Snozzenstein

Anyone who likes anything electronic needs to get hold of this new game...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIP7djqpeK0&mode=related&search

Right, I'm still waiting for my bank card. It's absolutely disgraceful and I might set up a fuckbarclays.com website but I'll probably get a ticking off for slander and god knows what they'll do to me. So I'm withdrawing all my money by sending it to a relative by cheque and then picking it up. Ridiculous, I know but it's necessary to get travelling - I can't wait forever for this bloody bank card.

I've spent the whole month arseing around waiting for my card, doing a bit of work and getting drunk on the odd occasion. Party at Wojtek's on Fridays was carnage, went a bit crazy on the Slivovice and lost my trousers, nearly fell out of their 8/9th floor window (someone had fallen asleep in the toilet, so me and some of the boys had attempted to relieve ourselves from it), then later was unable to stand up properly and injured my nose by falling on it presumely. It's a bit of a mess, yellow sprawling mess of a cut- very reminiscent of my younger days. Couldn't find the bus home and ended up changing twice before getting a lecture on the public transport system of Warsaw and how it was better before 1984 by some old guy.

Disgraceful hangover on Saturday and it's still going today.. I think I nearly drank myself to death. Not good. Today, I spent the best part of 3 hours cleaning up the kitchen because Sylwia forgot to put a pipe (ass of the washing machine) into the sink, so it just pissed water all over the kitchen, only I was in the shower and didn't notice for ages.. so by the time I came, it looked like the bloody Nile had burst it's banks in to our kitchen.

Well.. I'm heading West tomorrow, got a flight from Hamburg to Toulouse with GermanWings on Wednesday, aiming for somewhere like Szczecin or Swinoujscie or maybe even Berlin tomorrow night. If I can find a host, that is.

Hardcore hitching

Pissed off at yesterday's hitching I re-considered my route, I want to get out of Italy as soon as possible and this place is really not far from the Swiss border. I had also found out that there had been a death in Sylwia's family, I'd intended to go back to Warsaw to the funeral but she said "read my e-mail". So I thought I'd go to Wien where I could read the e-mail, work out whether to go to Warsaw and if not, head to Romania.

I hitched a small ride out of Edolo and then caught a truck that was going to Trento (that's right on the border), I caught a number of rides to the beginning of the Benina Pass and then another up to the beginning of a hiking pass.. although tempted to hike through the mountains, it's incredibly snowy, a long way and generally a bad idea, so I stick to hitching. I get a ride from a truck going through the Benina Pass to St.Moritz and beyond. The truck with chains across its wheels is making an almighty racket as huge amounts of snow fall onto us from the mountains, I'm glad I'm not walking here! This road is crazy, it's one of the nicest I've ever been on. I get dropped off by Saint Moritz and hitch about 12 different cars to the Austrian border, all kinds of people are stopping for me.. old men, women, trucks, Italian Swiss, German Swiss, French swiss! I never had to wait longer than 5 mins for a ride and it was great! The swiss were great and I loved hitching there, beautiful country! A wholly wunderbar experience.

Right by the Austrian border, I had a piss next to a sign which said "Native Spirit".. it was too tempting to resist. It's their fault for having an ambiguous sign. As far as I can work out, it's a group of hippies dressed in face paint, running around with bows and arrows. You can find the website here http://www.native-spirit.at/

Got a ride to Landeck in Austria and that's when the hitching became harder, waited about 40 mins there and got a ride a few km up the road to a petrol station. It was a bit chilly but eventually, some germans called me over and said hop in, we're going to Munich. They were driving in two cars, one full of guys and the other full of girls, the girls are a bit surprised when the man I was talking to puts me in the cars with all the girls! Nice enough girls - bit boring though, Vee Verr in Svitzerland, Jahr... Vee go Munken Jahr, Mein name ist Gertha, they gave me a bit of food and dropped me off just before Innsbruck.

What a miserable tankstelle, that turned out to be.. I'd do anything to switch back into the car going to Munchen with The Gertha's. Waited from 18.30 to 01.00am, originally looking for a ride north of Innsbruck, going to Salzburg, Rosenheim or Linz. Around 11.00pm, I had a little look around for somewhere to sleep, nothing going though.. so continued hitching. Eventually an Iranian guy took me to the Krankenhaus in Innsbruck, can't kip there though.. it's the Children's Ward. I walked around Innsbruck for a while in the early hours of the morning and finally found the train station, this place is perfect for sleeping. Loads of warm waiting rooms and no mentalists as you expect in most train stations. Infact, it was mostly filled with backpackers saving money by not going to the hostel or waiting for trains in the middle of the night going to Beograd, Budapest, Praha etc.

I thought about sleeping but like in Italy, I was pissed off with Austria and wanted to get out of there asap, I hate Western Europe (except Switzerland!), so I took a look at my map instead. Noticed that Linz was near the Czech border, hitching in Czech Republic was always a breeze for me, so I find out how much a ticket is to Linz, great.. I've got just enough!

I thought I had 3 and a half hours to have a sleep on the train but it never happened, the compartment was freezing and the lights kept on getting turned on. Get off in Linz at about 5.55, and look around the train station, there's an Internet Cafe opening at 07.00 am and an hour is supposedly 1 euro, so I'll wait for that to open and in the mean time work out how to get out of the city. Having not slept since Italy, I'm getting a bit tired but a coffee costs 3 euros, so fuck that! Internet - 1 euro? what the fuck, it's 5 euros for an hour, grrrrrrr.. disgraceful country, Austria!

I use it for about 10 mins and then start walking to the outskirts of the city (incidently, if your hitching out of Linz to CZ, just catch the bus no.33 until the last stop.. it would have been much easier). I try hitching onto the highway a couple of times but no success, so around 10 am, I think about getting to a cash point to get some food! Only problem is, i couldn't find a cashpoint, so I walk back about 3km where I saw one.. and what the hell? I've lost my bank card! How the fuck did that happen? Grr, i've not even been pissed this time.

Walked back 3km and began hitching, had to walk another 1km and finally got a ride around 11.30am, a combination of walking and hitching really small rides and I eventually got to Gallneukirchen. From there a ride to Freistadt and after realising I was holding my CZ sign the wrong way round, I got a lift up to Kaplice in Czech Republic. 5 rides got me up to Praha by about 17.30 and the last car dropped me in a good place having been a hitchhiker himself, I soon got a ride to Hradec Kralove.

In Hradec it was absolutely pissing it down and I was a bit fed up but a Polish car stopped and took me to the border at Nachod/Kudowa Zdroj. An old guy (who wanted to Napalm the Arab World and America in order to stop them selling petrol which would then stop global warming and stop Europe from sinking.. strange strange stuff!) but his son was much more peaceful and they invited me to stay in Kudowa Zdroj with plenty of moonshine and whiskey. I decided to continnue hitching though.

I had a bit of money on me, so finally had something to eat and then observed some strange stuff (2 gun shots went off and then two people legged it across a car park and over a fence at the TIR park, then a man in one of the Exchange places discovered his car tyres had been flattened, lots of shouting went on but I just ignored it - not really sure what happened!). After 4 hours though, a car took me to Wroclaw.. the guy had been to Praha airport to drop his friends off who were going to Sheffield (my birthplace)! He'd worked there and loved the place, wouldn't stop talking about it! Cool guy, he dropped me off on the outskirts of Wroclaw, where I waited under a bridge because it was pissing it down for 3 hours, it seemed much longer though.. perhaps because I'm not used to waiting such a long time in Poland or maybe because I hadn't slept since Italy and the road was empty... either way I had a strange experience, saw a guy walk up the stairs and across the bridge, then come down to my side, he looked a bit dodgy.. I kept an eye on him and he was looking at the bus time table, I stuck my thumb out for a car.. turned around and he was gone.. but there was no way he could have left to anywhere in that time! About 30 minutes later, I smelt a strong smell of aftershave, so turned around expecting to hit the guy but there was no one there!!

At 4.15, a car stopped and drove like a maniac to Warsaw, I finally got 2 hours sleep and I was at Janki by 7.45 and then caught a bus into the centre and that was the end of a bastard hitch!

Jan 2 - Monday bloody Monday!

I saw Sylwia off on her flight at 12:00 and the plan was to get onto the motorway that was right next to the airport. Shouldn't be a difficult task really??? I prepare a sign for Venezia and stand just outside the airport, hopefully someone is going!! I intend to hitchhike to Ljubljana, I have hosts there and in Pecs, then in Romania, Bulgaria and even in Istanbul. Should be a good week.

That was in theory though and what was going to happen was a bit unexpected!! After waiting 2 hours, I get bored and walk up to the beginning of the highway, I wait there in the sun for 1 hour and get my cheeks red (face not ass), traffic is too fast and it doesn't look as though somoene is going to stop any time soon. I take a look at my map (a Europe map which can't always be trusted, big roads look small, small roads look big and places are not always where they look like they are!).. I began looking for an alternative route and it looked like I had one.. I'll head to Bolzano and then pop into Austria, going to Lienz, Spittal, Villach and down to Ljubljana, should be ok I think!! Or perhaps not?! I walk through Bergamo for about 6km and visit the bank machine and the shop, stocking up on supplies for the journey ahead (bread, cheese, mini pizza and some water).. at the edge of Bergamo, Seriate starts. Seriate was a nice looking town and I enjoyed walking through it, I began hitching from the outskirts. An hour passed and still no luck, I was just getting irritated by annoying Italians on their scooters beeping at me. I walked up through Albano Sant Alessandro, all the time hitching.. to no avail. After 18km of walking from the airport, I was at a junction in the road where there had been a car crash and managed to get to a ride up along the northern shores of Lago d'Iseo (stunning at night) to Pian Camuno.

A car picked me up from Pian Cammuno and took me back to the main road but further up, the traffic was going too fast and it was too dark for them to see me, so I tried my luck at the beginning of the road. After waiting for quite a while, no luck - fucking Italians are pissing me right off!! The previous driver had told me that there was a mini train going up the valley to Edolo.. on my map this looked like a town on the main road to Bolzano and looked like a good option. I asked a man who was faffing about with a hose pipe where the station was and surprisingly he took me to Darfo in his car and to the station.

20.30: I board the train for Edolo, it's not busy - just 5 other people in fact. The conductor explains to me that I'll have to get off at Breno, since we're going by bus.. there's something wrong with the train line further up the track. For the last 20km of the journey, I was the only person on the bus.

Tried hitching out of Edolo but there were no cars at all, I ask at a Pizza place if I can sleep there but he turns me down, and tells me to go to the Piazza, apparently there are hotels there. Hmm, sounds expensive. The train station is closed, and Edolo (in a beautiful location in the mountains).. is fucking freezing. Eventually I find the main square and I stay there at the cheapest hotel, not as cheap as I'd like mind.. and the "breakfast" simply consisted of stale bread and nothing else.

Happy New Year - Jan 1/2

Happy 2007 everybody! I've got one resolution only and that's to travel much more than the last one and to plenty of new places. Here's a little summary of the last couple of days. Well it turns out that the country region that my parents live in don't celebrate New Year! There wasn't a firework to be seen or a cheer to be heard and I actually failed to notice the clock strike 12! We ended up celebrating it at 01:00 am (Midnight in UK). Actually got to bed relatively early at 02.30 after escaping from any more Pernod.

Woke up at 07:00 to leave for MILAN! Which is about a 1000km away, the first lift of the day is from my dad who takes us about 5 hours away to the highway! It's a good job because all the roads passing through Villefranche, Rodez, Mende, Le Puy to St.Ettiene, were as dead as a dead person's sex life.

From St. Ettiene we hitched a car from the petrol station to Lyon with some Algerian looking dudes, they dropped us off in a good spot more or less, just had to climb a small embankment and walk along the road a bit before stopping another car - this time a pompous old git (thanks for taking us though :-)), with two kids in his car who took us to the Peage.

At the peage, we caught a ride to Chambery with a stereo typical old french bloke playing mad music and talking to me with a funny accent. From there we caught a ride to the Torino suburbs with a youngish Italian couple. An hour of waiting (after getting a bit worried due to noticing that the station wasn't a 24hrs one) and then another young couple stopped and took us to Milan in a very flash car.. (had a tv screen and went like shit off a shovel)

Catch the metro into Milan Centre, have a bite to eat and then get on the airport bus to Milan (Bergamo).. (can't remember the real name of the airport but it sounds something like Orio .. I thought they were biscuits though). So we're at the airport at 12.00 am (that's 13 hours before the flight after unbelievably quick hitching on a Sunday and on a holiday - insane, I'll have to wear that mini skirt more often!)

At around 01.00 am, we were rounded up by security and there was mutterings about tickets, this got me a bit worried since I wasn't actually boarding a flight and didn't feel like sleeping outside.. it was cold. About 30 people (everyone in the airport at that time) were moved to a terminal for charter flights, the security were acting like right little mussolini's talking only in italian and just pointing to random things and we could have been being rounded up to a concentration camp for all I knew. A flight to Bradford (all of places) had been delayed by 14 hours by weather conditions. We slept on the floor in a sleeping bag and at 3.30, were ushered back into the other terminal again. Fuck sake, I just wanted to get some shut eye. Unable to sleep on the shitty steel chairs, I read until 7pm and then dozed off for 30 mins. Looking forward to leaving Italy, everything is expensive.