coro (venezuela) + cartagena (colombia)

so it's been a while since i last updated this, and a new entry is very much needed...from choroni i took the fun bus up and then down the mountains through the henri pittier national park and then, after a couple bus rides, i finally made it to coro, on the northwestern caribbean coast of venezuela, just in front of aruba, curacao and bonaire (netherlands antilles), which used to be served by a ferry (i know, inviting, right?!)...coro is famous for its colonial architecture and the medanos de coro, a series of big sand dunes right outside the city center! when i arrived, on dec 24th late in the evening, the city was crazy with shoppers and music and the atmosphere was pretty hot...i was pretty hot too, since i got bit by mosquitoes really bad in choroni, and my legs were on fire!!! but yeah, i stayed at this cool place whose owners are architects who studied abroad, and i spent christmas eve with a venezuelan family, 2 canadian and 1 spanish girls, plus the hosts...it was very good, we exchanged "cheapo" (chimbo) presents and it was funny!!! then the next day i made it to the medanos, the giant sand dunes, and i was blown away! it seemed like a real desert, although i've never been to one! the whole sand dune phenomenon is very interesting and philosophically intriguing to me, plus i got to be by myself in the middle of just sand and wind for a while...hehe then later in the day i made my way to maracaibo, spent the night at the bus terminal there, and then eventually made it across the border to maicao, colombia! the bus we payed to take us to the city terminal left us in the middle of the two immigration checkpoints, so me and 2 brazilians had to bargain our way out of there somehow...and we were in the middle of no man's land, the place looked pretty scary if you ask me! we had to pay for an overprived bus ride to...the terminal, only to wait 2 more hours there before we could get on the road for real...so then we arrived in cartagena only pretty late in the evening, had again to fight with taxi drivers and whatnot to make it into the center...the hostel i was going to stay at was full, so i looked around for a bit and decided to settle for a very cheap and kinda shady looking like place...where they got into my room while i was showering and stole my cell phone!!! fuck them!!! fuck colombia, i thought, i am getting the hell out of here! but then again, i should have put a lock at my door right away instead of going for the quick shower...so again, i guess it could be kinda my fault...and then out of the things they could have stolen, the cell phone is by far the least important to me! but you know poor people all over the world love cell phones, so let them have it!!! i spent a day at the police, next to a guy who was handcuffed to the wall and had stolen and crashed a motorbike while on some sort of glue kinda drug, and he was rapping for me to beg for some change since he said he needed it in his next 5 years in jail...well my day spent in frustration and anger didn't really produce much, and then my brother finally reached me, so i could start forgetting about the whole incident and focus on my trip...because cartagena is truly an amazing town...a port town (like marseille, france, the other place where i was robbed...of my hanky!!!), but a beautiful one! as a port town, it has the whole range of scary-shady-weird looking-etc people that always follow you and bug you and offer you all sorts of drugs and girls (i've never been offered by so many prostitutes before in my life!) and whatnot...which gets pretty annoying if you ask me...but then again, the city center is really amazing, old and beautiful!!! we went to check out boca grande last night, which is the part of town where the moneyed colombians stay...and it looks so much like miami beach it is pretty scary!!! today we walked around all day and we're pretty exhausted, but i had a blast eating arepas and mangos and cheese off the street vendors, bargaining our way through some burned cd's with vallenato, and stuff like that...the smile of some colombian girls is unexpectedly very rewarding and surprising at times! well anyway, tomorrow we're going on a full-day boat excursion to the islands of rosario around the bay, then to playa grande, a beach not too far from here...and then the next day we're supposedly going to this mud volcano where you can swim in and have "mud fun"! hahah we'll see how that goes...i am seriously looking forward to getting out of a touristy place and feel more like i am in a more colombian place...

caracas + choroni

so caracas, i need to write more on that...the contrast between poverty and misery and wealth and consumism is really evident there, after 10 whole days in the country i had never seen the kind of people i was rubbing shoulders with at the numerous malls of caracas: those are exactly the same as the ones in miami, the people as well...plastic surgery and a lot of importance to looks and brands...the center of town was really crazy though, a unique experience of overload of sounds, smells, people and things everywhere...i kept walking around the same block trying to find my way around, while watching for my stuff and trying to find something to eat!
i enjoyed the center of town, then i went to miraflores, the armed forces headquarter, and while i was taking pictures a soldier approached me asking me for my camera...to make it short, i unbelievably made my way inside the heavily-protected building just because of my innocent picture...and all because they had to check my identity or whatever! the president of ecuador was visiting chavez, so security was tight...plus the situation, and the city in general, is just very electric and it feels like it could explode at any second! that's one of the things i think i liked the most about it, the energy...there's so much energy that it either "kills" you, or it rubs onto you and you can feel it too...and i did while walking through piles of trash, completely surrounded by people, things, vendor stalls, food smells, car horns, you name it, it was there...moreover, the city's setting is spectacular, with the avila dominating everything that goes on...
i luckily made my way out of town without any damage or loss, and finding myself enjoying the mess/chaos/energy, you can call it whatever you want...
then we had some interesting experience on the bus out of town: a tire went flat right on the highway, and the noise was so loud i woke up and got up like everybody else...we thought the thing was going to catch on fire, and i am afraid there isn't much as far as safety there! but it was just a flat tire, and boy, was the tire was smooth and worn out!
from maracay i got on a fun, old american schoolbus with the interiors spraypainted a fluorescent green and turquoise, and we slowly made our way towards the beach with reggeaton blasting through the sound system...we entered the henri pittier national park and drove up to 1830 meters, only to descend through woods and fog all the way down to the beach! it was really fun, and it wouldn't be the same without the music and the crazy driving!
so now i am staying in choroni, technically puerto colombia, this touristy town that is surrounded by mountains and woods (the parc itself), the beach is really nice too, but i took a fisherman's boat to chuao, a town that i had to walk 4km inland to and that is famous for its cocoa...it was surrounded by cocoa plantations so i got to see cocoa "seeds" really up close...then i took another little boat to playa cepe, a semi-secluded beach that is surrounded by palm trees, it was all very enjoyable...
tomorrow i am going to coro, a colonial town, to spend christmas eve at this place where i am going to cook myself up a feast and then sleep, for the first time, on a hammock...and from there on christmas day all the way to colombia passing through maracaibo...so merry christmas everybody!

santa fe + caracas

after finally leaving merida, i embarked on a fancy super air-conditioned bus to caracas, slept super nicely, only to wake up to the mess and chaos that is the capital of venezuela. luckily it was still kinda early in the morning, so it wasn't too too bad,...yet, i had to catch 2 buses and 2 metros to switch bus terminals, and with all my crap it was quite the adventure...without mentioning what i saw on the street, as far as piles of trash and everything else...i finally made it on the bus to puerto la cruz, and then to santa fe, a little fishing town on the border of the mochima national park...it's a one-street town, with all the travelers staying by the beach...i had a nice and cheap room 5 meters from the water, it was awesome! well, yeah i also had to kill 3 cockroaches in 2 nights, but that's just part of the deal! i got to meet some travelers, although the place was not swamped with foreigners, which is always nice. it was actually pretty peaceful and enjoyable; the first night we had a crazy crazy sunset, and then the next day i went on a boat trip with some germans (which, besides spaniards, are all you can find as far as travelers) and it was fun. we snorkeled at this place between two islands called La Piscinita, because it does look like a pool: super clear water surrounded by coral reefs...and i'm definitely not an expert at that, but it was pretty nice...i also got my back sunburnt, but that's partly my fault...the rest of the day was spent at an isolated beach with the germans and 3 basque guys, and it was pretty enjoyable! nothing much but bathing, tanning and taking pictures of the iguanas that were coming to be fed by the tourists!
then i left santa fe and made it back to caracas, where i've been staying for the past 2 days...it is the most latin american place i've seen so far, which means the place where the contrast between stricken poverty and in-your-face wealth is the most evident...i walked into one of the several malls around town to discover a new kind of people i had never ever seen before in the streets! and tonight i went to this other mall that was just out of the ordinary!!! i also went and took pictures of miraflores, the palace where the army resides, famous for the coup in 1992, and got caught by some soldiers, since they were very alert because correa, the president of ecuador, is visiting at the moment...so i had the chance to go inside...
>(to be continued)<

late night conversations in venezuela.

i like to talk to locals when i travel and discover new things or perspectives, opinions, whatever it may be...so i have been asking people, ones i felt confortable asking to, about chavez mainly, and venezuela in general...tonight i finally found somebody young that said they did not like him...she thought there is a whole lot of propaganda and not that much is being done...not more than some other presidents have done in the past at least...and that chavez really has polarised politics in the country by making a lot of people worship him...so now people either religiously adore him, or straight out hate him, nobody can be neutral anymore...
but the most interesting part about our conversation came about when they mentioned gas prices here...keeping in mind that venezuela has the largest quantities of oil after saudi arabia...well, gas (petrol) here costs 80 bolivares per liter...roughly 4 Euro cents!!! it costs way less than water...where can you find a place where water costs more than oil?? it is plainly mind-boggling to me...it costs less to fill up a 2-liter bottle with oil than with water!!!

merida, venezuela.

i am here in the andean town of merida in venezuela, and i am loving it, but i will try to backtrack and say something about the previous days...
from bogota i got on the "wrong" bus to cucuta (colombia-venezuela border) and that's where my bad luck started...the bus took a hell of a long time, stopping everywhere, going through the backroads and loading passengers anywhere!!! so throughout the same night i probably had at least 5 different people sitting next to me! i was looking forward to riding through the colombian andes at night and getting to the border in the morning, but i soon started to realize what i had gotten myself into...anyway, the peak of the trip was when in the middle of the night some soldiers got on our bus with their machine guns in sight, and one sat right next to me for about an hour! needless to say i was freaking out and thinking bad things already, since that was an area with guerrilla and in the middle of the night...you know? i never dared say anything, so i still don't know if they were just getting a free ride or if they were actually supposed to protect us...but i was scared! then we passed some more checkpoints and some were body-checked a couple of times...the view of soldiers with machine guns is pretty common, so i learned to get used to it...
once the endless and annoying ride finally ended, i got on another bus to the actual border, then walked across, had my whole big backpack searched, got the stamps i needed to get on my passport, then took another bus to san cristobal in venezuela, got body-checked a couple of times, ...and then i finally made it to san cristobal! well, little did i know...the last bus to merida (my destination) had already left, i couldn't get any money out of the ATM, and even though a very nice woman policeman helped me (once she knew i was italian), i had to change some colombian pesos from some random person to pay for my ridiculously overpriced little, dirty and muggy room by the bus terminal...oh, i had also forgotten that venezuela is an hour ahead, so i missed my last chance of spending my last money at an internet cafe before calling it a night!
the next day i was determined to finally solve my money problems, and went around 5-6 banks, to no avail! i finally entered one of them and asked for cash advance, which i didn't even know existed! haha (oh, it's "avance de efectivo", very useful term to know; another very useful word i quickly learned is "cancelar": it means to pay in advance, meaning you can't grab the item or be serviced before you pay) well, the person there helped me a lot, welcomed me to venezuela and quickly gave me what i asked for...so that's when fate finally started turning in my favor!
i finally got on a bus to merida, got some food and water, and enjoyed my bus ride with air-conditioning (since it's pretty hot) and loud, fun music (that people always sing along to: fun!). this time the bus almost never stopped! well, except for some more police checkpoints and stuff like that...then i finally got to merida, where i am being hosted by M...
for some reason i already knew that i was going to live it here, and i really do! it's more easygoing, less dangerous, friendlier and cheaper than anywhere in venezuela (although i have not been anywhere yet!), and it's by the highest venezuelan mountains (pico bolivar-5004 meters, and pico humboldt)...it's by the same andes i had explored last year in argentina, only at the other end! i met a lot of european travelers, walked around and i already don't want to leave!
well, yesterday i took the longest and highest cable-car in the world up to 5007 meters a.s.l. by the pico bolivar...after trying to get used to the altitude, i rode a horse for 4 endless hours up and down mountains, rocks and streams...although i felt really bad for the poor horse, it was much more of a physical workout than i thought! the best part was the dog that was running before and by us, it reminded me of belle & sebastien a lot!!! i tried taking pictures of the whole thing, but it was pretty hard and we will see if the results are even decent! thanks to the horse i got to this remote village at about 2700 mt a.s.l. called Los Nevados, where i chatted it up with some locals about chavez, took some nice pictures, got a rustic bed for the night, and before going to bed...dinner was included, so i went down for dinner and talked the "senora" into making me something vegetarian...which was very yummy! i had dinner with a spanish couple that i will meet again sometime i think...then went straight to bed, and slept for a whopping 12 hours!!! i am sad i missed the sunrise this morning, but i couldn't get up anyway...went down for breakfast again (where "down" means down a super steep cobblestone road!) and then hopped on a jeep (4WD vehicle, or offroad vehicle,...) with the spanish girl and 3 italian-swiss tourists and a local...well, down a tiny path running next to the side of the mountain for 4 hours to get back in town...
so that was my fun adventure so far; tomorrow i might have to leave and go to the mochima national park where i will be relaxing at the beach, visiting some caribbean islands and maybe even snorkeling...from there it's onto a more secluded beach by puerto colombia, then a quick trip to caracas before going back to bogota for christmas...
so far i've been loving venezuela, which has been up to its reputation for chavez and beauty queens. the former is everywhere, well, rather, pictures, posters, banners, images, etc of him are everywhere, also because the elections were just 2 weeks ago...i've been asking a lot of people about him of course, and most seem satisfied with what he's been doing...as for the beauty queens, venezuela is statistically the country with the most girls winning international beauty pageants, and you can totally see that walking around...it's not about quantity but quality, definitely!
oh, merida is going to host the 2007 "copa america" this coming july!
i've also been enjoying the loud, dancy, fun, hispanic music blaring everywhere, the cheap internet cafes and the views...i am sure i am forgetting something but i better go now!

bogota!

i'm only two days into my trip (technically it's the first day, since i spent the other one at the mexico city airport) and i'm already feeling pooped! it better be the altitude, because otherwise it's not going to be fun! well, bogota lies at about 2600 meters above sea level, it's chaotic, noisy and very polluted...you can feel stuff down your lungs as you walk around! there are a lot of bikes everywhere, risking their lives among the many other kinds of vehicles that take over the city streets...the arrival at the airport reminded me of one of the take that's tours back in the day, where hoards of screaming, jumping and chanting people holding signs were waiting behind the barriers...trying to find my way out of that was an experience! and once outside the airport, the colombian reality hits you...i've been enjoying riding the TransMilenio today, this amazing public work that was supposed to be a metro system, and instead is a "fast" bus system that rides in the middle of the street...well it's more complicated than that, but oh well...
i was secretly hoping bogota would blow me away for some reason, and it hasn't yet, and it probably won't i assume...it's a nice place with a historic/colonial city center and lots of people everywhere, and yes, i haven't experienced its nightlife, yet it pains me to say it's not unbelievably spectacular...which is fine! haha
i'm headed to cucuta tonight, a border town with venezuela...

the most populous city in the world?

so i am here in mexico city since yesterday i missed my connection to bogota, i stressed out for about an hour, then started bitching at the people in charge, so i finally got on the same plane today, plus i got a nice hotel room and three meals from them...so life is not that bad at all, i am actually glad i did miss that plane! haha i took a nap, watched some soccer from my room, then went into the center by metro straight from the airport, walked around the zocalo (big square) and the surrounding area, then came back and went to sleep...now i am rested (since i was not when i left texas!) so i am ready to tackle colombia and venezuela!

yay for snow!

it is snowing in dallas right now. that's all i am going to say!

la quemada + jerez (zacatecas, mexico)

so my plan to go to real de catorce fell through for lack of bus connections and lack of time on my behalf...so my plan B for the day was to go visit the ruins of La Quemada, which is an archeological site that used to be inhabited by the first inhabitants of mexico, who later on went to found teotihuacan (spelling?)...anyway, ít has such a name because it burnt down, and what was left is what i saw today: a couple of good-sized pyramids, the outer walls, what is believed to be the first roofed building in mexico, and scattered clusters of stones on a hill overlooking the whole desertic valley...then from there i hitched a ride from a mexican-french mormon couple all the way to jerez on the back of their pickup truck...that was fun! now i am here in jerez, which is a nice small countryside town, pretty quiet, yet lively and there's even an abundance of internet cafes! i slurped on several "paletas" (popsicles) and got some bread and pastries for my ride back to zacatecas tonight...hopefully i will also make it to this discotheque in zacatecas which is inside a mine...one of the few in the world apparently! then tomorrow it's time for going back already, slowly but surely...too bad i won't be able to make it to real de catorce this time!
highlights: the state band playing a concert in a square in central zacatecas; riding in the back of the mexican-french mormon couple's pickup truck!

zacatecas, mexico.

2450 meters above sea level right amidst a desert in the center-north of mexico lies zacatecas, the city i am in right now, after a 20-hour total bus ride from dallas. because of the altitude and since it in winter time it is freezing at night, but still nice during the day...my hosts S and P have been wonderful so far, including an awesome night tour that included 2 of the best hotels in town: one used to be an arena for bullfights (the infamous "corridas"), and has rooms in the "stadium" part of the arena, while the pit is still there and the whole structure is untouched. the other one is a giant complex of hoses, alleys and balconies that used to be painted all different colors and used to host multi-family housings for the poor people of zacatecas...now it's been re-modeled and painted all red and yellow and it looks very romantic and different! other highlights included the UNESCO world heritage list cathedral that looks so insane it makes you wonder if it's real, a lot of other churches, an old acqueduct, and narrow, colonial streets full of baroque buildings...today i am set to explore it all, starting by what used to be one of the most important silver mines in the country.
tomorrow i am trying to go to real de catorce, once the silver capital of the region, now a ghost town that seems full of italian restaurants and artsy expats and not much else...well, besides being famous for an annual pilgrimage of the huichol indigenous people, who are famous for using peyote...but more on that tomorrow or the following day!
i also learned that "vengo de dallas" (i am from dallas, i am coming from dallas) can have a double meaning with sexual connotations to the youngsters here, so i am better off just saying i am italian but i am living in tejas right now! :)

sportsmanship is not everything...i guess?!

Last night I went to see my first hockey, and NHL, game thanks to A.! I know it's not technically traveling so it shouldn't be on here, but whatever...the best thing, besides seating right next to the Dallas Stars' bench, was the fight! Yes, the fight...apparently, hockey is the only sport I know of where violence outside the game itself is allowed...no, I am not talking about the tackling and fighting while playing! If you want to fight with somebody they will let you do so; actually, the fans will encourage you, the refs will stop the game, stand aside and watch, their arms crossed, till you're done...so you can have at it, and when you're done you just get to sit in the penalty box for a little bit! It's very different from any sport I've seen before, where the coach or team managers would punish you for being violent outside the sport's boundaries...an interesting concept nonetheless!

please read this!

"Today we consider it obvious and natural that we have sidewalks on every street. Bikeways should be the same. If we are a democratic society, everybody has the right to the same mobility. So, in the future we have to think as bikeways not as something cute or nice but as a right. A quality city is not one that has great roads but one where a child can safely go anywhere on a bicycle."

Enrique Peñalosa was mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to 2001, when term limits forced him to leave office. He has advised other world cities on transportation and is a senior fellow at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. This article is adapted from comments he made at “Manhattan on the Move: A Transportation Agenda for a Growing City,” a conference presented by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

it's been a while!

I haven't written on here in forever, leaving you all (??) with the World Cup tornado...after that and 2 weeks spent in the peace of Guastalla I came back here, in Dallas, TX...school started again, I moved somewhere bigger and closer to school, I got a roadbike, and not much else...oh yeah, I spent my birthday weekend in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign, IL, which I both loved!
I know I was supposed to write from there as I was technically traveling, but I didn't get the chance to...so I am updating from "home", looking forward to my next projects and trips: buying an old steel 90's roadbike and transforming it (or rather, having it transformed) into a fixie, a fixed-gear bicycle (no shifting, no coasting, no derailleurs, no brake cables,...); also, I am trying to decide where to spend my Thanksgiving...it will probably be Mexico, but I don't know where, and it has to be somewhat close to the Texas border...so maybe Real de Catorce, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, or somewhere around there...then I just booked my flights to Colombia for the winter break (mid Dec till mid Jan!): I will be in Colombia and Venezuela for 5 weeks! I will also get to meet my brother and spend Christmas and New Year's with him! Woohoo!

World Champions!

the best of italy's 2006 world cup with commentary by fabio caressa (in italian. duh.)

oh mamma mamma mamma, oh mamma mamma mamma, lo sai perche', innamorato so', ho visto ale del piero, ho visto ale del piero, ehi, mamma, innamorato so'

the past couple of days have been a whirlwind of emotions...i still have in my head the screams, noises, horns, flags, people, squares, fountains, jerseys...it was definitely memorable and unbelievable, but we made history: italy won its fourth football (soccer) world cup, we are the world champions!!!
i am in rome of all places, so i watched both the semifinal and the final at this huge place with hundreds of thousands of people, and it was amazing! the 2 goals in 3 minutes with germany after 118 minutes of suffering were like a huge thunder in a clear sky, and i really enjoyed that night because it was just as amazing as it was unexpected...
the final was much more full of tension because of france and our history with them, and the penalties are always a low blow to your heart anyway...when we won i could not believe it, it had never happened ever since i can remember (ok, the last time was in 1982) so i didn't really know how to react...the crowds got crazy in the streets all night long, i fulfiled my childhood dream: to throw myself in a fountain for a big football (soccer) celebration!!!
then last night was the last and possibly big emotion, since it came as a total surprise: an open deck bus with all the players and the world cup toured the streets of rome and ended the parade at circo massimo, the huge open-air space where i watched the last two games...i read that there was about 1 million people there last night, a lot more along the streets of rome to sing with and shout at the players...
i was waiting for the bus with the players to pass by although i didn't know how close it would be or anything...well, when it did come by it was an incredible feeling: i could see the players and coach and the world cup from 5-10-15 meters, depending on the craziness of the crowd and the speed of the bus...so i started following the bus the whole way to the circo massimo, and i got to see them over and over and over again, it was really unbelievable, something that is hard to describe with words...
i was there, they were there too...this whole thing is just such a big coincidence that it is incredible to even begin to realize what's been going on...
i even bought myself 2 new original jerseys that i've been wearing this whole time! hehe

the eternal city.

yes that's correct, i am in rome...i got here tonight on the fancy eurostar train, after barely one day at home...rome is really beautiful at night, i had forgotten about it...i am on a campus in montemario, a nice green area with big houses...i have my own room with fridge and it's nice and cosy i think, i am happy i can go to the supermarket and keep food in my room and eat good stuff...that's a nice life!

oh, i forgot...

CS's website crashed and it seems like everything was lost...it's incredibly sad...what's worse is that it looks like the creator/founder/whatever doesn't want to keep doing it after this problem,...hopefully some positive developments soon!

back home...

it's strange to wake up at home after 5 weeks around, although i will be sleeping in rome tonight, and changing this frequently keeps me alive...maybe i should have planned to be here a couple of days, i don't know...because now i have so much to do and so little time...
anyway, my way back home was nice. from vilnius, lithuania i took a bus to gdansk, poland. i stayed in sopot, a nice polish beach resort, for one night, got to visit there and then have a full day in gdansk, which is beautiful i think...full of tall, skinny houses that remind me very much of a port on the baltic sea, not too dissimilar from hamburg, germany for example...but gdansk is much prettier! ah, my host G took me to a microsoft convention she was attending in the center...haha since the convention was in polish i just went for the free breakfast and showed up a few hours later for the free lunch...so it was nice! getting back to bratislava from gdansk was a little complicated and i had to pay way too much for a train ticket, because it was an international one...so i went to warsaw at night, waited there for an hour, got on a train to wien, although i only went as far as breclaw, in czech republic on the border with slovakia...and from there i took my final train to bratislava, which welcomed my last day of travel with quite some rain...i still managed to watch the quarterfinals there and it was fun...it always seems to be full of drunk brits, but i am a tourist too after all so whatever...i also met an australian guy who was going there for the weekend to write about the stupidity of the movie "hostel"...i haven't seen it, only bits and pieces at somebody's house in poland, but i have to say it seemed pretty nonsense, totally unrealistic and simplistic...but i could see some people buy into it...
ok, tonight it's rome where i will be for about 2 weeks teaching to some SMU students, and then we're going to tuscany for about 5 days, and we're ending it up in bologna for the last 10 days...should be fun, i won't be posting as much because i am not technically really traveling...but yeah.
my wonderful host T in bratislava suggested i look into submitting my travel pictures to some magazine or online something about travel photography, so as soon as i get to look at the pictures i will be giving it a shot...if anybody is reading this and has an idea, feel free to bring up suggestions...

hey, vilnius rocks too!

i survived midsummer's festival in riga, it was actually a lot of fun! during the day i went to sigulda, called "the switzerland of latvia"...i don't really know why,...i mean it has some wooden houses, castles and lots of forests and some caves, but it really does not look like switzerland to me...oh well. the rainy day got a toll on me, but the midsummer's night (lingo) was fun at the lido with my host L...they had typical latvian food and music and i danced...yes, it was fun!
i then embarked on the bus to vilnius with zero sleep, and i arrived here in vilnius, lithuania. the southermost of the 3 baltic countries, the one with the least russians, the "more latin" one, if one can say so...
my host I is just super so everything is fun...i got to eat some typical (veggie) food, way too much food actually...and then we walked around vilnius, met up with a bunch of friends of hers, and had a fun night at broadway pub (well, broadway is spelled/written in lithuanian,...an indo-european language with 7 cases!). so it's fun here, i am loving it, enjoying my last week on the road, although there's a little too many italians here...going after the girls of course...what's new...the girls here don't seem to mind the foreigners because a) there's so many of them, and b) because the lithuanian boys are nowhere to be seen...my host says the good ones are already taken by now! haha
the town is somewhat deserted because of the long weekend, although there's still enough people to make it fun...riga was deserted too, looked like a city in the middle of a war (not that i've ever seen one, but that's what i picture it to look like...)
so today it's chilling and some football, tomorrow it's siauliai for the famous hill of crosses, and then tuesday i am going to see the trakai castle just outside vilnius...and then tuesday night i am on the bus to gdansk, in the north of poland...oh, and tomorrow it's also italy-australia...hopefully the socceroos and hiddink won't play tricks on us...

enjoying the baltic

still here in riga with 5 minutes to go online, visited the city properly today, including the view from a tall church, then took a train to jurmala with my cool hosts, caught italy on tv (yay!!!), then had a taste of baltic again in jurmala, which is full of russians, kind of expensive, they say it was the coolest resort for russians during soviet times and stuff...in the morning i also saw the latvian president, a woman, give a speech in the square,...i heard gwb likes her...hhmm what should i think??? tomorrow it's sigulda, the switzerland of latvia, with mountains and castles, and then at night sometime i am going to make it to vilnius, lithuania...

riga, latvia.

today i got to riga, in latvia. latvia is the one country in the middle, between the other 3 baltic republics...it's the one i have trouble thinking of because in italian it's "lettonia", very similar to lithuania, and there's no V...so anyway, riga is very pretty, not as cosy as tallinn but with wonderful roofs, churches and streets...there's still some russians, maybe even more than in estonia, and the language is one out of two indo-european languages in the baltic, it might be at risk of extinction, i am not sure...but it does sound strange, not similar to russian or anything...tonight i went to somebody from CS's graduation and it was fun, 7 girls and me at "Ai Karamba!"...all CS members except one, whom will soon join us! haha what a surprise...tomorrow it's big soccer/football game, italy-czech republic, and i might be going to jurmala, the #1 seaside resort in the baltic, with my supercool hosts A and L...fun will be had!

/pair-nu/

that is what Pärnu sounds like, although i didn't know myself...this is where i am right now, on the estonian coast, very nice place, relaxed, practically no foreigners, everybody is nice and it seems like a rich and progressive place...the beach is not too bad, many beautiful girls, sports, waterparks, etc etc...they say the water is fairly warm, i am going to try it out now...and then tomorrow it's off to riga, in latvia...new country, new baltic capital...new currency too...

tallinn rocks.

so i finally got my act together and left st petersburg and russia, although i had grown to ignore the not-so-nice answers and behaviors and i was enjoying my last few days there...i got out of russia without a problemfor not having a visa registration luckily, and i am now in estonia, the top of the baltic countries for those who don't know...
estonia feels like finland, except not as cold, with much cheaper prices, prettier girls and friendlier people!!! :) yes, doesn't that sound like fun?
coming from russia everybody is so polite, open and friendly, yet peaceful and civilised i just can't believe it! ok i am making the russians sound a little too bad here...but this is really great...there's still 1/3 of the population who's russian here, although estonians do have a history of not liking them...and you do hear russian on the street, it's almost too common and it really confuses me, but everybody else speaks estonian and...surprise, surprise...english! hehe yeah everybody seems to speak english here...estonian sounds very much like finnish to me, very similar sounds...it is a ugro-finnish language after all, while lithuanian and latvian are indo-european...but i don't know what those sound like yet, so i can't tell!
it does feel very much like europe, or the EU, here...english is spoken, the country seems quite modern, it is very e-savy...very enjoyable! it is so e-savy that it's hard to find an internet cafe because there's free wi-fi at most places in the center!
oh i forgot...tallinn's old town is just wonderful, made of narrow, cobblestone streets and pretty pointy and colorful buildings...i had no idea!
the supermarket trip was also pretty awesome! they have so much yummy food, it's all fairly decent-priced and they have some interesting bread-like stuff that reminds me of either pizza dough or middle eastern bred...some are plain, some are with walnuts...and it's yummy...plus they have a wide range of smoked cheeses and cheeses with stuff (spices of some sort) on the crust...something like spiced cheese maybe, i have no idea...but it tastes really good!
what else...oh, yeah, there's also several groups of tourists, many brits on alcoholic weekends and also several italians and russians in big groups...the locals don't seem to mind (yet) and are very young, pretty and friendly! last night i ended up watching czech rep-ghana with my wonderful host T and her friends M and K, and then i joined the 3 funny romans i met in st petersburg for italy-usa...very bad game, what can i say?!

still here...

today i went to petrodvorets, amazing fountains, more grassy areas, as if yesterday wasn't enough! i am trying to get a bus to tallinn and not get fined for my lack of visa registration...other than that not much, tonight i will hopefully get to see the st petersburg bridges raise at night...it's quite the sight, or so they say...i better go now, my time is out and the world cup is coming up!

it's not super pretty but i don't want to leave!

i am still here in st petersburg, and i kind of like it here, it's somewhat relaxing, in a russian way i guess, and pleasant to walk around at anytime of the day and night, also thanks to the long days...i am here at cafe max, my favorite place: it has internet and a megascreen with the world cup, what else could i ask for?
so i am probably headed to tallinn, estonia, tomorrow night or the following day...today i went to see some parks, way too much green...i also caught some russian squirrels, although they didn't seem to have an attitude like the people! haha bad joke, ok
and tomorrow it's petrodvorets, some versailles-like park with insane fountains supposedly...we'll see...well i better go now, my time is out!

saint petersburg.

i am in saint petersburg now, i arrived last night, or early this morning, from moscow...so where did i leave this? probably in nizhny novgorod, with A and her cool adventure travel friends...on my last day there i got to take a boat on the volga to a village just across on the other bank, then ate more croissants and met up with A and S for a very trendy russian thing: sushi! we had sushi and then played bowling, it was fun! then i ran to the train station and spent yet another night on the train...to kazan this time. i got there super early in the morning, luckily my host A was there...i am so lucky! i managed to take a nap at her apartment before heading into town, accompanied by her...yes, she was my tour guide for my entire stay, how nice!!! so i visited 3-4 mosques there, also got a little book from an eminent person in one of the mosques, there's even a picture of him and khatami in the book he gave me! kazan is very modern thanks to all the new buildings that were built in 2005 to commemorate 1000 years of independence from russia...yes, because that is tatarstam, different language and they also have their own flag, which sadly reminds me of Berlusconi's Forza Italia (political party)'s one...i also tried some of the regional specialties as far as food, more fried stuff for me! the caucasian people at the market were calling me by the names of the national team football players, they (the caucasians) seemed friendlier than most russians i've met on this trip...hehe so yeah why are all the whites called caucasians when we have to fill out forms and stuff? apparently it's the fault of this german doctor who went to the caucasus region and found the men there to be in perfect health and to represent the standards that he was looking for...but it's ironic because they are not white! oh well...
after kazan i spent one day in moscow, wonderful T showed me around, victory park was really nice, and st basil's is always the shit...then my mood got buried underground when we got stopped and checked by police and since i don't have a visa registration i was fined...thanks to her "we could" bribe him to not write a report and pay HIM 1000 rubles (35-40$) instead of the official ticket, which is 3000rub...so you can imagine how happy i was!!!
now i better go because the time at the cafe is over, i found this computer on, somebody forgot their credit on this machine, can't complain! they also have a megascreen with the world cup on, so i switch between internet and football, how wonderful!!!
i arrived here in st petersburg and my host T is awesome, she came to get me at 4.35!!! we had chai at her house, and then i took a super long nap...then i started walking around on my own...st petersburg (SP) is really nice and very scandinavian-looking-like, less impressive than the center of moscow but it seems more relaxed...although most russians i ask things to really do not give a shit...it's been a constant on this trip, i have to admit it...i don't know why, but that's how things are...not only could they care less that they do not speak a word of english, but they seem like they couldn't care less about anything but their lives...oh well, who can blame them i guess? sadly that's been my experience with russians on the street...
ok i better go for real now, onto mexico-iran, or at least a little bit (1st half for sure) because then i am headed to T's house and hopefully i will get to cook something...i am starving!!!

куда я хочу, туда и еду. (я гуляю как кот)

ok let's see if i can pick up from where i left it...kiev, ukraine...why you guys call it "THE ukraine" is beyond my understanding, but whatever...ukraine was fun and i was once more sad to leave kiev, where i had a good time although at the beginning the super-crowded apartment and the 2 cats kinda had me worried...oh and the sleeping on the floor...the cold shower was just a detail at this point...my hosts Y and A were really busy all the time, yet they managed to host me in the best way...i even got to go to this czech-ukrainian night at the national opera house with all these diplomats and stuff because Y works at the czech embassy as a translator...well, i ended up sitting right in front of this man and son from olomouc (cz) that i had shared my sleeping wagon with on the bratislava-lviv train! how funny!
kiev was nice, the churches and big monastery+caves really cool, although i hit my head really hard there (or was it at the internet cafe?) and i bought myself a ticket for a tour of the caves in russian, which i didn't understans anything of, when the caves were free...oh well, independence square was the best, the atmosphere there great, plus on my way to the train station i saw an amazing sunset on the dnepr (river) from the metro...
but then the train ride kiev-moscow cheered me up...from the train attendant lady smiling at me when asking me if i was from italy and trying to ask me all these questions on the train, to the fact that our "open bunk compartment" was almost empty, except for me and pascha, this cool kid who's a PR designer for a fashion company in kiev which opens up monobrand shops for several italian fashion designers...so it was cool to talk to him, and it was so much fun because he'd been studying italian for 2 months, so he was trying to use his italian and i was trying to use my russian...great times!
i have to add that almost nobody in russia or ukraine speaks english it seems, the chances are higher with younger people in general, but still very hard...plus nothing in ukraine or russia (except moscow or st petersburg) seems to be catered to tourists, because there doesn't seem to be many that are not from CIS countries, so it's frustrating at times...it's hard to read, hard to understand and people don't even make an effort to communicate it seems...they just give up when they see you don't get their answer...but oh well...plus ukrainian is kind of like russian yet different, which makes everything more complicated i think...anyway...
so then we get woken up by the immigration police for russia at 4am and i am afraid of what can happen but everything goes smoothly...and i get to moscow, the biggest city in europe, the 2nd in the world for millionaire residents (after nyc) according to forbes...
what struck me the most about the center is the evident wealth, the showing off of money and luxury and status, i can tell these are the nouveaux riches, that they recently became rich...so you can see plenty of super-fancy cars with drivers and bodyguards, H2's with the $ symbol on the rims, and tacky stuff like that...it's all about showing off that you own things and brands...it's funny because at the same time this kinda thing is aimed more at foreigners (fancy restaurants have menus in english, etc...) but at the same time even though everything is in english (the brands, the slogans, the ads,...) nobody seems to speak english here...i remember a stupid example at the nokia store, central moscow, with insane cell phones, 2 brits walk in and ask for any staff that was english-speaking...answer: there isn't any! haha
but moscow is itself is full of history, the kremlin and the red square saw everything that we learn about in history books...the red square particularly blew me away, i would be amazed every time i would see st basil's, the one church that seems to come from aladdin or something...plus it's daylight till 10pm so it's even more fun! the young hip crowds wearing italian fashion designer brands gather and play hacky sack all day, the tourists go about their visits, and policemen are always on guard...moscow in many ways reminded me a lot of paris, and for many reasons and places i'd probably put it in my top 5, if not top 3, european capitals...
there couldn't have been a bigger difference with moscow so close to it anywhere else than in the golden ring, which i visited the next day...the golden ring is the modern name for a series of little villages outside moscow that used to be, in the XII-XIII centuries, the center of Rus, when Moscow was still pretty much nothing...before the Mongols came and changed everything...
so i visited vladimir and then suzdal, rushing through the day from metro to train to bus, to another bus to then catch another bus...well, it was more like a normal minivan with 15 people and their luggage packed inside for 5 hours till nizhny novgorod, where i arrived last night in a sand storm that welcomed me to the volga region...yes, we're by the volga here, the longest river in europe...it feels like a very small town compared to moscow, although it has 1.1 mln people, also thanks to the volga that surrounds the city...i am being hosted by A and her friends and colleagues, who are awesome adventure travelers and run www.teamgorky.ru so i am enjoying my time here...i will have to leave again tomorrow night to explore the republic of tatarstan...yes i will be going to kazan, where it's supposedly much more central asia-like and there's plenty of mosques, yet it's still russia (although they're somewhat autonomous)...
it's always sad to have to leave places just when you're getting to feeling "at home" there...at home as much as you could feel in a place you spend 2-3 days in i mean...but still, just when you start figuring things out it's time to leave, onto the next unknown and never-seen-before place that you have to figure out only to leave it a couple of days after...
but this is fun! i also heard about the mavericks making the nba finals and i am stoked for them of course, although i am in the wrong timezone to be able to catch any game at all...coincidentally, the same day (june 9th) is when the world cup starts...world cup of what?? what do you mean?? ahhh :)

kiev, ukraine

i don't know what i will be able to write in 4 minutes from this internet cafe in a soviet-like suburb of kiev, in the basement next to the building i am being hosted in there is this place, the best kept secret of this area, full of teenagers playing games online, it could be in france, italy, germany, or the states, anywhere really...i saw two H2 today...yes the car...here the traffic is bad, the smog is worse, since there are still way too many cars from the 60s, trying to race with the newest bmw's and mercedes...but tonight on the independence square it was magical, strong and cold breeze, lots of people and lights, and i was thinking about what happened during the orange revolution on that same square...i also saw the dinamo kiev's stadium and some churches that blew me away....soooo much gold!!!

i got here in lviv, ukraine today after a 21-hour train ride from bratislava, which i enjoyed very much despite the cheap,drunk and loud british tourists.i went back to my beloved tescosupermarkets,so that was cool too. today i got into ukraine and then rode till here, where i am staying in yet another big and anonymous soviet-style building in the outskirts of town. i had the luxury of potato pierogies (sp?) and minestrone soup thanks to the kindness of O. at whose place i am staying. walking around the city makes me feel like i am in some kind of WWII movie. i don't know what it is about it, but it just feels and looks very different from any place i've been to so far...and this city has so many churches it's not even funny...it makes italy almost look like an amateur...tomorrow i will get a better look at them...it's interesting because they have the same style but they represent many different cults: greek orthodox,protestant,ukrainian orthodox (of 2 different kinds), armenian, and even greek-catholic,a mixture of orthodox calendar and the acknowledging of the pope. this is the most nationalistic part of ukraine, so people don't seem to want to speak anything but ukrainian,even though they do understand russian...so i can't really use my basic russian, although i entered the cyrillic-written side of the world today and i've been practising my reading skills...so i try to read every single sign like a little child who just learned how to read, because it takes me a minute or two for just a simple sign...
oh,when i got to bratislava i waited till the next morning to take a shower, and when i woke up there was no water at all...so when i got here i was going to take a shower, but there is no hot water, and there is no water whatsoever between 24:00 and 6:00...i guess i will wake up for a cold shower tomorrow...

some people call it luck...

yesterday on my way to the laundromat i found a $ bill on the ground, picked it up and put it in my pocket thinking it was a ten...i just realized right now going through the crap in my pocket that it was a HUNDRED $ bill!
i am also leaving tomorrow to italy/europe, i will be home for a good 2 weeks before i do some traveling...i am really excited although i am not done with finishing up what i have to take care of here...so i am still stressing out, and will be till i sit on my plane tomorrow...

-7

minus a week, just a week and i will be home...the insane amount of things i have to get done before i leave is daunting and i better not stress out too much, because i should be enjoying this time of the year...summer is about to start, fun is about to be had!

there's hope!

today i got notified that my H1B petition (H1B = work visa) got accepted, so i will receive my I-797 soon, with which i can apply for an actual work visa on my passport for the next 3 years...which means that SMU owns me...wow, is that what i am thrilled about? i guess so...but H1B has always meant hope, it's a huge step up from the student visa i have now...i used to think that the H1B meant being very close to residency, which i just learned is not true...plus it costs a heck of a lot of money! so i am happy to think that there's hope for other people like me...or rather, for the ones who pay! the other day i saw a bumper sticker that read: "we don't live in a democracy, we live in an auction". which means everything has a price...everything can be bought...think of bailbonds...think of immigration lawyers...it's interesting how all of this doesn't constitute corruption, because it's official and institutionalized...

two weeks.

two weeks till i get to go home. i haven't been home in two years, it's a big deal! fourteen days till my summer starts: summer 06 should be an awesome one, probably the best since summer 03. last year i was waiting for a job offer and couldn't leave this country, the year before i graduated and went straight into grad school after having switched continents...
so this is the plan:
may 11-25: home (guastalla, italy)
may 25- july 1: traveling (slovakia, ukraine, russia, estonia, latvia, lithuania, poland)
july 2- august 2: around italy (rome, tuscany and bologna) with the SMU study abroad program (teaching two classes and chaperoning)
august 2-15: home again!
august 16: back to dallas, tx.