotel which was already full. I walked to another one, which was too expensive and a pension, which was already closed. Looking across the canal I had my dinner and afterwards concluded my search for a place to sleep.
Asking two old guys, who had just come from a bridge evening with a couple of others, about a cheap nearby hotel, one of them invited me to sleep at his flat.
Next morning I got up very early when the sun hadn't been shining for more than an hour, because my host had to leave.
It's supposed to be the most beautiful city in the region; yeah right. The shabby houses from the 60s and 70s left me a bit hoping for something better to come as I made my way to the train station. It was a couple of kilometres, which took me around 2 hours, but as I walked the second half of the way next to or through a forest it was quite alright.
Something I stumbled on was really worth the stop alone: A colourful graveyard right inside the forest.
I had just enough time to buy something to eat for lunch before my train to Warsaw arrived.

Vilnius

What I noticed about Vilnius was that it was the least centralised city of the three baltic capitals.
In Tallin you had the old town wall, so the centre was clearly marked. Riga didn't have a town wall, so you didn't know were the excact line was, but you could roughly tell where the centre stopped. In Vilnius you just couldn't tell. If you're in the centre and start walking, at one point you will realise you're no longer in it, but the line is too vague to be able to tell excactly where the centre stops and the rest begins. Vilnius felt more Western than the other two. I can't really explain why.

Riga

Hanseatic town and a very charming one indeed. I only got to see the old city centre though which is a shame, because afterwards I was told there is a big and very interesting Art Nouveau district.
I still liked the old town centre though. There was barely any car and it didn't feel touristy at all. Some restaurants were stretching onto the streets where people sat and ate while listening to a band playing live music. After strolling around for a bit I had my dinner in a traditional latvian restaurant with an almost meadieval feeling. A girl was playing string instrument which was kind of a lute but being played a lap guitar. The cups were made out of stone and I had a traditional black pudding with some jam and bread... Tasty
What was odd, was a statue of a cock on top of a cat, on top of a dog, on top of a donkey. Germans will of course recognise them as being "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten" (The town musicians of Bremen; famous German children's tale), but what the hell are they doing in Riga???
Reading the plaque, I found out that this was a gift from the city of Bremen made by a German artist. I figured this would be the scene where the four animals scare the heck out of a gang of thieves. However, I think choosing this scene was not very wise. Scince any non-German (i.e. Latvian) will not recognise this as a specific scene from a children's tale, I figure he or she will most likely see a statue of four animals looking really ugly. If you're a non-German who's not familiar with this tale, please comment on what you think of this statue:

Tallinn

Skyscrapers were looming on the horizon beneath a blue sky as the ship approached the shore. Setting foot on the wet streets a chill went through the air as I just wanted to find a hostel.
The hostel was two story wooden building just across the junction from one of those giants made out of steel and glass. That's Tallin: Old and new, cloudy and sunny, light and dark.

(That's not the hostel by the way, but an old brick building)

The city centre still has its wall from at least medieval times and is therfore clearly marked. However, once you step out of the gates you're in a 21st century capital which has had an economic boom during the last two decade.
In the evening I went into the old city centre with two Americans, one from Australia, to go to some bar and maybe get something to eat. I had some garlic bread in Tallinn's oldest pub. Generally, the atmosphere was really nice in the city; lots of locals out to have a nice time and some tourists blending in nicely. However, I decided to go back there the next day it was light. Just a few hours had passed and suddenly all the atmosphere was gone. Bulks of tourists passing and one person holding up an umbrella, shouting, 'Und hier ist die alte Stadtmauer...'
I think the percentage of locals on the street managed to plummet to below 10%.

Although the contrast in this city is fascinating to see, the touristy atmospere destroyed it all for me.
After that I was off to Riga.

Helsinki/Helsingfors

I didn´t bother asking why everything in Finland is written not only in Finnish but also in Swedish. Best example is the cinema: I watched Transformers 2 which had subtitles in both languages. Luckily they don´t dub the English films in Northern and Eastern Europe. I think that´s one of the major reasons Scandinavians speak very good English; everybody watches TV and goes to the cinema and most of it´s in English.
The first day in Helsinki I walked from the central station to the harbor to see some nonexisting icebreaker ships, but at least the yacht harbor was nice. On my way back I stopped by at Finlands biggest cinema. Helsinki is a nice city; not great but not bad either, so I took the opportunity of watching a film in English for once in a while.
I originally had intended just to stay for two nights but my host told me about an event, that was going on two days later so I stayed an extra night. The second day having no plans I again strolled around in Helsinki, but due to heavy rain I spent most of the time beneath a marquee.
The event was on my third and last day and the night before lots of friends from Tampere had come over to join my host for this event. There is a small river, no more than 10m wide at its widest. And at one point of this river lots of people from Helsinki and other cities put their rubber boats in the water and with a packet of beer they floated down the river. My host told me all the rubber boats in the whole of Helsinki were sold out and sometimes you could see proper rafts and bands playing on them. Sadly I didn´t see any of those.
From there I headed straight for the ferry to Tallinn.

Rovaniemi

My host was so kind enough to lend me his bike so I could discover the city and a nearby city where a couple of small people and a fat man with a beard live.
But on my way there, I stopped by on an island on the river that goes through Rovaniemi. There some student wildlife organization or something had layed out a wooden path for tourists to have a look around on the almost swamp like island. It included a tower for bird watching. With the sun shining it was really nice to see.
After that and a stop at a huge supermarket in the middle of nowhere to get some food, I went on to greet Santa, who by the way talks very good German. Sadly I forgot to put on my kilt which would have given it a nice touch, but then again it would have been difficult for cycling. It was also nice to cross the Arctic circle, just for the thought that I have been really high up north. This also meant that the night was extremely short with darkness not even being an hour long.
On my way home I pushed my bike up a hill with a watch tower from where I had a great view across Rovaniemi and the endless coniferous forest. I wanted to go downhill on the other side but the way ended after 20m, so I pushed my bike down a stone slope and through some bushes to reach a small road that led me back to the main road. Luckily in Finland as in other Scandinavian countries there is a public right for roaming around freely.
My host and I had a lot of fun together, because we both love British comedy, and watched the whole Blackadder goes Forth series as well as some parts from his ¨Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl¨ DVD. He also let me use his Finnish sauna, which was great.

Suomi

One small step for me, one giant leap for my ego.
I walked all the way from Sweden to Finland, after a night train ride from Stockholm, sitting next to a Thai, who couldn´t speak any English, and two drunken French blokes... It actually took me 15 minutes and apart from a sign, saying Sverige and Suomi on each side, it was really hard to tell where the border line was because right behind the sign there´s a big shopping mall, which seemed to be half Swedish and half Finnish.
Suomi by the way is the Finnish word for Finland. In Norway and Sweden I had hoped to understand the odd word, but upon reaching Finland I gave up on that. You could just as well be talking Russian or Chinese to me, I wouldn´t get a single word.

Some pictures

Glasgow, very rainy

Prestwick

Bergen

The Fjord in Bergen

Oslo, also very rainy

The other one

I'm talking about Stockholm, which I didn't write about in the last blog entry, because my time was up. However, since the internet is free over here in Finland, I don't mind :)
Arriving in Stockholm, I went to my host pretty much straight away, except for trying to find out whether my phone stopped working or the two weeks old charger. It turned out to be phone, so at first I was really bummed, but then I was really looking forward to the last week of travel without a phone, because you can manage easily. It's just that you think that you're reliant on it and being without it actually relieves you after a while. Sadly, my host gave me one of his old ones, he didn't use anymore, after my dad pressed me to get a temporary one :)
The next day I walked to the old town of Stockholm and just strolled through the narrow streets. I think I only need one word to describe it: magnificent.
Some pictures would be great here but I keep forgetting the cable for my camera.
Back in the suburb where my host lives, I walked through a nature reserve to a lake because my host was still in the centre. There's nothing much to say here, to be honest, except that it was beautiful. I know I am repeating myself.
That day three Italians, who stayed at the same host, arrived and they prepared some lovely pasta for dinner. The three and I walked to a nature reserve in central STockholm next day and had picnic in the park there. Apart from the most beautiful German embassy I've seen so far, which is situated pretty much in that park, there was nothing special there. Although it's not the greatest German embassy I've seen so far. The greatest one is in Ankara, covers a couple of square kilometres and includes a race track for horses. Not bad, ey?
From there I went to the Central Station and took the night train to Boden to go on to Rovaniemi, Finland. On the night train I had a seat and next to me was sitting a guy from Bangkok who didn't speak a word of English or any other European language. His friends asked me to drag him out of the train at Boden, since he wanted to go there, too. Although that was a nice experience I would have rather had someone to talk to.

Two of the most beautiful cities in the world

I am talking about Coppenhagen and Stockholm there, but I'll get to that in a minute.
After I took the night train from Oslo to Malmoe I firstly had a look around in the very early morning. The streets were still abandoned with only the odd workaholics swooping by with their take away coffees in their hand and the odd alcoholic sleeping on a bench with their take away beer cans on the floor. I'd recommend anybody who ever visits Coppenhagen to pop over to Malmoe for a bit. They have a weird skyscraper there, which twists as it's reaching for the sky.
Somehow, it felt very humid and even though it was 7 in the morning and the sun had just reached a position, where it was fully visible, I was sweating. i felt kinda relieved to board the train, even though I had to switch trains once more due to technical problems. Reliability and punctuality do not seem to be part of the Swedish and Norwegian culture. I can only imagine what fuss this would cause in Germany.
Arriving in Coppenhagen I used the internet cafe since it was raining. However, for the duration of my walk through the city centre it was sunny and beautiful. I had a look at the National Museum not because I originally wanted to, but because of the call of nature. The guard there - thinking I came to visit - locked away my backpack because it was very large. So I went for a walk in the museum. I then had a look around the city centre and sat on a wall overlooking a canal and a row of cafes and having my lunch. My lunch by the way is usually very basic. I carry a pot of honey or nutella around with me and then just buy a loaf of bread or a baguette. Very simple but very cheap.
I then went on to meet my host after strolling around in a park.
If you're wondering I usually don't mention the people I meet; that's what my small book is for :) But if you want to have a sample, take a look at www.teufelskerle.dk !
Next day I went on to Stockholm...

Country of Fjords

Still in Oslo, but I'll be taking the night train to Copenhagen in a few hours. I could wander a bit more around in Oslo, but the lack of sunshine keeps me inside. Generally the weather has been poor during my city visits, which includes Glasgow, Bergen and Oslo. However, luckily my nature walks in Turnberry at the Open and up the hill in Bergen have been fairly well.
Arriving in Oslo on Friday, I strolled around a bit, meeting some people and waiting for the night train to Bergen to leave - nothing special, except Norway's bloody expensive.
Meeting new people is coming along great. I'm nearly half way through my small book, where I let all the people I meet write in, and I just started properly travelling one week ago. The first six pages or so are from people I met in London, but now I'm travelling on my own I think I've met roughly 30 people in only seven days. And there are about 7 languages being used and some drawings. Not bad, ey?
Coming back to my travels, Bergen was beautiful and I enjoyed it even though the Norwegian I met in Ghana ditched me, but then again I wouldn't have made the great and also weird experiences that I have made. I stayed in a dorm in a hostel, with bunk neighbours from Hongkong, California, French-Canada and Austria. There were also two Italians, but I didn't talk to them. I had some amazing views over the Fjord from the hill the second day, although once I got back down in the early afternoon I was bummed out for the rest of the day. I could've taken the Floyenbahn, but by strolling up the hill I could enjoy nature much more and had some great views, as mentioned before. And of course it was cheaper.
I could have taken the Flambahn, but i would have had to get up at 7:30, which would have been too hard for me. After the train back to Oslo broke down and we had to change trains and then get onto busses because the last part before Oslo had maintenance work going on I arrived 1 3/4 hours late at 00:15 in the morning. My host was already asleep because of work and the train company wouldn't pay for a hotel, so I decided to set out for the bars and if nothing comes up, I would sleep in the centralstation. After being in a bar til 2:00 I left and headed for the station, which was closed. Luckily there were some drunk Norwegians I started talking to and they invited me to join them in the next pub and sleep at their place afterwards. They were three friends and a stranger who celebrated receiving twins that day. After the pub and a couple of rounds of Buzz and Tiger Woods PGA tour 08 I went to sleep at 6:00 and woke up at 13:00. The guy at who's flat I was staying was really great.
From their place I went to my couchsurfing host and slept there for another night.
I've just had a walk around in oslo and saw some sights, like the King's palace, the park with all the naked statues and the Opera house, which cost about 3 billion NOK, 3000 just for each door handle. That's crazy...
Pictures will follow hopefully soon

The Open

I'm still in Norway, but since I'm staying with my host and i can use his internet while he's in the gym I don't have to worry about the price for this internet session. As mentioned before, Norway's bloody expensive :)

Arriving in Glasgow on Wednesday after a long trip on the train ... it rained, what else. But luckily I had an umbrella with me and mainly stuck to the shops. There's not much else to do there anyway.
The only reason I actually went out of Glasgow station was to buy a kilt. Just across the street there was a newly opened kilt shop, which had a half price sale - lucky me - so I got the kilt without spending much of my food money. It's a modern Douglas tartan with a leather Sporran.
I then went on to go to my hosts in Prestwick, just 5 minutes away from the Ryanair airport, although I never heard a plane from the flat. My host a Polish guy with three female flatmates, one of whom had a small boy and one who's sister was there to visit.
They were all very lovely and hospitable and I even had an intense conversation about religion with one of the girls the second night. That evening we all went for a stroll along the sea front, which was extremely refreshing and weird because some dogs seemed to like to drink salt water.
The next day I watched the opening day of The Open at Turnberry ... in my kilt. Funnily enough I seemed to be the only one wearing a kilt, and i'm not even Scottish. However, later on I talked to a Marshall, who not only is called Douglas and thus has got a modern Douglas kilt at home, but also told me that there was another Marshall wearing a kilt. I still wonder whether I was caught on camera. Surely it must have been so, since I know the coverage of the tournament to sometimes look at boats along the coast and the commentators saying, what a nice wheater to go sailing it is. I hope that they caught me on camera from behind, because otherwise they would have noticed the missing Sporran. If anybody watched it and saw me, please tell me :)
At first i had a look at all the holes after which I followed Lee Westwood, Ryo Ishikawa and another guy also called something with wood. And I'm not talking about the really good one, which ended up in tied third place, Chris Wood, but the other one that didn't even make the cut.
I know, I don't like Tiger that much, I think he's won enough.
Then I made my way to the first hole, where Martin Kaymer was just about to tee off together with Ernie Els and Lucas Glover. I think Kaymer was tired from winning the last two tournaments on the European tour just before the Open, because he performed not that great. To be fair he ended up in tied 34th place. So after a while I waited for this and another flight to pass by to follow Monty, who was accompanied by Zach Johnson and K J Choi.
Once I've got the money I'll go and watch the whole week of the Open possibly including practice days.
The next day I took the plane to Oslo. Funnily one of the flight attendance was my Polish host.

(Cameras and Mobile phones were prohibited at the Open, so no pictures of that)

Kingston

Just forgot to mention, that on Monday i was in the Fighting Cocks Pub watching stand up comedy with two friends of mine.
Two of the 5 comedians are well known comedians from TV shows such as Mock the Week and have I got news For you. One's Reginald D Hunter, who's show at Edinburgh will be called " The only Apple in the Garden of Eden and Niggers" (That kinda sums up his type of jokes)
The other one's Andy Parson, who did a Scenes we'd like to see with the resident host. Both did their Edinburgh festival preview, which were hilarious.
I'll be writing about Scotland some other time, because Norway's bloody expensive, even the internet cafes.

London - getting nostalgic

So far I've stayed in London for one and a half weeks and I'm leaving again tomorrow.
I wanted to see some old friends and colleagues, which worked out quite good, and to see a bit of London I haven't seen so far, which didn't work out that much, due to a cold i picked up back in Germany and my general laziness.
On Saturday (the 3rd) I was at the summer festival of the German School London, where I met up with former classmates and teachers. Ame old, same old: talking about what's been happening in the last year and so on, except I did have an intense conversation about Ghanaian politics with my former class and history teacher, Mr Stuewe. To be fair, I did more of the talking and he did more of the listening, which seemed to annoy the others, who wanted to talk to him as well...
On Wednesday Sandy (my friend and host) went to see Little Venice and Trafalgar square. He wasn't very pleased by little Venice, because he expected it to be more like Venice in some sort of way, which it isn't really. However, it's still beautiful. Judge for yourself!After that we went to see the public plinth at Trafalgar square. This time it was me, who had too high expectations. I was thinking more on the line of Monty Python's the life of Brian with satanist ranting about decay of human kind. Instead it was a guy in a red suit jumping around and clapping his hand. While Sandy, being a bloody Christian, went into the next church, I scribbled a bit on the floor in front of the National Gallery. No, I wasn't vandalizing. Two guys distributed chalk to write whatever comes to mind. Most people including myself weren't very inventive, so I'm not going to post the picture of it :)
We then met up with Paul, who stayed for two nights also at Sandy's. On Thursday Paul and I went to the DSL Mr Stuewe asked us to talk to his class abut our experiences abroad: Paul about Shanghai and I about Ghana. I think Stuewe enjoyed it more than his class.
Friday night was pub night in Uxbridge, meeting my old colleagues from Testronics, which was really nice.
On Sunday I unexpectedly received a call from my former neighbour asking me whether Sandy and I wanted to go the Oasis concert at Wembley, because he had spare tickets. With out a lot of thinking I agreed and so we went there together with my neighbour and his son. We missed the first band Reverend and The Makers and only caught the last two songs of The Enemy, which wasn't too bad because frontman is an ugly twat :)
Nevertheless, after that Kasabien was on, which was great. Last but not least, Oasis came on and after a slow start they rocked the stage. My companions weren't as impressed, but they only knew two songs by Oasis: Wonderwall and Don't look back in anger.

Apart from that Sandy and I mainly watched movies, played Fifa 09 and chilled out.

Europe

My inspiration for this trip came from Michael Palin's tremendous travelling series New Europe. He was part of the Monty Python squad, who's Fish-slapping dance is to date my most favourite comedy sketch ever (Michael Palin's the one with the small fish by the way). After his Monty Python Years, he started doing travelling series for the BBC, which took him into the Himalaya, through the Saraha, from Pole To Pole ...
I just finished downloading his complete travelling series collection (excluding the latest one, New Europe), which was about 30GB and took me 2 bloody months. The continuous slow connection was a real pain in the ass, although more for my brother than for me most of the time.
In my final year at school, I had the plan to cycle through Eastern Europe, meeting people in Carpathians and visiting some large bat in Transylvania. That plan gave way for my volunteer service in Ghana and the preceding money earning scheme in London. However, after leaving Ghana early, I decided to make that trip in summer.
After changing the plans many times it will be as follows:
This Monday til Wednesday I'll be in Aachen to sort out some things about my (hopefully) soon to be Uni.
Anyway, on Friday the 3rd the proper adventure starts wit a flight to London. Although I was living there for 8 years, there are still many parts of it I haven't seen yet. So apart from visiting old friends and going to the German school summer festival, I will just walk a lot through London.
Some may think now 'Hang on a minute! Wasn't he just talking about travelling through Eastern Europe?' Well, considering the huge amount of Polish people in London I thought I might as well start there.
To give the general outline of the trip, my journey is devided in two parts:
The first one is a train-based journey (Interrail) alone. Starting in London, I'll go northwards to Scotland, then fly to Oslo and travel through Scandinavia taking in mainly the capitals until I arriva in Helsinki from where I'll go southwards through the Baltic states, Poland and back to Hamburg. My accommodation will be mostly Couchsurfing. For those who don't know, couchsurfing.org is a network where members can sleep on other member's couches for free. The point of it is the cultural exchange, properly getting to know different people from different places. After all the network is global and anyone can be a member. This part will take up July and a little bit of August.
The second part will start near Munich, from where my friend Sandy and I (and my other friend Paul for the first week or so) will drive with Sandy's car with the general direction being southwards. Going through Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Ljiubljiana and Venice we will end up in Bari, Italy, from where we'll set over to Greece. From Greece, Sandy and I will drive northwards again through the Balkan. Covering Bulgaria, Romania, the Ukraine, southern Poland and the Czech Republic we will end up in eastern Germany. From there we'll possibly head to the west, because he wants to walk through France afterwards and I want to start studying in Aachen in september. The accommodation isn't clear yet. It will probably consist of couchsurfing and sleeping in a tent.
That's the general outline and I'll write about the details once I get there. (Kind of obvious, isn't it?)
I don't know how frequent the posts will be, because I'll be constantly on the move, especially during the second part. Feel free to comment or write a message or email while I'm travelling. I'm always happy to hear that somebody's actually reading this bullshit and I'll try and answer as quickly as I can. And if anyone wants me to put in a good word for him or her when I visit Santa in Finland, I'll gladly do that;)

The story of meeting smaller people

First of all I'd like to explain the title:
Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World is the original title for Jonathan Swift's classic 'Gulliver's travels', but since for now I want to travel through Europe and maybe China and Russia next year, I left out the 'Remote' bit. My name's not Gulliver, neither am I gullible, which might have been a recognisable link to Swift's work, so I decided to go for the original name, which might be original but then again not very recognisable...
You might still wonder why I chose to pay my homage to Swift; Well to be honest I read Gulliver's travels after deciding to name my blog this way, and neither have I ever read any other work from Swift. So that still leaves the question: Why the fuck this name?
The clue is in the heading of this post. Being 1.92m is above average but not that tall for a German, but luckily Germany is my homecountry, so my travels will be taking me to places elsewhere. Apart from that I grew up in England where the average height is not that high, which lead to me (just 1.92) being cockey about my height, apart from being self-deprecating:)
Having read the book, I also saw many similarities between his travels and my planned travels.
My main aim, at least on my travels through Europe this summer, will be to get to know lots of different people; see the diversity in the cities I travel through. For that I have thought up a way to record the progress of that goal: I will take an empty book or blog and some pens with me, and I want every person I meet along the way to fill an entire page and on the other page I will put the person's name and photo. Let's see how that works out...
Travelling through Sandinavia, I'll probably even meet some giants and perhaps I'll even talk to a horse...

My new blog

Hello and welcome to my new blog.
This one will be for all my travels from now on (possibly)
If you're interested in my old blog about my volunteer service in Ghana:
eingrawinghana.blogspot.com

I'll start my travels through Europe next week, I'll see how often I'll post...
Have fun