Monday, December 17, 2012

I left Rabat on Wednesday 28th November. After suffering food poisoning I felt weak, I was pale and shaking when we went out in the morning, but although it was sunny it was significantly colder than during the previous days. My host accompanied me to the bus station and I went to Casablanca firstly, the journey there lasted only one hour but I had to wait there almost two hours until the bus to Essaouira arrived. The journey to Essaouira lasted 8 hours and it was around 10:30pm when we arrived, but I had to wait half an hour for my host. The following day we met his friends and walked around the city, it was sunny but windy, we drank tea at the fish market and in the evening my host and his flatmate cooked delicious spaghetti bolognese and then we watched two horror movies. The other day it was rainy and we spent all day at home watching horror movies, we saw 6 of them, my favorite was One missed call. We went to the internet cafe in the evening because I had to check my mail and I left Essaouira on Saturday afternoon. I took a bus to Agadir, however the journey wasn't great because the road leads in the mountains, narrow and curved, people were sick in the bus and one woman who sat across the aisle vomited in a plastic bag. I arrived in Agadir before sunset, my host picked me up at the bus station and we went to his home where we had dinner which his mother prepared for us and then we went to the same disco where we went in April. We danced, they didn't play my favorite kind of music but we stayed there a long time, we returned home after 3am. The other day we went for a walk to a beach, it was sunny but windy, but the weather was warmer than Essaouira. In the evening we danced and sung at my host's home and we recorded many videos.
I contacted my previous host in Marrakesh but he didn't answer on time, so I posted a message to the emergency couch group and I got two offers. I met one couchsurfer at the bus station, we went to his home where we drank tea and played a card game, but then I went to my host who lived very close in the student's area. He cooked chicked tajine for me. We went to the city on Tuesday but we stayed outside only two hours, it was sunny but a bit cold, only 15°C. I bought a good pancake with Nutella and banana for 20 dirhams on the way home. He prepared chicked tajine again in the evening and then I had to leave in the morning around 10am, I took a grand taxi and then a bus to the airport where I arrived too early, around 11:15am and my flight with Vueling airlines was around 13:45. I bought a cake and drank tea there, then I got on the plane and our flight was smooth, we arrived in Barcelona just on time to see the sunset from the plane. It took me two hours until I reached my host's place, he lived in Vallcarca. He cooked pasta for me, not only the first day but also the other days, he knew how to prepare pasta in many different ways. Once he prepared lasagna which was very tasty and next time he made salty pancakes. It was cold at his home because he didn't use the heating in winter. We went for a walk in the city center on Thursday and I met my cousin Jeremy for the lunch on Friday, we went to the restaurant Ciutat Comtal which was close to his work. We ordered many different kinds of tapas and I also ordered a hot chocolate cake. Then I went to Sagrada Familia but I decided not to go inside because there were many people waiting in the line.
I went to a park with my host on Saturday, I tried to eat opuntia which I found but it was a very bad idea because of the hundreds of small thorns that got stuck in my hands. I tried to remove them with needle later but it took several days until I got rid of them.
I met my cousin and his wife and son on Monday and I invited my host to join us. We went to another restaurant and we ordered many tapas again, this time I also had a sandwich with a little tartar beef steak and we had chicken, calmars, tortilla de patatas and eggplant with honey. I ordered an almond cake as a dessert. I left Barcelona on Tuesday afternoon when I took the flight with wizzair, when I left Barcelona the weather was good, 15°C and sunny, but when we arrived in Prague I was shocked to see snow from the plane and it was getting dark already around 4pm when we landed. However, I prefer winter here in Prague because although it is freezing and snowing sometimes I always heat my home to pleasant 25°C.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Gibraltar is an astonishing place - a big rock in the middle of the sea emerging out of nowhere. However, during my stay there I didn't go up the rock and the city is not very interesting, there are many shops, but nothing really worth visiting. I was pleased to see that most signs were in English. My host lived in the Governor's street, opposite of the London bar. I had to go up the hill and pull my suitcase, I am not a real backpacker because I find it more convenient to travel with a suitcase, although it is not suitable in all surroundings. My host was an alternative guy, he had dreadlocks and smoked weed and hashish. The house was furnished in an exotic style, I would say a mixture of African and South American. My host was originally from Colombia. I arrived in Gibraltar on Thursday 15th November, my host told me he would be going for a party on Saturday to Cadiz and come back on Sunday, but I could have stayed there as long as I wanted. However, I came to Gibraltar mainly to look for a job there and as I didn't hear from the personal agency I decided that it would be better to go to Morocco as soon as possible. I stayed at home on Thursday, the weather was cloudy and around 18°C. My host prepared lasagna with 4 different kinds of cheese and a bechamel sauce, it was delicious. He hosted also a Belgian guy Simon whose goal was to travel and live without money, he travelled Europe by hitch-hiking and practiced dumpster diving, most of the food he ate came from the garbage of supermarkets. He hoped to be hired on a cruise boat to South America but he hasn't been lucky yet. On Friday he prepared pizza for us and then we went for a walk to the port and visited his friends on a boat.
I had to get up around 9am on Saturday and go to La Linea to take the bus to Tarifa. When I arrived there it was 12:30 and the ferry to Tangier was leaving at 13:00. It was rainy, I had to run to the port and pull my suitcase, I made it on time but when I got there I was looking so wild and frantic that even the ticket seller had to calm me down that there was enough time left.
The journey by ferry took around 45 minutes and the ticket costed 34 Eur, but I had to wait for my host in the port in Tangier where I was a source of attention of taxi drivers and tour guides, I spoke with one of them in French and we waited until my host arrived. Then we went to drink some mint tea and in the evening we had dinner in a sea food restaurant. The following day we went to a market which was a bad idea because it was very muddy. Then we went to the cafe Hafa with a nice view on the Spanish coast.
I took a train on Monday to Fez where I arrived in the afternoon. My host picked me up at the train station and we went to his home and then to his work. His mother stayed with us and she cooked 3 times per day, in the morning she baked a Moroccan bread for me and then we ate either rice or couscous with sheep. I like sheep but it was difficult for me to eat it so often. My host used to go to work by motorbike, there was usually a dog sleeping on the sheet so each time when he took the motorbike he woke the dog up, but she just looked at us peacefully and then continued to sleep somewhere else.

The following day I met a couchsurfer with his friend and we visited the city. I didn't like Fez much because it is was dirty and crowded but the weather was good, around 22°C. We walked in medina and had a drink and cake in a cafe. I left to Meknes on Wednesday afternoon. Meknes was, in contrast to Fez, much better city, more neat and clean. My host showed me the city on Thursday, the weather was wonderful, sunny and warm, maybe even warmer than Fez. My host had to go to work so I walked alone to the Lahdim square, I saw many restaurants there offering tajine from 50 to 70 dirhams, but I decided that it was too expensive and went to medina nearby where I found chicken tajine for 15 dirhams. It was tasty and I shared it with a cat because it was too much food for me. In the evening I met my host and we walked around the city, then we took a taxi to his home and we played the card game called 'kdoub' with his flatmates.
I left Meknes on Friday 23rd November. One of the flatmates of my host accompanied me to the train station and I took a train to Rabat where I stayed 5 days. My host lived in Sale which is a neighbor city of Rabat. We had a great time visiting the city with his friends, going to Kasbah and medina and playing pool. However, the day before going to Essaouira I became sick because I ate too much food on the street and drank a lot of Moroccan tea, sugar cane and avocado juice, but I had to leave Rabat on 28th because I had already bought a bus ticket.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

I arrived in Sevilla around midnight and my host picked me up by car. He lived with his mother who had an Alzheimer disease, he took care of her but every day in week she used to go to a center for old people and stayed there around 8 hours. My host took me to the city on Friday and showed me around. Firstly we visited a park with pigeons, it started to rain and it was raining heavily for at least half an hour. Then we went to Plaza d'Espagna where we took many photos and then we had a lunch in the tapas bar Santa Cruz, I ordered 'potaje' which is a chickpeas soup, then tortilla de patatas, calmars and eggplant with honey which was a strange combination and I didn't like it so much.
The following day I met a couchsurfer Antonio and his guest Laura, we met at Plaza Mayor in front of 'Setas', the wooden mushroom-like building. We went on the top on this building, but Antonio could speak only Spanish and Italian and although I mostly understood him I couldn't really speak with him. Laura was translating sometimes, we went for a walk in Sevilla and then my host  joined us in the Santa Cruz bar. This time I had mushrooms cooked on wine and calmars, it was late when we got there and there was no potaje left. In the evening I drank too much Bacardi with Coke and I couldn't go out anymore. On Sunday we went to a market and then I left to Cadiz. The following day I walked to the city, the weather was sunny but colder than Mallorca. Cadiz is not a big city, I walked in the narrow streets in the center and in the afternoon I met my host, he gave me a ride on the motorbike and showed me the most interesting places there. On Tuesday my host cooked pasta with salmon in the afternoon and I took a bus to El Puerto de Santa Maria which I met my new host at the train station. He was an American guy working for a military base. He had a big house and five great cats, one of them was mother and the others her kids, two of them were siamese with cream color and black face, ears and tail. We went to an English-Spanish meeting and the following day we played frisbee on the beach and we visited Jerez de la Frontera but it was already twilight when we got there. Then we had dinner in a restaurant in El Puerto, I had an octopus salad and musaka but it was too salty.

I left El Puerto on Thursday morning, I took a bus to Cadiz and another one to La Linea de la Concepcion where I crossed the borders and walked to my host's house in Gibraltar.

Friday, December 14, 2012

I arrived in Palma de Mallorca close to the midnight on November 1st. When I got off the plane it was around 15°C at the airport, I could smell conifer trees in the air and it was humid. When I tried to get a bus to S'Arenal where my host lived I found out that the bus stopped running on October 31st because it was the end of the season. I had to wait for another bus and change it, it took around one hour until I arrived at my host's place. He was an Algerian guy and he lived in an old house close to the beach. Most of my hosts in Spain and Morocco didn't have heating because they didn't consider it necessary in winter but in Mallorca it wasn't a big deal because it was still warm at the beginning of November. The day after my arrival we went to a beach with rocks and we quickly took a bath. In the evening we went to a German disco and Latino bar and we stayed out all night, we went to sleep at 6am.
Some days during my stay in Mallorca were sunny and warm with the temperature reaching up to 24°C and even the nights were warm, some other days were rainy with the temperature only around 17°C.
I was very happy to have left Scandinavia and enjoy the late summer again. However, the sea and beach were full of jellyfishes. My host told me that if we collected them we could get 20 Eur per kilo from laboratories, but most of them were already rotten. I thought that my host would be free to show me around Mallorca a bit but one of his colleagues fell ill unexpectedly and he had to work almost during all my stay there. I visited Palma de Mallorca several times by myself, one time I met a random guy who invited me to a restaurant for diner, we ordered paella with black rice and sea food.
I also met a Czech guy there at the mass in a cathedral and we went to a cake shop. One day I took a bus to Valldemossa in the mountains, it was a sunny day but it was cold there. Another day I took a bus to Port de Soller, it was rainy so I didn't enjoy it much. Then I took a bus to Soller where I found a bar near the bus station, they had tapas there for only 4 Eur, it was tasty.
My last day in Mallorca the weather was warm and sunny again, I was sorry that I had to leave. There were no jellyfishes in the sea and I went to the beach next to my host's house and I swam there. Then I found a tapas bar nearby and had a lunch there and in the evening I was watching sunset on the beach and then I went to the airport to take my flight with ryanair from Palma de Mallorca to Sevilla on November 8th.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

I am back in Prague after 7 weeks of travelling and I am going to describe my last trip. I left Prague on October 24th, I took a bus to Berlin in the afternoon and I had to wait 2 hours there for another bus to Copenhagen. I could have also taken a direct bus from Prague to Copenhagen but it would be more expensive. The travel was good, just in the middle of the night we had to get up and take the ferry in Denmark. I went upstairs, it was windy there but the journey didn't take a long time, only half an hour. I arrived in Copenhagen in the morning and I met my host at the train station. My host was from Kenya, he was going to study so I took a bus to his flat and his flatmate let me in. The first day in Copenhagen I just slept, I was very tired. We visited the city on Friday and Saturday, the weather was sunny but cold, around 8°C. My host showed me tourist places and took me to Christiania, it was picturesque place but it was already twilight when we got there.
I had a good time in Copenhagen, my host used to cook for me and then we went to a party on Saturday and we played pool. On Sunday I met a couchsurfer from Hong Kong who I hosted in Prague 2 years ago and then I took a train to Malmo which is only 20km far away from Copenhagen. 
I spent in Malmo 4 days and the weather was much worse than in Copenhagen, it was not colder but cloudy and drizzle, only one day was sunny. My host was an Egyptian guy attempting to study PhD. in Sweden. During the sunny day we went to the castle, there was a museum which we visited and downstairs there was an aquarium and nocturnal animals. I am a big fan of horror movies so we watched them every evening on the computer. The day before I left Malmo it was Halloween and we went to a party, we danced but they played mostly R&B and Hip-Hop there which is not my favourite style of music. My last day in Malmo it was drizzling again, I was glad that I was leaving and I took a flight from Malmo to Palma de Mallorca in the evening with ryanair on November 1st.