- 1 night sleeping on the streets on a hard marble floor during cold windy rain, in Istanbul, Turkey.
- 1 night sleeping on a sleeper train from Turkey to Greece, which felt like heaven compared to sleeping on the streets the previous night!
- 9 nights in a backpacker hostel next to a strip club in Thessaloniki, Greece
- 1 night sleeping on the couch at a new friend's house in Greece
- 1 night sleeping at an underwear party, and waking up in my undies next to a guy in his undies, not being able to remember where I was for several seconds.
- 1 night sleeping while sitting up in a packed commuter train in Greece full of old angry Greek men arguing with each other for 10 cold hours.
- 2 nights sleeping in a cold car in Germany.
- 1 night walking blind drunk after OktoberFest, trying to find a backpacker hostel to stay in, and eventually finding my friend's car to sleep in after several hours of wandering in the freezing cold.
- 1 night sleeping in a nice house surrounded by the forests of Heidelberg, Germany.
- 3 nights sleeping on a matress in a new friend's art studio in the dodgy section of Barcelona, Spain.
- 3 nights sleeping in a backpacker hostel in Barcelona, Spain, of which most people in my room were badly stung by bed-bugs, whereas I wasn't bitten cos I only spent a few hours a night in bed!
- 1 night crashing on the couch of a new friend I met on the way home from an Erasmus international student party in Barcelona, Spain.
- 1 night sleeping in Luton airport in London, UK.
It was obviously a great trip, I had an awesome time and met so many cool people and did so many cool things. Here are the details of each place I visited, if you're interested in reading:
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Day 1: (Wednesday 17/9/08)
Flight to Turkey
As usual I arrived late for the flight from Sharjah (30 mins drive from Dubai) to Istanbul (West Turkey). But this time it was cos I tried to fix a bug in our robot before I left work, and ended up leaving a bit late. But then the taxi driver got us lost so we wasted another 40 mins backtracking! So I got to the airport just 1hr before the flight, and they'd just closed the flight checkin. When I showed that I only have carry-on luggage, and they saw I'm from Australia, they managed to open up the flight for me if I promised to run to the boarding gate as fast as possible. But then then problem was I also had to pay $15 fee since I moved my flight 3 days back due to my work.
They said to run upstairs as fast as possible and pay the $15 then race back down while they process my passport, and they'll let me board the flight. So I ran upstairs, but it was actually the wrong set of stairs, and since I was in such a rush and honestly thought I was supposed to be there, I ended up getting past police security, passport control and the metal detector, even though I didn't have my passport or boarding pass, which you normally need to show at each of the 3 checks! The people downstairs with my passport had called the people upstairs at the boarding gate, telling them to hold the whole flight for me and look for me to rush me through quickly. So after getting past all 3 security checks even though I didn't have any ID and did have a pocket knife, the people from the boarding gate found me and tried to rush me onto the plane. I could have gotten onto the flight without any ID at all, with a pocket knife, and without being checked if I am legally allowed to leave the country! Considering I was born in Iran, its pretty funny. But since the guys downstairs still had my passport I didn't want to board the flight yet so I kept saying that I still need to pay my $15 fee and go back downstairs for my passport & boarding pass. When they eventually realized that I went up the wrong staircase and so I still didn't have my passport or boarding pass and yet I was at the boarding gate, they got the head of security to quickly come and figure out what to do. He was going nuts, saying how the hell could I pass the police check, passport control and metal detector without any ID! He even started yelling at the police for not doing their job properly. They managed to fix the whole thing and after throwing away my pocket knife they rushed me onboard the flight just before departure :-) I said thankyou about a million times for all the trouble I caused.
I was so glad that I made it onboard this flight, because of how everything went wrong in my 1st trip to Greece after missing my original flight by a few minutes, and then the whole trip falling apart and having bad luck for the whole trip. So I hoped I would have good luck on this trip, and I did. (Give or take a few mishaps!)
All my photos from Turkey and Greece: http://shervinemami.multiply.com/photos/album/48/
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Day 2: (Thursday 18/9/08)
Sleeping on the street in Turkey
I arrived at Istanbul at 12:30am, thinking I would just go to a nightclub all night instead of paying for a hostel, since I was gonna catch a bus or train to Greece in the morning. But it took nearly 3 hrs to get out of the airport, and I was actually in the remote airport not the main one, but luckily there were still buses to the main city. I got to a main party area at 3:30am Thursday night, cos I heard that people usually party there till morning, BUT it happened that there was a freak storm just hours before I arrived, and also cos it was 3:30am, the whole area was completely dead.
So I asked a taxi driver if there is anywhere with a hostel / cheap hotel still open, and he took me to the main hostel area in Sultanahmet. He couldn't speak much English but I kept asking for a hostel that would be around $20, cos I wasn't sure if he understood me properly, but he kept saying "yes, $20". After how much people had told me that Turkey is a sketchy country, I assumed he might take me to the middle of nowhere and beat me up for my money, but he didn't :-) He drove me through Istanbul and told me the names of lots of places as we passed them. When we finally got to the main hostel area, he said the taxi ride comes to $47! I saw on his meter it did say $47, but obviously he was charging me way to much cos I was a tourist. So I pretended that because of our language barrier, I thought he said it would cost just $20 for the taxi ride, not the hostel. We kept yelling at each other until we agreed with $30 taxi ride. Then he had a massive smile on his face and he shook my hand, as if he was glad that I bargained with him!
I walked around for a while in the narrow streets at 4am, but all the hostels where either closed or full of people, so my options were either to find an expensive hotel, or sleep on the streets. So I slept on the streets. It was still raining & cold so I walked around and found an apartment doorstep that had some basic wind & rain protection. I slept on the hard & cold marble steps until morning. The funny thing is that after spending 3 months in the middle-east desert with 45 degree heat, it never crossed my mind that maybe it will be cold or rainy on my Europe trip! So I only brought a long tshirt, thinking it should be enough, and I didn't bring a sleeping bag, jacket or umbrella. So I just had my bath towel as a blanket & bed. It was damn tough sleeping there even for a few hours. I'd done it a few times before in Australia, but I'm always amazed at how tough it actually is. I don't know how homeless people can do it every night! I was only there for about 4hrs until morning, but it felt like forever, and I only got about 30 mins sleep overall cos the wind and the hard marble floor were so cold, plus a hot business women opened the door in the morning to go to work!
When I started walking around in the morning, I realised I was in a really cool area, just 200m from the sea but surrounded by cafes & shops & people going to work or school. Turkey is a muslim country and this was during the holy month of Ramadan, when no-one should eat or drink while the sun is up. So I thought I would have mega trouble finding breakfast, even though I was starving after not eating on the aeroplane or bus ride or during the night. But luckily Turkey isn't very strict about religion, so you can still eat & drink before midday :-)
I spent hours walking around randomly through most of the town, seeing lots of old mosques, a university, and the Grand Bazaar (a massive building with roughly 6000 market stalls). I was carrying my luggage (just 2 school bags) all day since I was planning on going directly to Greece instead of booking a hostel room. When I entered the Grand Bazaar, the security cop asked to check my bags for weapons. I asked him if he knows where I can leave my bags for the day. He said he will take them back to the station for me for free, and gave me his name & number in case he wont be in the same entrance when I collect my bags.
After walking around the city for most of the day and booking my train ticket to Greece, I tried to collect my bags off the cop. I went to the police station in the bazaar, asking for him. The cops said they never heard of him and they never hold bags and he might be a fake cop, dressed up as a cop to steal things! But when I called him he did pick up his phone, and he said he is still working at the same Bazaar entrance, and so 2 cops took me to where he said he was. It turned out that he was actually a security guard, not a cop (they wear identical uniforms but with a different colored badge), hence why the cops had never heard of him! My mistake :-) The cops started giving the security guard some trouble, saying that he shouldn't be holding a civilian's bags because it could be a bomb, etc, but he kept saying to the cops that I looked like I really needed help so after checking my bag for security, he helped me out by holding my bags, and he doesn't care if the cops don't approve.
It happened that the security guard (called Ismael Polat) was about to go on his break, so he offered me to join him in drinking some tea. I ended up hanging out in the Grand Bazaar with him & the other security guards for hours. Even though it was Ramadan (no eating or drinking or smoking between midday till sunset for all Muslims for a whole month), they kept giving me free cups of tea & dates and cigarettes, and Ismael took me to the market stalls that he is friends with the owners, to get me discounts if I wanted to buy anything. After having just slept outside with just 1 long tshirt, I really wanted to buy a warmer jacket, so he took me to his brother's market stall, and they were trying to convince me to buy a Barcelona FC jacket, but I would have felt like a douche if I bought a Barcelona shirt in Istanbul, and since they were being so nice to me I bought the Turkey jacket instead. Then I bought a turkish kebab, with a drink, for $1.50! They showed me tonnes of outdoor market stalls near the Grand Bazaar with fake products, like Billabong jackets for $5, or bottles of perfume that were half full of water.
I took an overnight sleeper train to Greece, and it happened that I was put next to a pretty cool 37yr old Romanian that lives in Canada but is backpacking through Europe & Middle-East & Australia & Asia over the next year. We ended up talking for hours about computers cos he is an old-school Software Engineer, and he gave me advice about visiting Romania and I gave him advice about visiting the Middle-East.
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Day 3: (Friday 19/9/08)
1st day in Thessaloniki (northern Greece)
In northern Greece I stayed at a really nice & cheap hostel in Thessaloniki (Hotel Rex), which is probably the only cheap hostel in Thessaloniki. Even though it was the cheapest hotel I could find, it turned out to be really good. It was in the infamously bad part of town with the strip clubs & prostitutes & brothels, and was next door to a strip club. The funny thing is that there's also some expensive hotels in the area, including a glamorous looking hotel who's name is pronounced "Hotel Fer-heena". In other words, there is a nice looking hotel with the sign saying "Hotel Vergina", in the area full of strippers & prostitutes!
Thessaloniki is basically a city full of cafes & pubs, nothing else. Everyone stops whatever they normally do by around 3pm, and just sit and chat all day everyday with their friends, while drinking Frappe & smoking cigarettes, and then often stay drinking alcohol & smoking till 5 or 6am. On the 1st night I hung out with my Greek workmate Nikos & his girlfriend Eleftheria. We met up with a few of their Greek friends at pubs, watched some live 80's heavy metal cover bands, and at the end of the night, ate a special soup that is well known for being a hangover cure, but smells & tastes terrible. My mate Nikos just mentioned the soup, thinking there's no way I would want it. But I said I wanted to try it, so then he felt obliged to order it as well so it wasn't just me in misery. When the big old Greek man served it to me, after finding out I'm a foreigner, he bowed his head and said "Respect" and smiled. I knew it could only be a good sign ;-) It turned out to be a mix of lamb intestines and lemon juice, something that my Mum used to make us eat when we were kids! So I managed to not throw up, and kinda liked it actually.
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Day 4: (Saturday 20/9/08)
2nd day in Thessaloniki (northern Greece)
My hostel had a tiny computer room with 2 computers with free internet. I spent a few hours on internet, while talking to the person on the other computer: a 25yr old chic from UK, who was trying to find a laptop to buy. This is because she is a stripper from next door, and she just found out she'll be getting paid 25% more than she was originally told, at $145/night. She has an obscession with the colour pink, and so was looking for a baby pink laptop, to match all her other baby pink stuff. She reckons most pink laptops are an ugly pink, so I helped her find a decent laptop, since I am a computer geek after all! Its funny cos she could tell I was from Australia from my accent, and from my eye colour she could tell I wasn't originally from Australia. And when I told her about how I'd just been working in a strict Muslim country, she knew a fair bit about Muslims and even knew that it's currently the holy month of Ramadan, where no-one should eat or drink during daylight hours. So she seemed quite smart for a stripper. But then when I mentioned that after Europe I go back to the Middle-East, she said "What's that?" It turned out that even though she knows more than most people about Muslims & Islam, she has never heard of the Middle-East! I had to explain that its almost like a continent, made up of about 20 countries!
I tried to do couch-surfing (where people allow random backpackers from around the world to sleep on their couch for free, in exchange that they get to meet people from around the world without leaving their own house). On the Couchsurfing website I joined the group for Thessaloniki and a chic posted a message saying she's having a party for her birthday, that will be an underwear party, where you're not allowed to wear anything except underwear, but nothing sexy. I was still trying to find people to let me couchsurf their house, so I went to the party :-)
I ended up making really good friends with the people hosting the party, and hung out with them for about 1 week.
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Day 5 to Day 13: (Sunday 21/9/08)
Remaining 9 days in Thessaloniki (northern Greece):
- I went to a family concert at a science exhibit by the Greek / Australian band "Blue".
- did couchsurfing, sleeping on the couches of a few random peoples houses in north Thessaloniki.
- met a really nice greek couple that cooked for me and drove me to the train station.
- met a turkish guy and his 2 hot friends. later in the night we went to an underground / anarchist party I knew of, smoked weed, and got home somehow but we can't remember.
I met a really cool Belgian chic called Sanne, who just arrived in Thessaloniki. A couchsurfer asked me if I could show her around the town because she was busy, so I did, even though I'd only been there for a few days! Sanne had been hitchhiking through Greece by herself for 3 weeks and had already picked up enough of the Greek language while hitchhiking to talk to locals! It happened that the day before I left the middle-east, I had already quit my job so I could go travelling Europe for several months, but my boss promised me that if I return to work in the middle-east after 4 weeks of travelling, that I could join him in a new EU robotics project, meaning I'll get to work part-time in Belgium and part-time in the middle-east. I was really excited about working in Belgium, even though I didn't know anything about Belgium, so its was really lucky that I made friends with a Belgian already and she kept telling me how much I would like it there.
I ended up really liking the Belgian chic and hanging out a lot with her and the other Greek couchsurfers. One day, me and Sanne went hitchiking to a quiet village to see an old museum. The museum was pretty lame but we had a cool time anyway, hitching a few different rides and it was the 1st time I hitchhiked, even though I wanted to try it for a long time. She was really good at it, but it was obvious that being a pretty girl in a red dress makes it a LOT easier to hitchhike than being a guy! She didn't believe me until I shown her how much longer it takes for her to get picked up if she wears my sweatshirt instead of her red dress. Now she believes me!
I talked to my friend Alex in Germany, and we decided we would meet up in Munich in a few days and go to OktoberFest for a few days!
I went to meet my Greek boss in Pantelomonia, halfway up Mount Olympia. Even though my boss picked me up by car in the neighbour town from where I was supposed to get to, it took me 6 hours to get there even though its only about 1hrs drive, cos of crazy public transport issues in the middle of a sunday during rain. I tried to hitchhike part of it cos I had to wait an hour for a bus, but it was raining outside and as I was walking along the major road, a car sped past through a puddle on the road and COMPLETELY covered me in water. And then as I was crossing a road, I walked through some mud and so my shoes looked ruthless and I was all wet, so it was pretty unlikely that I would get picked up by anyone! And then on that bus, the bus driver couldn't speak any English and he got angry that I couldn't specify exactly what I wanted, so he kicked me off the bus halfway. So after 6hrs of bad travelling, I got my boss to pick me up. It was extremely nice where they were staying on the mountain, even though it was really cold & rainy & foggy.
On Thursday I wanted to hitchhike to Bulgaria for a few days with Sanne, cos it would have been an awesome experience, but since I already organised my accomodation for the weekend and paid my flight to Germany and found a cool underground / anarchist party to go to and was supposed to meet my boss at Pantelomonia, I ended up staying in Thessaloniki for the weekend, then caught an overnight train to Athens.
But unfortunately the sleeper trains were all booked out, so from 11pm till 10am, I was sitting down in a cramped train full of people in a bad mood. It was so cramped that we barely had enough space to sit down, let alone sleep in that position! There was 1 guy from India in my booth, but most of the other people were angry old Greek men, that were yelling at each other till about 4am. At once stage, the Indian guy took his sandals off, and then one of the old Greek men started yelling at him in Greek for some reason, until he put his sandals back on. Later in the night, there was a spare seat next to him so he turned sideways and used up space of 2 people. Then the old Greek guy yelled at him again for some reason. Then the Indian guy left our booth.
The next day I flew to Germany to meet up with my old housemate from Brisbane. He lives in Dusseldorf in north-west Germany but was driving all the way down to Munich in south-east Germany for OktoberFest with his friend. Not much of the trip was planned properly but we all knew we would get to Munich roughly around 29th Sept, for roughly a few days, and hopefully be able to sleep over at a friend's house.
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Day 13 to Day 17: (Monday 29/9/08)
5 days in Germany:
- On my 1st night in Germany, I went out with Alex in Munich city. We parked the car overnight in a place next to a park about 10mins walk from the city. The paid parking didnt start till 10am the next morning, and so we were planning on sleeping in the car since it was too hard to find accomodation in Munich due to OktoberFest. We got wasted at a western bar, drinking tonnes of beer and finally 2 big Calpirinias each, that were so big that I couldn't finish the 2nd one!
- We ended up walking around town wasted for ages cos we couldn't remember which street we parked the car.
- We went to Heidelberg in mid-north of Germany for 2 days, and visited Heidelberg castle.
- To save money on my trip back to Munich, I found a website that lists people who are planning to drive a long distance around Europe and are willing to take an extra passenger for a small fee. I ended up in a 12-seater car that was full of chics in their 20's and a male driver in his 30's, all the way back to Munich. My plan was to get off the car at Munich, and go straight to OktoberFest within an hour of getting there, and I wasn't sure how to get there so I was asking everyone in the car if they were going to OktoberFest too, expecting that they all would be. But only 1 chic planned on going to OktoberFest, and she wanted to sleep for a day in Munich 1st because of the long roadtrip before going to OktoberFest.
All my photos from Germany: http://shervinemami.multiply.com/photos/album/47/
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Day 14: (Tuesday 30/9/08)
OktoberFest'08 in Munich, Germany:
We had major dramas trying to find somewhere to sleep during Oktoberfest. All the hostels were booked out from weeks in advance before Oktoberfest. I went to OktoberFest with my german housemate Alex, and his friend Matthi, but neither of them live near Munich. Alex's friend Matthi knew someone in Munich that said Matthi could crash at their house for OktoberFest, and then he asked if it would be cool that my friend Alex could stay as well. So then when I tried to stay at their house too, I was the tag-along friend of the tag-along friend of their friend! But luckily they said we should be able to sleep on the floor when we get back from OktoberFest.
Oktoberfest was bloody awesome! All we did was drink from 4pm till it closed around 10pm, but it was such a joyful atmosphere, with so many people laughing and singing beer drinking folk songs and hot girls with major cleavage and carrying huge beers. I can only remember parts of the night but it was definitely better than I expected!
Videos from OktoberFest: http://shervinemami.multiply.com/video/item/116/Oktoberfest_2008_-_CIMG1097.MOV
At the end of OktoberFest, I lost my 2 german friends, and both of their mobile phones ran out of batteries, so at the end of OktoberFest I walked the streets for several hours in the freezing cold, trying to find somewhere to sleep. I didn't want to sleep on the street cos it was so damn cold, but after hours of walking around searching & asking drunk people on the streets & calling hostels, I eventually found a hostel with a bed for 50 EUR. I was going to stay there, but amazingly my german friend suddenly texted my phone, saying that he is back at our friend's place. I said I didn't know where it was, and he gave me a rough idea how to get there, even though he wasn't too sure where he was himself! I managed to get there and found him sleeping in his car.
It turned out that after OktoberFest, he wasn't sure how to get to the friend's house either, but he knew that if he followed the train tracks that he should recognise the street that he has to turn down. So he walked for 3hrs in freezing cold just wearing a tshirt, along the train tracks until he found the street! He then used his car charger to recharge his phone and thats how he told me where he is! His friend was dead asleep in the apartment, and his phone wasn't working, so we slept in my friend's car till morning, and left the heater on for a while because it was so incredibly cold.
The next morning, we woke up in the car and were hoping that Matthi would come outside or unlock the apartment or phone us, but he was still out of phone batteries. Meanwhile we tried to drive our car to buy some breakfast since we starving (food at OktoberFest was expensive so we didn't eat dinner), and it turned out the car battery was dead! It was also parked in a no-parking zone between 2 cars! So we managed to push the car into the middle of the street, but even with the help of several labour workers, we couldn't jump start the car by rolling it down the small street. After a few hours we found our friend Matthi, used his car to jump start our car, and bought food, so everything worked out well in the end and we had lots to laugh about! Especially since it took over 3 days to sober up after the 1 night in OktoberFest!
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Day 18: (Saturday 4/10/08)
1st day in Barcelona, Spain:
On Saturday night I arrived in Spain and got in contact with the couchsurfer Olivier, who said I could stay in his art studio in the middle of downtown Barcelona. I managed to get the correct 3 trains to his place, and met up with him at a cafe next to his house. But since I didn't really know what he looked like, and wasn't sure if I was in the right cafe or the right district (a lot of places in Barcelona have multiple or confusing names at first), but eventually it was all good. Olivier was really into cycling and was trying to get me into it, cos he's ridden his bicycle all the way from Spain to Hungary with his cyclist friends, and was organising a trip with his friends one day for riding all the way from Spain to Turkey! I never rode more than 5km at a time so it sounded pretty cool to me! Olivier let me stay in his art studio by myself while he would be in another part of Barcelona for a few days until his friend would arrive.
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Day 19: (Sunday 5/10/08)
2nd day in Barcelona, Spain:
On Sunday I just rested all day, trying to find what to do during the week. I tried to go out at night, hoping that there would be lots of people out in Barcelona even on a Sunday night, but it was my 1st time by myself in BCN, and it was so quiet compared to Saturday night, that I was walking around the dodgy backstreets where I was staying, and the only people around were African prostitutes, Indian guys selling beer & drugs, and the occasional dodgy-looking local. So after not finding anything for a while I started getting a little scared, so I just ate some food and went back to my room. Just as I was outside my building, someone messaged my phone to hang out, so I took out my mobile and started reading it as I was walking. At the front door of my apartment, a huge black guy on rollerblades was leaning on the front door, with his face covered in sweat, talking to an old lady. I asked him to move so I could unlock the door, and he did but then he followed me into the building.
To get to my room, you have to unlock that front door, walk through the urine filled hall for about 10 metres in complete pitch black darkness, then press the button for the lights, walk up 2 sets of stairs, then u get to my room. So when the huge black guy entered the building just behind me, I was suddenly in a pitch dark hall with him, so I figured there's a chance he lives there but most likely he's gonna mug me for my phone & wallet, and there's not much I could do about it. But surprisingly I managed to walk upto the lights quickly and turn them on and started walking up the stairs, thinking atleast he'll have trouble running up the stairs on roller blades. He followed me upstairs but the was going the same speed as me and started talking to me in Spanish and then English, asking where I'm from.
I figured he might actually live there and be legitimate, but he might still just want to mug me in the stair case, so I kept answering him as we were walking up the stairs and to my door but not slowing down. Then when we got near my door he asked me if I want a line of coke with him, cos its not much of a party by himself, and I said no straight away, thinking he might still be trying to mug me. But then when I got to my door I started thinking "fuck, I gotta take out my keys to get into my room, and he has to walk past me. If he beats me up as I unlock the door then he would even be able to steal everything in the room!" So I let him pass me while I pretended to look for my keys, expecting him to either hit me or keep walking. Luckily he just walked past me to the next door and said "Oh shit, you live here? I guess we're neighbors" and he went into his room!
In my room, I actually started thinking maybe I should go next door and ask for a line of coke, just for something to do, but I didn't cos I was too scared to leave my room or even sleep for several hours. I was surprised that I was so scared about the whole event, but then I suddenly remembered that for years while I was a kid living in apartments in western sydney, I had almost daily nightmares of being chased up the stairs of my apartment and not being able to escape or scream. Dark apartment staircases were my biggest fear when I was a kid, and here I was thinking it was going to happen to me in real life from a huge black guy! No wonder I was so scared!
From the next day on I was no longer scared or paranoid of being in the dodgy areas of Barcelona by myself and suddenly all the wierd people and prostitutes and drug dealers didn't seem scary, and pretty quickily I realised I liked the dodgy part of Barcelona more than the touristy areas full of white people! The next day when I saw my couchsurfing host that owns the apartment room, I told him about what happened and about how I thought I was about to be mugged, and he kept laughing because it turns out that the huge black guy next door is gay! Hilarious.
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Day 20: (Monday 6/10/08)
3rd day in Barcelona, Spain:
At night I found a Jazz club near my apartment, that had a live jazz band and lots of people dancing. I sat next to a group of people from France, and asked if the band was from Barcelona. It turned out the band was from Australia! After drinking with the Frenchies for a few hours, the club closed cos it was Monday night and so we bought some cans of beer off Indian people on the street, and drank on the street for an hour or so. The Frenchies were out because they were celebrating that the crazy hippie chic was moving overseas the next day. It was pretty funny, cos the crazy hippie chic Gizelle had spent years learning about ancient philosophy and therefore a lot about Athens in Greece, but when I told her that I caught a train from north Greece to Athens, she freaked out and didn't believe that Athens was part of mainland Europe. After everything she studied about it, she was sure it was on an island :-)
We chatted with 2 Germans, where 1 of them had only just arrived in Barcelona and it was her 1st time out of Germany. It was such a culture shock to her, especially since there were several Indian guys constantly trying to sell us beer or hash on the street, so she found it all really interesting. Me & the German guy were just laughing at how vulnerable and naive she was acting, as if she was a little kid, despite being 28yrs old. Then a scary looking Indian drug dealer asked her where she is from. She was so happy to be talking to someone that looks so different to her, that she innocently told him her name, where she is from, how long she's staying, where she is staying, etc. By this stage a whole bunch of Indian beer & hash dealers were chatting to her since she was probably the only European chic that they had actually talked to in their life.
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Day 21: (Tuesday 7/10/08)
4th day in Barcelona, Spain:
I had to leave in the morning from the place I was couchsurfing, so someone else could stay there. But after that, my host took me around sightseeing for a few hours, including the gothic district with a wall full of bullet holes from a massacre during the Spanish Revolution in the 1930's:
At night I went to an "Erasmus" party, which is a party for European university exchange students. It was in a nightclub and doors opened at 11pm, and cost 10 EUR ($15) entry including unlimited red wine (Sangria) so it sounded like a great deal. But of course, the red wine ran out after 45 mins, so everyone had to buy drinks for atleast 6 EUR for the rest of the night! They fooled us well.
It was a really cool party, full of people from all parts of Europe. It was mainly foreign exchange students, but there were a few randoms like me that were friends of an exchange student. There was a television crew going around a filming the party, for a show about Barcelona nightlife. The group that I was dancing with ended up getting filmed cos by that stage we were the craziest / drunkest, and they got us to yell "Go Barcelona!" to the camera with the hot TV host:
Around 4am I went upstairs where it was less hot, and ended up talking to a nice chic, Györgyi from Hungary. I didn't know crap all about Hungary, so it was cool to learn about it from such a hot chic. I was pretty sure she was only about 19, but she was actually 24yrs old:
Eventually the Hungarian chics went home I hung out with a big guy from Portugal that was the main party animal there. After forming a group of 3 of us and trying to impress the remaining ladies, the place closed at 5:30am. I was walking home with the portuges gay, and since it was atleast 40 mins walk to my place but near his place and we were both starving, he let me eat some of his pasta and crash on his couch. I explained to him about couchsurfing and how I'm trying to do it on my whole trip, and he had never heard of it, even though he was letting me crash on his couch & eat free food!
It was funny just before he went off to sleep, cos he showed me my couch and said that at 6am, one of his housemates will get up for work, so they might wake me up, but then we realised it was already past 6!
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Day 22: (Wednesday 8/10/08)
5th day in Barcelona, Spain:
I went and visited the Segrado Familia, which is the coolest looking building I've ever seen:
At night I drank at my hostel with a guy from New Zealand, then I met up with some random couchsurfing chics from Austria. We We were looking for somewhere to go on a Wednesday night, and followed 2 locals to a pub full of locals & other Europeans. I liked the place cos it had an oldschool pub feel, but the chics from Austria wanted to go to a nightclub since they said there aren't any nightclubs in Austria! So they left and I stayed at the pub, and sat with 2 spanish women in their 30s. They couldn't speak much English but it made things kinda more funny that way. One of them was decent looking and the other one was rough as guts, even if u ignored her 80's hair. I couldn't tell if they were lesbians because of the language barrier but its all good. They seemed really friendly, and even gave me free drinks cos another guy bought them a jug of beer. Eventually I said I'm leaving, and the pretty one gave me a lighter with the address of the cafe they work at.
There was a table with a guy and 2 rediculously hot chics from Switzerland playing with fake glasses that had red lights in them. I asked to take their photo with the glasses on, and a few drinks later I ended up going to a nightclub with them. The guy with them kept saying that the girls were really wild and I'm in for a crazy night, and I'll be lucky to be able to stand them for a whole hour, but it didn't bother me. The guy went home since it was nearly 5am, and I went to a nightclub with the 2 chics.
They managed to convince the security guards not to charge them 7 EUR for entry, but I still had to pay, so we split the cost. In the club, a guy wanted to impress the 2 chics and so he kept buying us free drinks, so it ended up quite a cheap night out for me! I thought both chics were only about 20, but later I found out they were 26 and 27! Man I'm bad at guessing European's ages. After a few hours of drunk dancing, where I thought I was getting somewhere with one of them, they ditched me and went home.
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Day 23: (Thursday 9/10/08)
6th day in Barcelona, Spain:
At night, I was expecting to meet up with some couchsurfers going to a Language Exchange Meeting, but I ended up drinking & hanging out with some guys from my hostel (Serhat the 28yr old Turk, Paul the 30yr old New Zealander, and Kieran and Teriy, two 18yr olds from London). It happens that Teriy is actually on the junior Barcelona FC team! He said that he lives in London but flies to Barcelona every few days for training with the team, and that in north Barcelona, everyone recognises him on the streets, but in downtown BCN not many people follow the juniors team so he's not famous there.
We went to a drum & bass night club that was 6 EUR ($9) entry but included a free drink. We thought it was an awesome deal so we paid entry, but then the club was dead even though it was 1am, and the free drink had to be from their 1 and only house beer, and that was probably the worst beer I've ever had in my life! We had to force ourselves to finish our beers just cos they were free!
Paul stayed in the club and the 4 of us left, even though more people started entering the club as we were leaving. As we were leaving the club, some drunk guy from Wales recognised Teriy from football matches on TV!
The 4 of us walked around the downtown streets looking for something to do. We ended up spending about 3hrs just walking around the streets laughing at all the crazy shit going on. For the 2 guys from London it was their 1st time in downtown BCN, and for the white guy Kieran it was his first time out of western civilization so it was all a crazy hilarious culture shock to him. To see the streets full of Indian guys selling cans of beer for 1 EUR ($1.50) each or really cheap hash, and there was black prostitutes everywhere, offering 20 EUR ($30) blowjobs everywhere, and yet there were cop cars everywhere too, trying to look for any illegal activity.
We ended up bargaining with an Indian guy to buy a cold six-pack of beer off him on the street for 5 EUR ($7.50). We drank one each but then for fun we tried to sell the last 2 beers on the street, just like all the Indian guys. And we were considering buying some hash off the Indian guys but since I managed to bargain a guy down from 20 EUR originally to just 5 EUR, it was obviously pretty bad hash! But then we found a group of locals on the street, and they ended up giving us enough for free for 1 joint.
The black Londoner wasn't allowed to smoke anything cos he's been drug tested since he was 11 yrs old! But atleast he was good at rolling a joint :-) The white Londoner couldn't believe that we were walking down the street drunk in public at 4am, walking past a police station while drinking our beers & rolling a joint and even 2 cop cars past us and it didn't matter :-)
We walked around the streets for about 3hrs, and after getting sick of being hassled by all the Indian guys to buy their beers and all the African women to hire their bodies, we decided we should try to join the free market right in front of us. So we started going up to the Indian guys, trying to sell them our leftover cans of beer for cheaper than they were offering. We managed to sell our remaining 2 cans of beer to a tourist for more than we paid for them. We also kept trying to sell our bodies to the African prostitutes, and also to a group of lesbian feminists, but alas, none of them were interested.
So after realising we can't sell our bodies to the prostitutes, we started trying to get a group discount for the 4 of us, but no-one would give group discounts. We eventually did find 2 transvestite prostitutes that we bargained down to 40 EUR for all 4 of us, before we ran away.
We also tried to convince the Indian beer sellers that some guys were selling the cans for 0.90 EUR, because there was obviously an unwritten agreement that all illegal beer sellers will sell each can at exactly 1 EUR, rather than compete for business.
The 2 guys from London kept telling the African prostitutes that if they just talked to guys at a pub, they would get much better business than just waiting on the streets, but the prostitutes kept getting angry. Teriy was especially annoyed that anytime we saw a black woman, they were always a cheap prostitute, so it didn't portray black people very nicely! At one stage Teriy almost got in a fist fight with a prostitute, cos he kept saying that they should have more respect for themselves and they kept saying that he is being rude, etc, and one prostitute got so angry she was trying to scratch him and hit him and I had to physically hold back Teriy and the prostitute apart from each other!
Just before we went home, a random drugged out guy came upto us trying to make friends and was jumping around us like a lunatic to make us laugh, and Kieran was getting into the it so then the guy put his arms around Kieran and they started jumping around together singing some drunken chant. But I could see that the random guy was secretly trying to take Kieran's wallet out of his pocket, so I told Kieran we gotta go home now and after a few minutes I told him that the guy kept trying to secretly grab his wallet, and then Kieran got scared the fuck out and was glad we were going home!
We went back to our hostel and had a heated drunken debate about the morality of bullfighting and animal cruelty.
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Day 24: (Friday 10/10/08)
7th day in Barcelona, Spain:
I checked out of my dorm in BCN, but hung out there all day with the Turk & Londoners from the previous night. We went to the beach and I swam in my boxer shorts since I wasn't carrying my swimmers.
Serhat from Turkey took us to a kebab shop made by real Turks, and so they made us specially huge Dürüm kebabs. It turns out that kebabs originated in Serhat's home town (Adana)! Pretty cool, since I've now eaten different types of kebabs in Australia, America (the worst), Iran, Greece, Germany, Turkey and Spain (the best).
At my hostel, everyone else in my room complained of bed bugs. I didn't get any bites, but I was only in my bed a few hours a day! But I did get a skin infection on my ear lobes. Or maybe I just didn't take care of myself enough :-)
I met up with my Italian couchsurfing host (named "Francisco Javier Martínez Clavijo"), living next to the mountains in BCN. He & his 2 Italian housemates took me out at night to party in Barcelona, and I got Serhat the Turk to join since he didn't have anything to do. It was a pretty cool night hanging out with them all, we went to a few different pubs & clubs and I think I got lost at some stage. I mainly just remember that at the start of the night, I got dared to do 2 shots of Absynth on fire! Which I was happy to do since they were paying :-) I don't remember much details of the night but I remember there was some issues at the end of the night when the others all went home but me & Francisco went to another club till morning.
All my photos from Barcelona: http://shervinemami.multiply.com/photos/album/49
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Day 25: (Saturday 11/10/08)
Last day in Istanbul, Turkey:
Just before arriving in Turkey, I managed to arrange a group meetup of couchsurfers in Istanbul, so that for my last day in Turkey I could meet some more locals. 2 different groups of people said they would hang out with me, and so I visited one group of couchsurfers and they convinced someone from the other group to come and join us. Unfortunately, I caught a cold during that day, so I couldn't really drink alcohol and was so tired that it took me over 1 hour to eat a kebab! But we still had a cool time visiting a few different coffee / tea cafe / pubs around Istanbul, and I got to see what Istanbul is like on a Saturday night: full of young people hanging out, and also shopping!
This marked the end of my journey through Europe, which I had such an awesome time and am really glad to have done it all and met so many cool locals and travellers. 3 hours after arriving in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), I went back to my college dorm in the middle of the desert in Al Ain, but then realised that I left my room keys with my workmate Chandan, so ended up going straight to work, incredibly exhausted !!!
