It is hard to believe but I just turned 29. It is after the midnight now. I already received many congratulations from my friends on facebook. I don't like to celebrate my birthday but maybe I will go for a lunch to the restaurant U Bulinu close to Namesti Miru. It is one of my favourite restaurants even though I prefer Cafe Louvre in the city center. I like also pizzeria Kmotra and I usually order pizza Don Corleone there. There is a big choice of restaurants in Prague.
For now I have been writing mostly about my studies and not my travels as I intended. I hope to correct it soon and describe my travels as I planned. My first travels outside Europe occurred in 1995 and 1999 when I travelled to USA to visit my family there. It was a long time ago but I will try to describe them as precisely as possible.

After coming back to Prague in autumn 2009 I started to look for a job and I put an advertisement in the newspaper. One company which resided in Modletice (11 km far from Prague) contacted me and I went for a job interview there. I was initially accepted, but the salary was supposed to be only 600 Eur per month and my mother and most of my friends were against taking this job. I gave up and rejected this job even though I was inclined to accept it at first. I applied for many other jobs in the future and I went to approximately 50 job interviews, but I didn't have another job opportunity until May 2011 when I was accepted to a translation agency which was doing software localization, but they told me it was only a trial. I worked there some months. I used to like translating and I thought that it was a job that I could be interested in, but then they told me that I didn't have sufficient technical insight to be able to do software localization so I was dismissed. I still tried to apply for other jobs but I didn't have motivation anymore, so I just stayed at home and tried to think about other ways to make money.

The spring 2009 was mostly cold with a lot of rain. There were only a few days when the weather was sunny and warm. I went to Keukenhof (the park with tulips) with my friend Rahwa from Ethiopia who also studied marketing at the Wageningen university. The flowers already went out of bloom in May, but they still look nice in the pictures. There was a big exhibition of lilies when we arrived there and we took hundreds of photos.
I used to go to the Forum building to write my thesis there. I spent one month doing a literature study and after that I conducted data collection. I basically had to replicate the research of my supervisor which wasn't difficult, but I didn't have much opportunity to be creative.
I met a guy in Wageningen, I was 26 and he was 50 at that time. There was a mutual sympathy between us but I think there was an insufficient understanding. He was a keen entomologist and dendrologist but I couldn't understand most of the time what he was talking about and I usually lost focus very soon. We spent a lot of time together, we went to the restaurants and cafes in Wageningen, we travelled to Breda and to the sea. We cooked together many times, sometimes chicken or fish, but I was often trying to prepare cheese fondue, which didn't turn out well sometimes. It was usually eatable but sometimes the liquid part separated from the solid one, probably because I overheated it.
I used to meet my friend Rahwa very often too and we were cooking together Ethiopian food, mostly tomatoes with onion and a lot of spice. I had a final presentation of my thesis in August and I left Wageningen in September 2009. I took my final exam at the Czech university of Life sciences in February 2010.

My studies in Wageningen were exciting and I had found many friends there, but after I returned to Prague to continue my studies of economics and management my life became just frustrating. Going to bars every evening and meeting international students was finished and I just stayed at home and watched TV or chat with my friends on the internet. While I enjoyed studying subjects related to marketing and communications I never really liked economics. Before starting my studies at the university my intention was initially to study languages, English and French, I was even accepted at the university in Slovakia, but my parents didn't like it and I had to study economics. It was a bad choice and I had problems with many subjects that were related to maths.
While I managed to complete all exams I didn't keep up with writing my thesis while I was in Prague and I had to move back to Wageningen in May 2009 to continue writing my thesis there.
I moved to a squat which was close to the city center, I had 4 housemates, but I didn't really fit in there. I had one room just for me which was great and also very cheap (I paid on average 40 Eur per month), in the students' building the price ranged from 260 to 320 Eur, but each of my housemates had a big dog and 3 of them didn't appreciate me, only the youngest dog liked me. I was scared each time when I entered the house because the dogs immediately gathered around and barked at me, especially Faya was very aggressive. When I screamed at her she usually backed away, but the dogs didn't learn to like me during the 3 months I stayed there.
My housemates were kind of alternative people, they used drugs and went to the music festivals often. They also used to go to take the food from the garbage of supermarkets. Sometimes I ate it too, when it was packed and expired only a few days I didn't mind. On the other hand my housemates were able to eat baked goods from the garbage which wasn't even packed, I found that quite disgusting. The squat was very dirty and smelly, I am usually a messy person but this was too much for me. I kept my room relatively clean but my housemates had a lot of garbage on the floor in their rooms.
When I asked my housemate how they moved in the house he told me that it was empty more than one year and according to the Dutch law they can move in if the owner doesn't use it. The owner obviously didn't like it and tried to get them out but they hired a lawyer and they won. I found it funny that the owner couldn't kick them out of his house but I was glad to find a cheap place to stay for some months.

I went back to France in summer 2008. I found a host on couchsurfing in Paris who lived close to Bastille and I spent one week with him. We spent hilarious time together, we visited Aquaboulevard (I went there for the first time in 2003, I really liked this place but there was too much chlorine for me), where we took a bath in jacuzzi and I was jumping on the waves. We went for a dinner to the restaurant with other couchsurfers who stayed at my host's place and we walked by night in Paris close to Louvre. I met also some of my old friends in Paris and my previous hosts. One of my close friends got married with a Polish girl and we met all together at Bastille with a Russian girl who also lived in Paris. I saw them again after 3 years, in 2005 we met at La Defense when my previous host organized a barbecue on the terrace in his flat in the high-rise building.
After visiting Paris I decided to travel to Marseille and my stay there became very chaotic soon as I had to change hosts 4 times during one week. The first host, Bruno, took me to a beach which was between Marseille and Montpellier and I tasted for the first time sea urchin there. The taste was very similar to oyster but much more concentrated. Bruno hosted me for 2 nights and then told me that he was leaving to Montpellier and couldn't host me anymore. I had to find another couchsurfer quickly and I posted a message to the emergency couch group. I found Cedric who hosted me one night and we had a party on the rooftop. I couldn't stay longer with him because he hosted other people. I went on the beach by myself during the day and then I met my old love in Marseille (the one from 2005). I had already arranged a stay with a couchsurfer so we met him in the evening and we went to his flat to have a dinner (he invited also my friend). The following day my friend took holidays from work and we went to a beach. In the evening when we met my host he asked us if we wanted to go to the beach with him in Cassis and then Japanese restaurant. Later when we returned home the couchsurfer asked my friend to host me and then he started blaming me that he didn't want my friend to join us and he didn't trust me that I wouldn't my friend enter his flat when he wasn't there so I left the following day in the morning. I didn't have any contact with this couchsurfer again after leaving Marseille.
I moved to the flat of my friend for the remaining two days and we visited Calanques and Vallon des Auffes. This place impressed me much because it was picturesque, I was swimming there in the harbor and I had an amazing time. We went to a pizzeria where I ordered a pizza with Coquilles Saint-Jacques (honestly I didn't like it much, I would have enjoyed more common pizza with mushrooms and ham). My friend found a sea food restaurant where we ordered a big plate with many different kinds of sea food (e.g. crab, mussels, oyster), but when I ate one mussel it made me very sick. The time with my friend was partly great and partly joyless because we were discussing too much our previous relation and no conclusion was derived.
After my trip to France I returned to Prague for some weeks and then I went back to Wageningen to discuss the topic of my thesis with my supervisor. I was supposed to write about risk perception of mobile phones and conduct research on my own. However, after I returned to the Czech Republic, my studies didn't go well.

I enjoyed my stay in Wageningen very much and my life was completely different from what it used to be before. The town is small but when I lived there there used to be many students' bars, even though some of them might be already closed now. I lived in the students' building which was called Dijkgraaf and there was a pub called de Bunker just in front of it, but I didn't like this one because it was very noisy and crowded. I used to be a frequent visitor at Borney's bar at Bornsesteeg, but this bar was closed just after I left Wageningen. I met many international students there who used to live in this building, one time I joined the celebration of the Ethiopian millenium in September and I found a lot of new friends. I used to go to the International club too, but its disadvantage was that it was far away from Dijkgraaf and also it was opening after midningt, but the people started to gather there just after 1am. My life in Wageningen was very joyful as I used to go to the bars every evening and talk with many international students there.
When I arrived to Wageningen I found a new love there. It was a Dutch student, living in the same corridor as me, but after 4 months it was over between us. It was slightly unpleasant for me to live so close to him even after our love story was finished, but I decided to last out for the remaining time and I didn't move out of the building even though it was my intention at first. I stayed there till the end of June 2008 and then it was the end of the school year and I had to move back to the Czech Republic to finish my studies there. I was supposed to write my thesis for the Wageningen university in Prague but I was experiencing difficulties when I moved back to the Czech Republic.

I returned to France again in 2005. I travelled to Paris firstly and then to Marseille. I stayed firstly with Marguerite from couchsurfing and I had a great time with her. She took me to the theater in Avignon, I didn't understand much of the performance because it was in French, but I really enjoyed it. We visited also Cassis and Calanques. I met someone in Marseille and a little love story started between us. I left to Montpellier for the weekend but then I returned to Marseille to stay there with the guy and we explored together many places in the south of France, we travelled to Nimes and Aix en Provence. Then I left and the love story was over (at least for some years).
In 2007 I moved to Wageningen in the Netherlands to study there at the university. I had studied economics and management before but I decided to continue my master in marketing there because I found social sciences more interesting than marketing. Wageningen is a small town with only 35 000 inhabitants and there weren't many opportunities to do couchsurfing, so I hosted only a few people during my stay there and I visited also a few people in other cities, I was couchsurfing in Eindhoven, Oss and Rotterdam.
I arrived to Netherlands in August 2007 for the Introduction days. It was quite cold when we arrived there, only 13°C. The very changeable weather only deteriorated my mood, it changed very fast and it could be sunny and rainy again. We participated at several activities during the Introduction days, some of them I enjoyed and the others not so much, but watching the movie on the square by the church was great.
I was very sceptical firstly about my studies in the Netherlands because my study adviser and other students who had been studying there scared me that it the studies there were very demanding and I wasn't sure if I could cope it. However, as it showed up later, the studies of marketing and other social sciences at the Wageningen university were not demanding at all. The university is well known for the subjects related to plant and animal sciences and food technology, but marketing and social sciences are rather marginal, therefore I didn't devote much time to my studies. The subjects were quite easy, it was usually sufficient to study a few days for the exam to pass it and the large emphasis was put on the group work, we had to prepare a project together during the period. One period lasted two months and there was an exam week at the end of the each period. Each school year had 5 periods, the first one starting in September and the last one finishing in June.
I decided firstly to study communication studies, but later I changed it to marketing, however I took some additional subjects of communication and I enjoyed it a lot. The subjects Communication strategies in everyday life and Intercultural communication were really interesting and I learnt some useful things. Subjects related to marketing were also interesting at first but later became a bit repetitive. I passed all exams for the first time.

Let me introduce myself. I am nearly 29, I am a Slovak living in the Czech Republic. I have been unemployed for some time and currently I am looking for a job.

I started travelling by myself in July 2002. I went to France for the first time to visit people from IRC and I travelled to Paris, Montpellier and Mulhouse. My first independent travel lasted one month and was great in general (just one of my hosts kicked me out), but I was impressed by France very much and I returned there several times, I went there twice in 2003, in spring and summer. I visited also Egypt during Christmas 2003 and 2004 but I went there with the travel agency. 

When I arrived to France in April 2004 I visited Strasbourg firstly and then I moved to other side of France, I took a train to Salies de Bearn. My host and me visited Spain for one day. We went Pyrenees to take pictures of orchidees. The weather was unusually hot in April. Then I travelled to Bordeaux where one of my IRC friends told me about couchsurfing. I joined this website in June 2004 which makes me an old member :). There were only a few people in the Czech Republic at that time and I didn't have high expectations. I was planning to travel to France in summer again and I wanted to visit Bretagne, so I contacted a couchsurfer if he could host me, but unfortunately my first couchsurfing experience wasn't finished in a good way due to the several misunderstandings which occurred between me and my host. However, since that time I have been very active in couchsurfing and I have collected a large amount of positive experiences.   

Laayoune, Western Sahara

 
    Hi all,
It took me a long time to create a blog, mainly because I wasn't ready to share my thoughts publicly, but I believe that it will be easier to keep my friends updated and my experiences from travels will be a contribution for other travellers. I hope you will enjoy my writing.