Month: december 2008

A hitchhiker’s guide to Paris
On december 29th, I decided to hitchhike to Paris together with my brother. Just so, without any real reason (perhaps a visit to the museum Orsay, I thought). It turned out to be pretty easy: we caught our rides quick enough to arrive in the City of Love at night. Taken into account the fact ...
Merry Christmas
I wish every reader of this blog a very merry Christmas.

Especially for my Russian readers and friends, with many thanks to Lena, here is a rhyme I learned:

У ПОПА БЫЛА СОБАКА,
ОН ЕЕ ЛЮБИЛ.
ОНА СЪЕЛА КУСОК МЯСА-
ОН ЕЕ УБИЛ,
В ЗЕМЛЮ ЗАКОПАЛ,
НАДПИСЬ НАПИСАЛ, ЧТО:
……

keep on ...
Katowice to the Netherlands
Finally, a bus picked us up and drove to the Polish border. Border control took about two hours, they really took their time. But I didn't care, because they played a movie on the in-bus television screen. It was a Russian remake of the action movie "commando" (1985), called "День Д"(Day D), brainless entertainment.
It ...
Kiev to Lviv
After visiting the beautiful Crimea, I took the night train back to Kiev, where I spent a few more days writing and hanging out with very kind Ukraineans. My plan was to go hitchhiking to the Netherlands to celebrate Christmas with my family. Since I had good experiences fetching a ride up north, I thought ...
Crimea. Sebastopol and Yalta.
It is easy to visit the Crimea from Kiev. There is an overnight train leaving from the main station of Kiev, and arriving in Sebastopol about 16 hours later. I paid 240 griven (about 25 euros) for both ways, which was not the best bargain you could get at the time, but still cheap. The ...
Kiev #2. A walk through the city.
Another day spent writing in a kitchen, drinking cinnamon tea and concentrating on the narrative of my book. Life's good. In the evening we went to the center (the apartment I stayed in was half an hour by maschrutka or minibus from the historical Kiev) for a walk. We saw the churches and buildings of ...
Kiev #1. мистер снек.
The trainride was comfortable, and the other three guys on the bunk beds in my compartment were very friendly. They offered me some cold chicken for dinner. We spoke in some kind of Russian-English that I came to like as the train rushed to the Ukrainean border. We went to bed, only to sleep a ...
Moscow #3. A Tsar Park and Stalin Towers.
My last day in Moscow had come; the train to Kiev was already booked (thanks to Ann!) and I had opted to see some more things in this amazing city. My original plan was to visit some cities of the golden ring, north east from Moscow, such as Suzdal and Vladimir, but I decided to ...
Moscow #2. Great Art Collections.
The next day I visited the Pushkin museum, where I saw another vast collection of European Art. Especially the Dutch floor caught my attention, and in front of Rembrandt's Old Lady I just had to spend several minutes. This canvas is just so great!

After the visit of this remarkable collection, I met with ...