Sail Amsterdam 2010 memoire

SAIL AMSTERDAM is a festival in which beautiful old boats sail in the canals of Amsterdam. It takes place end of August every five years! Boats from all over the world gather in Amsterdam. Locals sail with their own boats, drink eat and greet other people from their boat. I went there with my friend R. who was taking pictures. And guess who was really happy to stand in front of his dslr lense!

Me!

 I was walking and chatting around with my friend, I was wearing colorful clothes and I was feeling happy not following the map - that was given to us to navigate through all the different places where boats were parked.

R. is pointing at me - I dunno why. Here you can see what I am wearing : 

a desigual skirt,

 a light blue short jean jacket pull'n' bear, 

an old  black knitted bolero

a scarf  ( I dunno if it was a stylish choice in the end, but it worked for my mood!), 

black leggings

an eastpak bag (bought 3 years ago from Vienna and travelled in most places where I have travelled:)) 

and a mng bag.

Quite a lot and not so carefully picked!But for practical purpose: water and food in the backbag. Wallet and phone in front.Scarf and leggings for the changeable dutch weather. The jean jacket when it's cold above the bolero.:P

We went on some boats and I tried out what I would do if I was a pirate like my grand-grand-father* (* that's a long story). Most boats had beautiful interiors.

All this post will be sent to Santa, because for this Christmas I want a boat. I have my island, now I want my boat.I've been nice all year long, in case you didn't notice.:)

PS.: Please do not use the photos without asking my permission (I will ask R.).

Brugges, Belgium

Brugges

Medieval, chariots with horses, flemish, old-fashioned. Keywords to describe Brugges.
I was not decided what to write about this town...It is sooo beautiful though it smells rust and chocolate in every corner (and in every hotel).
Belgian chocolate is considered art. And belgian rust is their pride and their pole of attraction for quite a lot of tourists.

oooh....
they have a lot of clothes too...but
didn't have time to pay attention there.

Great, right?

And ...
(To be continued)

Panic brings panic but granny's always there

One week ago I returned from Holland. Eventually, i visited my sister and had such a great time :) . It seems that during this year, appart for "my first adult travel" (without parents) it was the time for me to experience also "my first lonely travel"(without anyone)! My travelling experiences are increasing!

On the 27th of November I was flying to Amsterdam. I had 50 minutes to change aeroplane in Budapest and after arriving in Amsterdam I should find the train station to go to Eindhoven. It's not that difficult. During my last trip in Stocholm I faced many situations like this. So, I felt quite responsible and self confident about the whole thing. Found some company on the aeroplane, enjoyed my coffee, changed in Budapest, all perfect! I arrived in Amsterdam Shiphol airport without troubles and I was quite impatient to reach Eindhoven since i had been travelling for 6 hours!

A small source of anxiousness came when I was looking for my luggage. I had to walk a thousand miles or sth like that. It didn't seem that normal! Still I did find them and was ok again.

Then, I had already bought my train ticket, when someone approached me and asked me where could he buy tickets from. It proved out that we would use the same platform so ,while going there and afterwards, he started talking to me. He seemed quite normal and friendly, nothing to be scared about, still i wasn't in the mood for talking. I was tired and worried about picking the right train.

Some minutes after, I thought my train came and I jumped on it (well, hm, jumped is not actual since i had 15 kgs of luggage with me). He did the same too and sat next to me. I was getting a little bit suspicious about him because some minutes ago he had told me he was going somewhere else and that train had come exactly the time that MY train was coming (you cannot confuse something like 20:52 !)

However, I didn't really think a lot about it because I was SURE this was my train.
After some minutes I realised that the stations announcements were quite difficult for me to understand due to the accent and so I had to ask in order to be sure where I should leave the train. I opened the door of the next wagon (we were sitting in 4 seperate seats) and:

-Excuse me how many stations after is Eindhoven?
-Hahahahahahahahha!
-My lady, this train doesn't stop in Eindhoven!
-It doesn't??? Are you sure? (what the fuck! since i took the correct one!) So where am I?
-You are in Amsterdam. Maybe you should go back to Shiphol and take another train.

Some sparkles of panic lighted through my head.
It was around 22:00. What if I didn't make it and there were no trains after 00:00 or something? Where was I mistaken? Since initially I was so sure!

And then things started getting crazy. Everybody saying different things, some others that I cannot go to Eindhoven from here or sth else and many more things. I was totally frustrated! I was like: OH MY GOD! I managed to get lost in Netherlands!! Due to my excessive panic I couldn't think logically.

Then came this strange old woman, that was dressed like a beggar and in the beginning I thought she was some kind of street trader. She was in the train and rushed to protect me (I guess I looked lost and desperate). But she couldn't speak English! Everybody left the train and i was there with a woman that was really shouting at me sth in her language and I couldn't see anybody around appart from her! Or an exit! (that's panic).

-Oma!!! I am your oma! Don't be sad! Stay here, don't go!

That's what she was trying to say to me eventually but she was a bit awkward!
She left and came back holding two train managers from their arms, totally pulling and forcing them !!! Then she called a third one and told them about me (or I think so) and she left after sending me big air kisses! SMOOCH SMOOCH!!!

Sincerely, I feel so grateful to her. I would like to thank her wherever she may be, because she bothered so much about me. Rare people, right? So giving with a stranger!
Thank you Oma! :)


ps: Blame me for my panic!

The Wheel in Maastricht

Two Sundays ago, I was in Maastricht with my cousin and a friend from the University. And I took this amazing picture. I am still wondering how it is half so perfectly greyscale, while the sky is blue. Maybe I can practice in photoshop with it a little.
So Maastricht was amazing of course, as you can see. It looks like a french village. Yet it has a lot of life! At least when we went there! We pumped into the Philarmonic Orchestra of Maastricht that was playing forming a parade. And we found a jazz band jamming jazz around 5am in a very small cozy place, in front of a small audience, possibly their wives and children. Men around their 50's singing old jazzy songs spontaneously and full of passion! In Greece, it's rare to see an improvisation!Jazz is posh in Greece..
Later on, we went to another live country concert in a normal bar.So much fun, I danced as usually a lot!

Entrance of Maastricht

Cute! I want to have a bike painted like this.

Berlin August 2009

A lot of things have happened since the last time I wrote to this blog and I feel quite unable to describe them with words right now. I enjoy a really intense and nice life this period as I prepare myself emotionally and practically for my moving out of my hometown. I have done this before, in March 2007 where I was in Vienna as an Erasmus student, but only for 4 months.Well, enough with emotional crap, let´s talk about Stockholm Berlin 2009.
The truth is, I don´t remember what we did every day in our trip or the beautiful buildings in Stockholm. I kept merely my impressions, thoughts and feelings in particular scenes in our trip and here it goes..

BERLIN. I remember getting of the plane and taking the train to Stadt Mitte (Centr of the City) and the Metro to our Hostel. It was already dark when we arrived there and some very friendly german guys informed us that the hostel was in an underground area and that we should take care of our stuff during night. They also suggested some alternative streets to visit and some techno clubs but we had only half the next day to explore Berlin. Next morning at 11 we were in Bradenburg Gate and had an free tour. There is some group of guides around Europe that work on tip basis - you give a tip to the guide at the end of the tour if you liked it - and this seemed to work very well both for us and the guides! During our tour we saw a lot of monuments and memorials. I don't have to say much about the monuments, because I don't remember exactly what our guide said and because, you are not here to learn history from me, huh? :P School and books are better resources of knowledge, so please enjoy our photos from BERLIN!

Jews Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
This was my favourite memorial and I recognised the fact that the memorial occupies a huge square as a brave gesture of german "Volk" towards Jews.
A architecture and art masterpiece.
It also reminds me of the dutch painter Escher.
It's a must-see in Berlin.

GDR-era mural of Meissen porcelain on former Council of Ministers building,
facing Leipziger Straße

The Wall

Graffiti on the Wall
and ...
I just couldn't resist!

My first travel as an adult! part II

Hello everyone again! How 's your mood?

I am going to continue from the point I left my narration. Helped by the Stockholm Tourist Center (Visiting address: Hamngatan 27, Phone: +46 (0)8-508 28 508 (Tourist information), +46 (0)8-508 28 500 (Operator)) we managed to find one fine, cheap and cosy hotel (and that's why we shouldn't be prejudiced against hotels compared to hostels). Don't expect us to be too lucky, there was one main disadvantage. The hotel Quality Winn was located outside the city so it took us around 30 minutes each time to get back to our base. However, we were exhausted, hungry and we wouldn't allow this small detail to ruin our mood even more.

Although the night went on in a pleasant way, I cannot help but remember that our series of unfortunate events hadn't finished yet! And so, during our return to our hotel we got lost (this happened many times in general) and a taxi driver would have sent us far away from it if one us hadn't remembered the correct track. Let's go on with mentioning the "black spots" of this travel which form the "black monster" that tried to eat our excited mood!! After we lost one of our bank cards and one of us experienced a wasp bite, we wandered around Stockholm looking the answer to the question: "How can someone use the public bikes?". After 5 tiring, walking and asking hours we had the bike cards in our hands (you can make a bike card with the use of your identity card in the Central Station, around 15Euros for 3 days, a very nice experience :) ). Black point: by that time the museums that we were interested in had closed :( (most museums close around 5 o'clock!).

After many enjoyable bike rides around Stockholm (especially in the beautiful area of Skansen) we fought. Actually, our nerves were stretched and everyone found something against the other so we had a terrific fight inside the train. By the next morning everything was solved in our relationships, our bad luck was still dealing with us though.... That was our last day and we were hoping to visit some museums but hadn't noticed that on Monday most museums are closed. Music Museum, Vasa Museum, toys Museum, Science and Technology Museum -> all closed!

Our flight was at 04.00 in the morning, so we had to find a bar or sth to spend our night. A very cute blues bar hosted us and we were excited to listen to live music and afterwards Stockholm's streets proved to be very hostile :P. We couldn't find a satisfying bar and ended up in MAX burger house where I slipped on some shit and one of our friends threw by mistake a couple of tables !!! Our mood was touching perfection and the night was still long.... :P Sleepy as we were (and add to this that I had an aching foot due to narrow shoes) we lost our way to the T-Centralen and after we found it, took the train to the airport and finally got on board, we experienced a shaking-trembling flight.

Aren't you jeallous yet? :D

I really should write lots of post to describe all of our wonderful moments as well but what's the use? What is memorable is what is unique and do not doubt about the uniqueness of such a series of unfortunate events ;)

:) :)

ps: Travelling is the essence of life!!!



One little note! If you 're planning to visit Stockholm, visit this site and its brochures:
http://www.visit-stockholm.com/
Really helpful!

here are some photos of the jazz-blues bar we went to:

My first travel as an adult!

Hello Everybody!

We have been away for the last one week. We were on vacation! Specifically, we travelled abroad in two cities: Berlin and Stockholm.
Actually a couple of years earlier all I was dreaming of was a long interrail travel across the europe, for example Stockholm-Amsterdam-Paris-Barcelona-Rome-back to Greece. I can get really excited with the idea of wondering without limits and besides that, I believe that a travel above all is a journey for somebody's soul, a didactic experience. So, last year I started organising my special journey that would last 21 days. Without entering too much detail I have to say it never happened :(. Disagreements, practical and economic obstacled didn't allow my dream to come true (although I still keep it somewhere in my mind's closets ;) ). After all, during June 2009 we rushed to organise and book flights for a smaller trip and so, it was 215 Euros Thessaloniki to Berlin with easyjet and 30 Euros from Berlin to Stockholm with ryanair (all tickets including return). Thus, our final programme was: 1 day in Berlin, 4 days in Stockholm and the last day as well in Berlin before our return flight!

A very special characteristic of this travel was the fact that nothing at all seemed to go the way we had imagined it would. Of course we have to admit that we didn't really organise our actions. After booking 3 seperate hostels (2 for Berlin and 1 for Stockholm) we just let the summer pass without much thought over the excursion until the flight day! As soon as we arrived in Berlin a couple of German fellows informed us that our hostel is located in an area of high criminality. Well, MEININGER Hotel Berlin Hallesches Ufer was a fine hostel but we didn't really like the information we had just learned. Among the few plans we had made was to make a small air-balloon flight. After our free tour (read Alice's post 2 posts above!) we realised we couldn't because we had forgot it was Friday evening, a non-flying hour for Air Service Berlin. When we returned from Stockholm, during our last day in Berlin we couldn't fly as well because Air Service Berlin claimed it was a too windy day at 150m. above! So, no air ballooning.

After our no-air-balloon experience we hurried to check out and arrive at airport for our 21:55 flight with Ryanair. After we repacked and took many of our stuff in hands/handbags because the weight limit per bag is 15kgs, we eventually took off. During the flight, while I was looking my leaflets with information over our Hostels I just noticed this small though important note:

‘Rygerfjord Hotel and Hostel,’ a former cruise ship, floats by the banks of trendy Södermalm, minutes away from the centre of Stockholm and within easy reach of public transport.

So we were staying in a boat?!?! Hmm..... Some of us were suspicious and some were enthusiastic. Well... the time was approaching. Of course there was no public tranport and the exchange spots were closed when we arrived in Stockholm and our taxi driver made some fun of us when we told him our adress. "This is not a hostel, this is a boat!" Well, what's the problem with a boat-hostel?! Old interior, small rooms-cabins, shared bathroom for a whole ship, floating dizzy sense, lots of insects, dirty sheets. 2 of us stayed awake all night and early in the morning went out looking for another place to stay. Nothing. All hostels within Stockholm were booked, plus we had to wait until 10am for the Tourist Info Center to open.

Well I now have to leave so I will continue narrating about my adventurous excursion later. Until then farväl!!!

:) :)