stuttgart

For all those who had no idea that I was embarking on a journey, surprise. For all those who already had known; sorry for the redundant nature of my writing but I’m writing about it anyways! I had been talking to Matt for awhile, and decided that it would be cool to go and visit him as he moved to Prague, Czech Republic back in January / February with his company from the UK. I was going to go the weekend before, but he was ill and had other company over, so it worked out better this last weekend. I found great flight deal, thanks Lufthansa, despite being sort of worried about not having any linguistic background. I tend to get nervous in those situations; paranoid really but that’s just a character trait already.

My flight left at a reasonable hour from Stuttgart, so I had all morning to get there without having to worry about sleeping in the airport (for the 6th time). I left on the 07.00 train to get there for 09.00 leaving me a few hours at the airport to eat, relax, and go through security. Turned out to be perfect timing since checking in / security lasts about 10 minutes, the rest was just reading the news that I collected on the way. The train to Stuttgart, bound for München was oddly filled especially after Karshrue stop, not surprising as it’s always a huge stop for some reason. All the businessmen got off at Stuttgart though, so I felt like one of them, despite being dressed a great deal less nice than them.

Hopped off the train, wandered down to get a bagel and then went to the S-Bahn to get to the airport, of which was empty and quiet during the morning hours (in other words, it was great). Automatic check-ins are my friend, just now I need to have a larger credit on my card so I can actually buy tickets with my own credit-card. In the waiting area, I shared the normal Zürich area, and a flight going to Romania so there were tons of really different looking nationalities. None of the people going on my flight to Czech Republic were actually Czech, kinda funny!

The flight was quick, up-down-1-hour, and I was in the nations capitol with a backpack and a bunch of Czech Krona and didn’t know where to wait. I had to wait until around 17.00 until Matt got off of work, and I would meet him downtown somewhere which was unarranged. I could have stayed in the luggage pick up area but I didn’t want to get arrsested by the guards, plus there was more going on in the arrivals area. In other words I saw a group of Canadians who were traveling for footie, a bunch of Danish missionaries collecting their people from Danish flight; and even some Finns who were arriving from Helsinki. There was also this group of Asians (from I think Cambodia) who were dodgy and hanging out there nearly as long as I did.

I tried to sleep, listen to music, but it was really boring and I had a lot of time to kill. About five hours in any case, but it’s all good (better than wandering a city alone). I was originally going to take a shuttle bus, but since I was bored I embarked on a public-transport journey, so a bus to metro then metro to downtown. At only 20:- it was a great deal, that means that it was about 0.80€ (love it). The bus was crowded with Czech people who were staring at me, cause obviously I am not as amazingly attractive as the Eastern Europeans, plus they were probably just curious. The metro was packed, so I was paranoid about being mugged or raped or something, but all went well. I followed some guy who seemed to know where he was going, so when he got off, luckily it was the same place. I didn’t speak any Czech so I had no idea how to say “excuse me”, turns out to be simplier than I had originally thought!

Got to Můstek station, the apparently largest one in the city, and then wandered to the street where I could be “spotted” and called Matt. I stayed put since I thought it was the best idea, and then gave semi-helpful descriptions as to where I was. And arrived he came after a few minutes, dressed up in his smart work uniform where he’s not seen, but must look best due to “company image.” Sounds pretty funny to me, but I would like it, I love dressing up in nice clothes as it makes me feel a lot better about myself. Plus I look hawt in a tie, anways.

So we headed to his flat, which had a front door entrance with those old fashioned keys (awesome) and then six flights of stairs which really is about ten flights of stairs due to high ceilings. His loft is amazingly nice and wooden, with skylights; in other words I was highly impressed. The hot weather had us pooped so we relaxed for a few minutes before deciding that we would go for some snacky-foods at a bar. As most people can gather from my social retardedness, bars are sort of weird for me, but it was okay cause we got nachos and just chatted. I think I’m just a little more put off by bars and pubs because they are usually fulled but at the hour of 19.00 it was quite nicely emptied.

We walked around for awhile after that just to orientate me with the general area, but lack of structure or direction worries Matt. I go with the flow, so turning down random streets doesn’t bother me at all. As a side note I nearly stalked someone who walked by; I can’t help it if some people are attractive. But since I’m not a stalker, I restrained of course (I’m awesome). I saw gypsies but I didn’t realise they were them, so I was confused but oh well! We floated some more and then decided to go to a very Czech place for dinner, it was quite late but amazing. It’s a nice resteraunt, a lot nicer than I had expected but we had to wait whilst the waiter fixed some problem and then we got a nice little window seat in a room that was nearly empty apart from a little business meeting in the corner.

Our food was amazing, I had milled carp, a very Czech dish with patotoes and bacon on the side. There was a weird sause on the fish which I thought might have tomatoes in it, so there was a bit of a scare; and all ended well after it turned out to have none in them. Maybe a raddish sause Matt thought? I wouldn’t know, I’m bad with tastes, but the result is that I didn’t die, which we were both really happy about. If we had to call an ambulance I and he would have no idea what to say. Chances are they wouldn’t have spoken English! I was flattered and felt guilty after leaving, even after a nice evening of calm conversation and followed by C.S.I. episode watching.

I felt like I had been there for a lot longer than I was, but I guess that’s just how great I seem to get along with some / most people. The social bufferfly wings had spread! And after some that episode, and falling asleep serveral times during V for Vendetta (his favourite film) we went to bed. The film was really good, but I seemed to have missed some parts after dozing off. I denied all such things at first, but apparently it’s true, I know that I closed my eyes for some time, just unknowing the duration of such naps. Again I felt bad, but it’s okay and understandable as I was quite tired after the few hours of traveling and then five hours waiting around in a airport!

First impressions of Prague, were great; very touristy, very nice, friendly people, and lots of nice archetecture. And as a side note, there is nothing wrong with having a SmartCar as a dream car. We passed this building that I claimed looking like a opera house, we laughed, but days later it turns out to actually had been one. Go me! I’ve got a good eye for types of buildings!

It’s been far overdue to write about my spur-of-the-moment trip to Spain, but I couldn’t be arsed to do anything the last week but relax because I’m tired and I’m on vacation, so you can’t sue me for wanting to take a break; quite frankly!

My journey began two Monday’s ago when I decided on Sunday evening to go Southern Spain since a friend of mine invited me. He lived in Granada but since I couldn’t find a good priced flight there I decided that I would fly into the southern city of Málaga first, and I was able to get an awesome deal from Swiss International Airlines, which needs to be commended for their awesome services! So in order to get to Stuttgart for my flight I had to take a train the night before from Strasbourg to the airport, and hope that I got on the last S-Bahn that goes to the airport which is practically in Filderstadt; but anyways. As above you can see what the S-Bahn stop looks like at the Hautbahnhof as I was panicing to make sure I got on the last train going to the airport. I met this really nice woman on the train who was heading to Bremen in Northern Germany but was in Strasbourg for a conference on Polar Caps Climates or something. She was very polite German woman with very good English and horrible French! Anyways Finally I arrived in Stuttgart after the people on the train practically fell asleep on me, how do you say “get the fuck off me” in German I wonder? 😉 Anyways, it was a rush to get to the train, and I nearly missed the last one but once I got on it was okay!

I got to the airport and it was completely empty which was awesome. It’s a small little airport with three connected terminals and is very quite modern and comfortable. My 6am flight to Zürich was the first flight out, so I knew that it would be a long night, but since I arrived at about 01.30 it wasn’t really; so I was happy at the same time. I walked around, found a bathroom, and then got comfy and took a nice sleep with my backpack which was the greatest pillow ever! I woke up to the sound of an sms from Robb who promised to wake me up in time for my flight; what a dependable friend, being all the way in Sweden! So I went to brush my teeths and make myself look at least human for the flight; and then went to the check in which obviously at 5am in the morning doesn’t have much too it. The woman was nice at the Lufthansa check in but there was a delay on my Swiss flight because of lack of crew rest or something so it got delayed an hour. I went through security, which takes 5 seconds, and then went down to my waiting gate. I had to go through customs before being let in, and then I was the only one down there for about an hour until the other 5 people on my flight were arriving. They were all clearly Swiss. There is something very Swiss about them that makes them quite different than everyone else; I can’t put my finger on it, but they all struck me as very Swiss at any case!

The flight was up and down in 30 minutes and then I was in Zürich the beautiful city in Switzerland. The airport is super-modern with tons and tons of shopping, so I slept for a few hours and then woke up to Chinese men inthe international departures area screaming; it reminded me of Toronto and how much I don’t want to go back at times. I had to go through customs again, and security twice because the Swiss are anal about people in their country despite only 1 in 5 total people there are actually Swiss; like seriously right? Anyways this annoying Spanish guy kept asking me where the gates were to the same flight I was on to Málaga, but I pretended not to speak English to get him to leave me alone, it sounds mean but really the guy was annoying and didn’t take a hint. I just didn’t want him to know I was on the same flight as him! I hid in the SAS flight area for Stockholm and felt much more at home, and even had a nice conversation with a student from Jönköping! Her name was Katja, and loved the fact that I spoke Swedish to her, as she has no confidence in English at all.
After a few hours in the air and lovely service from Swiss International Airlines I was in Spain and again had to go through customs. What do they not understand about “no hablo español” ? They gave me a bit of a hard time since my visa had expired but I got all my papers and such so it was okay. I went in search for the bus to the bus station, and then the other bus to Granada which was a pain in the ass. First judgements of Spain; nobody speaks English, everybody smokes horribly, its hot and humid, it’s got palm trees, lots of poverty at the bust station. All in all, trying to find the ticket office was a struggle but the bus was very very cheap and in 2 hours I’d be in Granada. I slept and had a lovely time in the bus, but it was very hot and I had to listen to a Tunisian guy try to pick up an Italian woman in the row ahead of me. The guy was a sleeze and really quite annoying, but it humoured me that she wasn’t interested.

I got to Granada and Sebas was waiting for me; and really it was interesting because he wasn’t anything like I remembered. We went to his home and I was knackered so I took a litle nap after lunch at 4pm. I more or less slept right until the next day in his childhood room; and then I woke up to music blaring from the room next to me. I didn’t care but seriously! He instructed me that at 14.30 we would go to a café to meet his friends and they would walk around Granada with me to show me around. He has a motorbike which was scary as hell but eventually I got used to it; but seriously, it’s scary as hell.

His friends were really really nice, Gabi as shown on the left, and Nadine shown on the right with lots of sunburn from climbing the mountains. Gabi was Spanish and spoke limited English, so our method of communication was French; he was really quite lovely and good at French too. And then also Nadine was Québecoise so we spoke in French as well and she even asked me to help her with some English; which I was happy to do. I hit it off great with Sebas’ friends and even got along better with them because they were more upbeat and not moping around. We went to a bunch of cafés and went to the highest point in the city to look upon the city. It was beautiful and very very hot. I wasn’t prepared for tropical climate as I thought everyone was exaggerating, but alas I survived. 

So after climbing the hills that seemed to go on forever we went back into the city for something to eat. Did you know that in Granada when you buy a drink which is a standard 1.50€ you get whats called ‘tapas’ for free? This means that you eat and drink for a low low price of approximately 15:- or 1.00CAD; I just about cried and was so happy. So we walked around and saw lots of stuff like the parks and some fountains and showed me how nice Granada was, but apart from that everyone got tired and then we went over to Nadine’s flat to watch the film “Proof” and meet some more friends. They were all Spanish but some spoke a little bit of English and one of them understood French but was too afraid to respond; so she spoke in English. I really was surprised at the lack of proficiencyin English of Spanish people; it’s quite shocking, but alas who cares!

These pictures are of the park that we loitered around at, and then on the right is the bullfighting ring in Granada, which has been remade and is very modern. At night it gets quite cold, and goes down to about 8°C so I was a bit chilly but we sook refuge in some of the bars and such since everything is so darned cheap. Sebas’ parents were very hospitable and amazing cooks but they didn’t speak anything but Spanish so communication was limited but very friendly! They even introduced me to the whole family and showed me tons of pictures; I understood a little but tried to learn as much as I could.

The next day we were going to meet up with Gabi and another friend since Nadine was going into the mountains again, and so we went to a bar and basically killed time until we did nothing. It was kind of boring and awkard since it was all in Spanish, but I didn’t care that much as it was just interesting to see how different things were. We went home and relaxed for awhile, but it was really difficult to talk to Sebas since he’s really quite depressive and low on energy. He’s kind of weird and intense too so I found it better to connect with positive and friendly people; but all would be revealed in the end.

The next day we met up with all of the friends and all and Sebas left me with Gabi since he had a band rehearsal or something to go to. So we went to a Moroccon/Tunisian Sheisha bar, and I had bubblegum tea which was amazing and we chatted for hours. None of the others showed up and Sebas was late, but since they knew the owners of the place we got to stay quite late. These arabic speaking people next to us were quite rude and kept giving us rude looks for speaking in French, but we just ignored them and had a jolly good time. We walked back home since Sebas was late, but we found out that he had been trying to call us but nobody answered our phones so he was quite pissed and found us on the way home. I have no idea why but in any case we went back home and then decided that we would go out the next night, Friday and have a good time.

So went out we did, and I found it difficult to relate to Spanish culture, but I’m not latino so it’s okay; I don’t have any desire to be in any sort of latin country. I like my personal space and bubble and don’t want anyone to interfere with it. We stopped by and picked up a bunch of Sebas friends from high school, none of whom spoke any language in common with me so communication was again awkward and limited. I helped them with English homework and we went out for super cheap Sangria’s at a local bar and then went to a disco. I lost the ability to see and breath due to the smoke in the disco, and then lost all desire to speak in English; so I came off as a bit weird since I really didn’t feel like speaking it at all! We went home without me saying anything since I had nothing to say, and had a little too much to drink.

Woke up on Saturday to find out that there would be a lunar eclipse so we made huge plans to walk up to the highest point and spend the night up there watching it! So we went to buy Sangria which was only 2€ and then kebabs which was my first time having it; and it was the most amazing thing ever in my entire life! Anways, they were cheap and we walked all the way up, but took a minibus cause we were lazy. There were tons of people up there, and we ate our kebabs as you can see above, damn Nadine! Also you can see us, as I was freezing cold, with my new Spanish friends: Lucía, Myself, Marie del Mer, and Gabi; they were so nice and polite and friendly that they made me feel at home.  We watched the lunar eclipse as seen throughout Europe, and I had far too much to drink, having a full 1.5l bottle of sangria to myself. So I was a bit tipsy on the way home, after having conversations with Canadians, Americans, Danes, Swedes and some French people! We started to head over to Nadine’s house, but Sebas wanted to talk to me so I was reluctantly pulled over.

He more or less took shots at me for about 20 minutes telling me how rude I have been and all this shit that I have done, which was all lies and that I never did; but I tried to be polite to his family but obviously I couldn’t talk to the, and then he made up some shit about phonecalls and whatever. It was all bullshit until he talked about how I got along better with his friends; and I gave it to him straight up and told him that it was just very uncomfortable to talk to him because he was on the verge of tears the whole time. I can’t help that his friends were better and easier to talk to than him, so whatever I just brushed him off. So we walked back and all seemed to be fine until we got to Nadine’s house.

There were tons of Spaniards there and then it middled down to a few of us, about 8, and I had been talking with Gabi and Marie del mar when Sebas went absolutely crazy and got into a huge screaming match with Gabi and the others because we were talking in French. Everyone took Gabi and my side since none speak English and they didn’t care; and because Sebas was being an asswhole. He was debating that we were talking about him, which we weren’t, and that it was rude that we were speaking in a langauge nobody understood. They all knew I couldn’t spanish, and none of them could english, and really it just came down to him being jealous that I got on better with the rest of them; but that’s his fault. So anyways he stormed out, as they told him to calm down and relax since they didn’t care and that I could talk in any language I like since I don’t speak Spanish. They were supercool about it; and even we played some weird Spanish games for a few hours. Sebas eventually stormed out in a huge drama-queen like exit basically throwing me out of his apartment telling me to be at the bus station at 6am and he would bring my bag.

I was pissed off but didn’t care, because I thought he would take something from my bag or forget to come since I had my passport and papers in there. All turned out well, and I talked to Nadine and Gabi and they wanted to know what he was bitching to me about. All of it came out, and then they told me that everything he had been saying behind my back about me being a horrible person and how they didn’t believe it because it didn’t seem right. All in all, Sebas was a pathological liar who lied about everything and all except for his name, and even to them about a lot of things. So really it was just better that I could erase him from my life; and I made new friends. Gabi and Nadine were planning to go to Dublin and invited me along, but that wont happen because she’s moving to Portugal and doesn’t have any money; but still we got on great and they were the ones that made my vacation awesome!

I didn’t sleep and took the bus back to Málaga and made it to the airport and slept until my flight. I had a few more connecting flights on the way back. All the customs again and all the paperwork but it all went smoothly until I landed in Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva airport for two hours, but the funny thing is that there are no chairs in the entire airport. I mean no chairs, nowhere to sit, nothing. How is this possible? So I parked myself on the ground and sat around for hours. I saw many differnet nationalties, mostly British with horrible accents, and then lots of Danes and even I saw someone who looked like my friend Bojan from Austria.. I took a picture of him and it’s on the right; I was going to go talk to him, but obviously it wasn’t him, but in any cause wie ghets Bojan? 😉

I got through security, which you can’t go through until 20 minutes before your flight because of limited space in the waiting area or whatever; so thats why there are no chairs.. People with connecting flights get screwed! Anyways, it was beautiful view with mountains everywhere and my flight for Zürich left, and I got there and waited 20 minutes for my flight back to Stuttgart. It was all lovely and no problems except for missing the last train back to Strasbourg by 1 minute. As I was stepping onto the platform the train left the track so I was pissed. I bought a ticket and went back to the airport where I was knackered and slept again until the next train out. I slept from 10pm to 6am straight with no interruptions in the airport and then took my train. Train stations in Germany have no waiting areas and it was cold in Germany! Usch; but eventually and finally I got back to France and made my way to my comfy bed.

A wonderful end to a wonderful trip (with some exceptions) but I’m totally happy that I went and I got to have some tannage and nice weather! Highlights from the trip? Orange trees; which apparently are on the roads of Granada, I couldn’t help but take a photo of the tropical climates! And seeing WoodyWoodpecker on the street was just a laugh and a half. We followed him and then bought ice-creame for shits and giggles. Like seriously, dressing up in costume? That’s just too rich! Finally I wrote about it, and my hands hurt so I’m off to watch Melodifestivalen final and have my ranting review of it tomorrow! 🙂