Life-sized Pacman!

Ok, so despite the fact that I owe like a thousand posts about my travels of late, starting with the entire trip with my mom (promised but not posted!! oops!) and everything that happened since, I thought I should start now or I'd be stuck and never post here anymore...

So I thought I'd start with just a couple of pictures of my weekend in Geneva, and the great tradition they have called Le Festival Arbres et Lumières. (Or The Festival of Trees and Lights). It's such a great addition to the city, when the night comes so early and the dark hours are more than the light hours, it's nice to walk around the city and see beauty on the bare trees....

This year, the one that called my attention the most was inspired by one of my favorite games when I was a kid: Pacman!! Come on, who didn't like PacMan??? :)

 Without further ado, the pictures! :) 

 

Universal Passport

There's something that unites us crazy travelers of the world, the ones that don't ever stop and are always hungry for more. That something is our reaction to the dreaded "Where are you from?" question. We wince. We cower. We don't know how to answer it.

But finally, it seems there's an answer that would satisfy, if not our interlocutor, at least ourselves in replying: "I'm an Earthling." Simple. No complications. No explanations. Short and to the point.

I always thought borders and visas were artificial inventions that spoiled a little bit the joys of traveling. We were all born on the same planet, why should some of us have different rights than others? Following a discussion with my good friend J., he sent me a link to this Universal Passport. It's an awesome idea, and I love what it says on the bottom right corner:

"The bearer of this passport is allowed to travel freely throughout the entire planet.

As a citizen of Planet Earth, the owner of this document agrees to maintain and respect all the traditions and cultures of the lands he or she travels or lives in."

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's perfect! I just hope someday it becomes a reality and we don't need to go through full-body scans before we are allowed to border a plane. 

Travel companions

Choosing your travel companion is probably the most important decision you will ever make about a trip. Not where you're going, or for how long, or what you should take in your backpack. Those are all important considerations that may affect the quality of your trip, but nothing can make or break a trip as much as who you travel with. That is probably why most of the time I prefer to travel alone.

However, sometimes you find yourself with the opportunity of realizing someone else's dream, and you can't say no to that. So this time I decided, against all my better judgment, to travel for 40 days with my mom, and make her dream of visiting Israel and Greece a reality-- something she would never have done on her own.

The thing about travel companions is that it doesn't matter how well you know them. How well you get along in normal life. How much you enjoy spending time with them. None of those things matter. The three things that are vital in a travel companion are these: independence, flexibility, and the ability to go with the flow and not stress out. If those 3 characteristics are met, you will not have any problems. Example:

A- You want to spend a day in a museum, but your travel companion wants to go shopping instead. No problem! You go to the museum, he/she goes shopping, and you meet back at the hotel before dinner. That's independence.


B- You have a bus/train pass that allows you to travel around. You had decided to go from Barcelona to Marseille. Unfortunately the bus that took you from the hostel to the bus/train station took forever to go by, and you missed the bus/train. But you've already seen Barcelona and you were planning on leaving today, so you simply check where the next bus/train is going to, and take it just for the heck of it. After all, you've never been to Andorra before. That's flexibility.

C- You really want to continue your trip as fast as possible. You have a bus ticket for early the next morning. You're excited about it. However, you eat something for dinner that makes you feel seriously ill. You know it'll go away, but you just want to be on that bus in the morning!!! Except there's no way you can face 15hrs in a crappy bus on crappy roads puking your guts out the window.... so you just lay back, relax, and go with the flow. Another day in this little town is not what you would've wanted, but it's no big deal after all...

Any travel problem can be solved or at least endured if you and your travel companion have those three characteristics. If you don't, you're in for some seriously stressful times.

That was just a little introduction to the posts that will follow, the trip with my mom. By the very nature of the trip, and the fact that my mom had never before traveled the way I do, independence was not in the cards. Flexibility was good, and we had some good laughs about that, but the art of relaxing when things don't seem to go exactly your way is hard to achieve and only seasoned travelers have it. So we had our stressful moments. But no amount of stress can beat the joy of making someone's dream come true, and since this trip was her dream coming true, I'd have to say I'd do it all over again. :) We had some great times, saw some amazing places, met some awesome people, and the memories will definitely last a lifetime. Stay tuned for pictures and details!

--> Word to the wise: 40 days was perhaps a little bit too long though. But oh well...

Mitfahrge...what???

Now I have to mention the crazy Mitfahrgelegenheit rides I had.

First, let me explain: Mitfahrgelegenheit is a shared ride system, where you can post on a website when you’re going from point A to point B by car, how much you would charge people to come with you. Trains in Germany are quite expensive, so this is a fairly cheap and good alternative, although you never know quite what to expect. I used it 3 times in total.

The first one was short and mostly normal ride, just 2hrs, from Tubingen to Frankfurt…

The second was from Berlin to Stuttgart (which is close to Tubingen, where I was going by bus). First of all, the guy gave me a meeting point way outside Berlin, and it took me like an hour to get there, but I did, and on time. The guy, however, wasn’t there, and called me to say he would be 15 minutes late. One hour and 15 minutes later, he finally appeared, with his girlfriend, who he was going to drop off in some other undetermined location. Anyway, I’m already getting antsy because all I want is to get back to Tubingen, but ok. Then we start the trip, and he starts talking about the French, how he really did not like them, how they were mostly men with small penises and big egos, and were always trying to compensate for something. No joke. A few hours later, we stopped for drinks and water, and guess what? The car wouldn’t start again!! So we had to get out and push, but luckily it was a small car and we were on an incline, so it worked, and we started off again in a few minutes. But seriously!!!

Anyway, I was tired, and if you know me, you know that you put me in a bus/car/train/boat/plane or any other form of transportation, and I get sleepy, immediately. So I sort of dozed off. I had to make it to Stuttgart by a certain time, because there was only one bus an hour to Tubingen, and the driver knew it. He said no problem, we should make it there right on time. When I woke up however, he was pissed off and even though he didn’t say it out loud, it was clear that he expected me to stay awake and talking to him (about French men and their penises??). By this time we’re arriving in Stuttgart, and should be at the airport 10 minutes before the bus leaves. Perfect. Except the guy PASSES THE AIRPORT!!! He keeps going! And I’m like “But.... The airport!!!” and he says that wasn’t the entrance, there’s another one. But he was making it up, and we had to drive several minutes in one direction, then turn around and drive several minutes in the other direction, to finally get to the airport, by which time I had obviously missed the bus. I have no doubt he did that on purpose, to “punish” me for sleeping!! Idiot.

Anyway, the third one was from Tubingen to Berlin, with this crazy, old hippie woman, in a fairly old station wagon, and 5 people, one of which happened to be this Brazilian guy who was visiting his girlfriend. Small world. She was kinda funny, and her car also had issues (she had to manually start it by opening the hood and pumping gas into the motor!!) but we made it to Berlin safely, and she dropped me off at the corner of A’s house, which was great!!!

So I have to say that I think I’ll avoid mitfahrgelegenheit in the future, unless I really, really need it. :)

Germany... History, surprises, smiles and more old friends...

Tubingen

Hmmm… Germany. So many things happened in Germany that I’m not sure where to start. Let’s try with the beginning…


I was going to Tubingen with E. on Tuesday night, and didn’t even notice when we passed the border, although I wish I had… not that it makes much difference, but I’m a silly girl.

Then spent a week in Tubingen, going to all sorts of little places, eating out, staying in, cooking, and generally having a well deserved break… before going to Frankfurt for only one night and couchsurfing with a lovely British girl and talking for hours… next day I had a flight to Berlin, where I arrived in the evening, and was staying at A’s house.


It’s strange what happens when you see people who mean a lot to you after you haven’t seen them for a while. It happened when I saw E. in Zurich. It happened again when I saw A. in Berlin, though on a smaller scale because with E, I hadn’t seen him in 7 years, and with A it hadn’t even been a year yet. But it was definitely one of those special meetings full of memories and joy. We walked around Berlin for hours and hours, and I got to see as much of the city as you can see in 5hrs, then went home to sleep for like 3hrs, and get up at 5am to get a train at 6am and go to Magdeburg* (sorta) where I was going to spend the weekend.

 Berlin Wall... If you turn around, 

on the same street there's a sign for the Holocaust Museum.

Berlin is amazing though. I don’t know, I felt quite overwhelmed all of the time I was there. Granted, I didn’t spend much time there, but I guess there’s so much history, so many incredible and awful things happened there, that somehow my brain kind of exploded and I couldn’t grasp it all. It was a very strange feeling, and I think I have to go back there and spend a decent amount of time, read a lot, see a lot, and try to absorb some of that history, in order to feel more at ease…


The weekend in Magdeburg was great, with lots of little coincidences and a lot of laughter. I met some important people and hopefully that means good things for my future… but more on that later.

Then back to Berlin on Monday morning and straight on to Tubingen for another few days with E. before coming back to Berlin and heading to Paris to meet my mom! You may wonder (and A., this one is for you) why I’m going back and forth all the time, but it wasn’t originally planned that way… but the beauty of traveling without a schedule is being able to change it at will...

 Hanging out with C. and J. 

My last night in Germany, was in Berlin again, and I got to see my other dear friends J. and C. They came to pick me up, were totally happy to see me, and we spend a few hours talking and catching up on the last few months since we had last seen each other in Argentina and Colombia.
The next day, my flight from Berlin to Paris had a few interesting moments, but you can read about that here. 

Switzerland-- part II

Zurich

The next day, I got up early and took a train to Zurich, where I was going to meet a dear old friend I hadn't seen for 7 years. 7 YEARS!! Ok, so it's true that it ends up happening to me a lot, since I'm always going everywhere and have friends all over the place... but 7 years is a looooong time!!!

We met in Argentina (where he's from) and became really good friends very, very quickly. That's probably why we had managed to stay in touch, and I couldn't wait to see him. He's been doing his PhD in Medical Genetics in Germany, but took a week off work and came down to Zurich so we could hang out, before we went back to Germany together for a few more days before I went to Berlin.

So I arrived a few minutes before him, and was waiting at the train station. Then I saw him, and it was like we had seen each other the day before. Sure things had changed... we had changed, grown up, evolved... but we were still the same, and we realized we're just as good friends now, as we were back then.

Zurich was great... we were just staying for a couple of days, so we had to make the best of it. The first day was sunny and beautiful, and we walked around aimlessly in the little streets, looking at old churches, statues of reformers, and chocolate shops. Oh, yes...  the chocolate... ;)

City view... 

Frozen fountain which attests to the fact

that it may have been sunny, but definitely wasn't warm!!!

Us in front of a fountain...

A well deserved Starbucks break... :)

However, the second day was cold and windy, and walking around against the elements is just not fun... so we decided to go off the beaten track, and check out the Medical Museum of the University of Zurich. It was really cool, sometimes a little crazy, and pretty informative... It was also inside, which means away from the cold and the wind! After that we went to find some food, and grab our stuff and head to the train station, to get our train to Germany! 

So watch out Germany, here I come!!!!!!!!!!! :) 

Switzerland-- part I

After a lovely week in Denmark, I flew to Geneva, where I finally got my nice fondue with good friends... :) But that was for just 24hrs, before taking a train to Neuchatel, where I was meeting my wonderful friend Ewa, to go on a hike on the Jura mountains, overlooking the lake. We met a couple of her friends, took a cable car up to the middle of the mountain, and then walked the rest of the way up, through the dark, snow-covered forest, in a beautiful, quiet night, until we found the refuge, where we had another fondue! My second fondue in 2 days!! :)

Here are some pictures...

View from the cable car

The four of us on the mountain somewhere...

And the fondue!!! :)

The next day, Ewa and I went to Fribourg, stopping along the way in Morat, a lovely little medieval town by another lake, with an impressive castle and beautiful views! It was sunny and warm enough for a coffee on terrace overlooking the lake... :)

The view... 

With Ewa on the castle... :)

Then we went to in Fribourg, we had a nice, calm weekend, went to the movies, cooked great food, including some good ol' fashioned Argentinian empanadas! :) 

Me with the empanadas! :) 

Thanks for a lovely time Ewa! :) I'll be back soon to visit and have some more fun!! :) 

FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE!!!

I'll have to skip a couple of blog posts about Switzerland and Germany (they're coming, no worries) to talk about my latest fight for the rights of passengers everywhere, and my victory over annoying check-in airport employees... :)

Yesterday evening I arrived at the airport in Berlin with my nice little backpack, the same one I had been carrying around for 2 months in 7 (count them, SEVEN) low-cost flights, always as a carry-on, and with absolutely NO PROBLEMS. The bag is pretty small and even fits properly in the box they have at the airport that says "If it fits, take it on board!"

Well, the lady at the counter decided that I couldn't take it on board, and would have to pay, even though the bag WAS in the box! She argued that I couldn't easily put it in the box (which by her description meant in one move, like a nice little suitcase). This is a backpack, so it takes more than one continuous movement to put it into the box, but it fits. She said "I'm not going to argue with you. Will you pay to take your backpack, or will you stay?" I picked up my passport from the counter and left, furious, because NO, I was NOT going to pay.

So I called E. and we started talking about what to do, he went on the Easyjet website to look for their terms and conditions of carriage, and it states clearly that if it fits into the box, you can take it on board. It says nothing about how you manage to put it into the box. Now please, look at the pictures below and tell me if the woman had ANY reason to complain!!!

From one angle...

From another angle... 

The backpack is completely in the box, and you can't even see it!

So I took pictures of the backpack in the box, went back to the woman, put my phone in her face and stated that I was recording this conversation, and started to tell her about the terms and conditions of carriage stated on the Easyjet website. She wouldn't even look at me, she told me to go talk to her supervisor. I did, and again, stated that I was recording the conversation and that I had taken pictures of the back inside the box and that if she didn't let me in the plane I would contact Easyjet, customer service, passenger rights and every "proper authority" I could think of to make my rights heard. I guess she decided she couldn't really argue with me, and that if I really was going to make such a big deal, I could take it on board... so the only words she said to me were "ok, you can take it then" and signaled to the check in lady to give me a boarding pass. The lady, having lost her battle, of course, didn't even look at me, just handed me the boarding pass, and I smiled triumphantly at her and said "thank you." 

Moral of the story: don't try to cheat me of my rights. I already have so few, that I am damn right going to make them be respected! Low-cost airlines make it cheap to take flights everywhere, it's true, but they've got no right to cheat me and make me pay things I don't owe them. 

For all of you friends and travelers out there: don't let them cheat you!!! :) 

Denmark--old friends, new friends, and even older friends... :)

After a week in Italy, eating to my heart's content, I went to Denmark to visit my friend Jonas, and also get to see my friend Thomas... and since we all know that the world is a handkerchief (El mundo es un pañuelo), I also managed to meet up with Matt, a friend from the US who I hadn't seen in at least 5 years, and who happened to be in Denmark for 3 days, EXACTLY at the same time I would be there, without us having organized it as such. :) And that's not even counting the fact that Dan and Diana flew to Copenhagen for a couple of days just so we could meet up! If Italy was a food-fest, Denmark was certainly a friend-fest! :)

I flew from Milan to Billund, and had to wait for Jonas at the airport for a couple of hours... that's when I realized something, and you can read about that here .

Hanging out with Jonas and his family was great... we had great laughs, food, conversation, and always a roaring fire to warm up by from the cold outside... :) I also had the opportunity to meet Jonas' grandparents, and that gave me a great idea for a book (no joke!). We can learn a lot from elderly people, and it makes me sad that my own grandparents aren't around anymore...

We also did a little sight-seeing, went to Aarhus, met up with Stien and saw the old town, which consists of original buildings brought from all over the country to preserve the heritage of old shops and professions...

Jonas, Stien and I in Aarhus

Doesn't it kinda look like something out of Disneyland?

Unfortunately, Jonas and I didn't have the appropriate shoes to walk in the snow, 

so we had to blow-dry them to keep our feet from falling off... :) 

Then I went to Copenhagen with Thomas, who happened to be driving there on Sunday morning, and met up with Matt for the day while he gave his conference about Life-connect (which was great, good job Matt!!) :) After that I met up with my amazing host Anna, and the next day I met up with Dan and Diana and we walked around everywhere, in freaking cold, windy weather...

Copenhagen is beautiful... It's definitely a city I would like to go back to and visit with more time, preferably when it's warm!!! :) 

Interesting protest in front of the city hall:

"You don't pee in your trash can, so why throw trash in the toilet??"

With Di in Christiania

Gloomy message on a gloomy day...

With Dan...

With Di and Anna in front of the Tivoli Gardens...

And now on to more familiar territory... Switzerland!! and.... CHOCOLATE!! :) :) :) 

Italy is a food fest...

After going back to Oslo for a couple of days (and meeting this crazy, incredible guy who lost 28 years of his memory-- blog about that coming up soon!) I went to the north of Italy, close to Lake Como (where George Clooney has a house!) to see one of my best friends in the world, Joel.

The week was very mellow, and consisted on a crash course in intensive Italian, a million calories, great laughs, playing with a beautiful baby girl, and a few liters of coffee a day. Can it get any better than this?? hehe...

Here are a few pictures:

Joel and the beautiful Sunshine lady... 

Having loads of food with lots of friends...

Beautiful, wonderful food... 

Espresso... hmmm! 

Has anyone ever seen a more beautiful baby?? I doubt it!!! 

Norway- Part II = Tromsø

The view flying into Tromsø

Picture this: a Brazilian, from a city where the worst weather, in the dead at night in the middle of winter MAYBE gets as low as 10 degrees Celsius (about 50F), going to a place way above the Artic Circle in the middle of the winter, a place where the average temperature in the middle of the summer, is 11 degrees Celsius. I'll let you imagine what the average temperature in the winter is...

But I happen to have a friend there (and if you're thinking that I have friends EVERYWHERE in the world, yes, you're absolutely right, I'm lucky that way! :) ) so I wanted to go visit him... and the result is a Brazilian in the Artic Circle... :)

If I thought that Oslo was winter wonderland, I now know better... Tromsø is winter wonderland... :)

"

Joar is there, although he moved so he looks a bit like a ghost... but he's real... really!

(This picture was taken close to the ocean, on the same pebbly beach where Joar took that much better picture with his family...)

It was very, VERY cold and the wind from the ocean didn't help at all, but it was beautiful... 

I took that picture when we were leaving... from inside the car cuz by that time I was already too frozen to have the motivation to get out into the cold again... 

The next night I insisted we go out in an attempt to see the Northern Lights.... we had gotten a LOT of fresh snow during the day... and this is where my slight obsession with snow-angels (already mentioned in the previous post) kicked into high gear... :) 

I've sunk in above my knees!!! 

Falling....

Like an angel... :) 

Happy! :) 

We had a good walk... unfortunately the ski did not clear... No Northern Lights for me... :(

The next day we walked around, had some tea, went to a photo exposition and then went to the Artic Cathedral... it's an awesome place to take pictures... 

This is it from the back...

I just love this picture! :) Possibly one of the best I've ever taken...

Well, unfortunately my time in Tromsø was VERY short, but it was SO good to see my friend again, and we had a great time... But I really wanted to see the Northern Lights and that didn't happen... I left 12hrs too soon because that night they showed up in full glory... you can see some of Joar's magnificent pictures  here.

But I guess that only means I'll have to come back next winter... ;)

Norway-- Part I- Oslo

After the disaster mentioned on the last blog post, I went back to Paris where I stayed until I got on a plane to Oslo... Didn't feel like doing much, but managed to hang out with a couple of friends, and even meet a good friend of a good friend... :)

Then I bundled up and layered up with as much clothing as I could, and headed for the airport. Temperature in Oslo -5C (about 20F).

My first impression when getting out of the plane was that I had arrived in a black and white winter wonderland. Everything was beautiful and white...

(So the picture isn't great but it was taken from the bus, so give me a break...)

Arriving in Oslo, I met one of my hosts in front of the National Theater, and we went home. The people I stayed with could NOT have been more wonderful. There were 6 of them to begin with, and I had moments of great fun and interesting, stimulating conversation with each of them, and a really incredible experience in Oslo. Here are a few pictures...

Sunday morning on the way to Korketrekken with my hosts Meera, Frode and Gunnar. The 1952 Olympics used that same route for their sleigh competitions... and it was perfect weather, clear blue skies, no wind, just perfect!!!

That's Meera flying by... I stopped in the middle of the track to take pictures of people, and then when it was going to be my turn, I ran out of battery... silly me. :(

That was this crazy "let's all dance like we're in kindergarden" thing on Monday night. It happened at a pub, but there's nothing there on Monday, the place is closed, they don't even sell anything, but during one hour, this girl puts silly dance music and makes us all dance like maniacs. It was a LOT of fun!!!

The opera house by night...

That's me standing on a frozen river.... yep, that's right... frozen RIVER! See the bridge behind me? yeah, it's not cold at all over here...

After we got home I made dinner for all of us at Bianca and Ingrid's house...

Another beautiful and sunny day at Vigeland Parken, with hosts Katrina and Tine...

Jump! :)

I seem to have developed a strange obsession for making snow-angels...

Beautiful sunset over the frozen fjord... (yep, it was frozen... so much so that the boat cruises weren't operating... bummer!)

My last night in Oslo, I made dinner for my 6 hosts plus 4 friends, and it was wonderful! :)

But tomorrow, I fly to Tromsø, way  north of the Artic Circle, to visit my good friend Joar...