One-way-ticket to the open road

After about one and half weeks in France, Belgium and Netherlands the autumn started raining on me. I decided to hit the road again. Last weeks had gone couchsurfing first in Reims and Caen where I met Juan from Argentina. Amazing trooper travelling with a half-year travel/work visa. In Caen we manned up after we spent some time with a same host. We got along so well that the general thought was to practice travelling togther a little more for some future Amazing Race competition.

As we left Caen behind with an idea of Amsterdam´s coffee shops we soon ran into a real life Amazing Race through Paris. The plan was to catch a shared ride from Paris to Amsterdam six o´clock in the morning. Unfortunately the ride failed to show up. After we realised that she had bailed on us we found an internet spot and booked a bus ride to Brussels. Turned out it was departing in 40 minutes right from the other side of the town. The next 30 minutes went shuffling through the morning rush hour of Paris subway with our rucksacks. Eventually we managed to catch the bus just two minutes before departure. Three hours later we were dead tired and in Brussels. Luckily one of our lures in couchsurfing had catched fish and we had a couch to surf.

Brussels was couchsurfing at it´s best. Beautiful people, lots of culture and shitloads of fine belgian beer. We spend the day enjoying Indian dance, music and awesome company of our hostesses friends. Two days went by in Brussels and it was time to move into Amsterdam. We had a couch waiting at a guy´s place in the centrum. First look at this fine gentleman´s profile told us that he was an very peculiar person. The gent informed us that he was 53-year old nudist homosexual who expected his guest´s to follow his attire. Two days with a license to spend without those ball-withering jeans? Hell yeah!

We arrived to ´Dam on saturday evening with a Syrian lady through blablacar. After two hours of Algerian folk music blasting through our eardrums we found ourselves right in the middle of saturday eve´s night scene. I send a request for address details and received an sms informing that the beers were in the cold. Brilliant!

After about thirty minutes later we arrived to our host´s place and after about two minutes i had relieved myself from my clothes. On sunday we did a tour around the centrum and as it seemed the whole town was suffering from a collective hangover. In the evening we had risotto night at our host´s place. Nothing but good food, beer, wine and three naked guys sharing the best times of their lives.

Later in the night we ventured the infamous Red light district. It turned out to be quite boring. As it was sunday evening there were not too many people out. The most shocking doscovery was to find, not only the girls, but hamburgers aswell from these "vending machines!"
On tuesday we caught a shared ride back to Brussels and spendt the night with the same host as three days earlier. The next day he had to split up. Juan went to see the beautiful Ghent and my destiny was to spend 22 hours on a cheap-liner to Barcelona.
Equipped with enough books, snacks and wine I embarked the vehicle for an overnight stroll through France. The night went drowsing every now and then and watching the people change around me. In the morning I woke up next to a Brasilian guy. I tore up my tin of pasta bolognese and flushed it down with the last of red. The gentleman next to us inquired how could I drink wine 9 o´clock in the morning. I threw it back at him asking how could he not after 20 hours on that heap. Around noon there was Barcelona. A welcoming warm wave against face as I stepped out of the vehicle. I checked my bearings from a map and set the course to a luch cafeteria across the street.