So much for regular updates....

Yep, my apologies everyone, I failed horribly in my mission to keep you all updated about my whereabouts. But I guess it wouldn't be half as fun if I had to find an internetcafe everywhere I go.

Alright, lets start with a short summary of everything that happened from the point of my last post until I left for my my current trip. (I can see you thinking "where did he go, where is he now?", but I'm afraid you'll have to have a little more patience to hear about that. Well... at least until you've read a couple of lines further.):

First I traded Bremen for Hamburg, getting a ride there from a nice pilot who happened to be flying just that way. In Hamburg I got a good view of the city because of some amazing people that hosted me and showed me around. The hitchhiking from Hamburg to Greifswald, 2 days later, went smooth as can be, so I was nicely on time for the students festival (kind of conference) that was being held there. I had a agreat time there for about 8 days, before hitchhiking back to Utrecht.
Then I spent some 2 weeks earning a little money teaching math at the exam trainings, before almost immediately departing again, this time for my current trip.

Alright, alright, I'll tell you! I'm in Istanbul now, just arrived with a truck straight from Albania. That was, as you can imagine, quite a long ride, and I can tell you it lasted the whole night, and I can also tell you I did not sleep. At all. That's probably the reason for any inconsistencies in my story today, so if they seem somewhat unreal, or impossible, or overly phantastic, trust me: it really happened!

We (Afke, a good friend from Delft, and me) left the Netherlands 14 days ago, on monday the 14th of July. The first day we made it to a gas station close to Villach, Austria, while we were trying to get to a small village in Slovenia. We decided to take it easy on this trip and camp right there. Of course, we first had to find a spot to put up our tent. Nice and camouflaged, we thought it would have to be. Untit we discovered that a small patch of grass was already being crowded by several people spending the night there either in a tent or outside. This was to turn out a little easier than we expected...

Next morning, we got a ride with a Spanish guy on his way to Trieste, thinking he would pass by Ljubljana/ He, naturally, did not, and we ended up close to Trieste on the border with Slovenia. We had all day, so we actually quite enjoyed our little detour through Italy, and had no problem whatsoever finding a ride to the village where we would be meeting some friends of mine I had hosted in Utrecht some months ago. After an incredibly friendly man had driven us right to the village, quite a few kilometers out of his way, after already having treated us to a pizza, we met our friends in the beautiful setting of a little village in the Slovenian countryside.
There we took some walks through the surroundings before heading on towards Zagreb.

In Zagreb we arrived after one easy ride from Slovenia, to be hosted by two really kind people and their incredibly funny dog. We walked around the city, which was surprisingly green everywhere, something we had not expected in such quantities as it came in.
This was also around and about the time we were getting suspicious about the weather. Was it following us? Was it trying to trick us into thinking that we were still in the Netherlands? It was raining terribly one day, while it would be hot as hell the next. Oh well, we managed.

One thing that happened in Zagreb is especially worth mentioning. So that's why I'll mention it. When we went looking for some food in the evening, we dediced to ask some people on the street if they knew a good place in the neighborhood. This question was answered by immediately inviting us in to eat with them right there, right then. This, although somewhat unexpected, really made our day, adn our week and maybe our whole trip. Especially when afterwards we ended up playing music together with them as they all turned out to be highly trained musicians!

The next day we decided to hitch south to a national park in the mountains, the Plitvicka Lakes, also on the list of UNESCO as world heritage. It was, in one word, amazing. Although sadly near the end it got really crowded with busloads of tourists.
From here we decided to try and reach Montenegro, as neither of us had ever been there. We didn't make it past Split that night, and we decided to camp next to the gas station there.

The idea was great, just put up a tent there and you're done, right? Well, I mentioned the weather before, and right then it was to change to take apocalyptic proportions. Just as we put up the tent somebody up there decided to pour a giant bucket of water right on top of us. Incessantly. The whole night. The inside of the tent was dry, but our luggage, and us in particular, were not. Then the inside of the tent wasn't dry anymore either....
Lots of fun, really, especially when a heavy thunderstorm decided to come by. And because it didn't like the mountain next to us, it decided to stay right there, above our heads, the whole night. I've never heard so much thunder, seen so much lightning or felt so much rain in such a short time period before. And we're the idiots camping in it....

Next morning we managed to pick up and pack our tent remarkably dry in a short interval between the rains. Then luck decided to help us out, as we found a ride with some Dutch people, all the way to Montenegro! There, it was already quite late, and they decided to let us sleep on the floor of their rented apartment for the night. Extremely nice of them of course. Next day, they broght us halfway the steep mountain road leading to the Montenegrian high valleys. The guy driving suffered from fear of hights and would sometimes start to hyperventilate, so that was a really good reason not to bring us all the way, as the road went pretty high. Everything ok, we would walk/hitchhike further up the road, until I realized I had left my phone and charger in their apartment. So much for the ride up the hill.... We had to go all the way back with them, and this time do the whole trip up the mountain ourselves. Luckily, this proved to be very easy and we were quickly brought to a little village on the top by a an Italian family.

There we walked to a restaurant to get something to eat, when next to the house neighboring the restaurant a car with Dutch licence plate parked. We went up to the man getting out of the car, and it turned out to be a Montenegrian married to a Dutch woman who was there too, together with their son. This was a pleasant surprise, as they invited us to put their tent up behind their house and to join them for a drink. They knew the restaurant owner too, and managed to convince him to let us use his toilet house outside the restaurant during our stay there. Quite amazing, if I may say so.

After spending the next day walking up a nearby mountain to a Mausoleum of a long-dead king, we took to the road once more the morning after that.
We planned to hitch through Albania and Greece to Istanbul from there, in either 2 or 3 days, depending on our luck. Until the border with Albania everything went really smooth, and the views we got of the countryside were really amazing. From the border onwards, however, we noticed that in Albania hitchhiking is really hard, because basically everybody with a car drives around as a private taxi. This is the main form of public (private) transport in Albania. After a while, and a ride where we had to pay the driver afterwards unexpectedly, we decided it would be easier to just take small minibusses through Albania, also because neither of us understood anything from the language.

We spent the night in Elbasan, south-west of Tirana, and noticed that the countryside north of Tirana was really nothing special, but south of it was absolutely amazing. The next day proved that theory once more as we drove towards the border with Greece.
There, at the border, we managed to get a ride from the first truck passing by, who ended up taking us all the way to Istanbul! To do so, however, he kept on driving the entire night, and because I didn't want to fall asleep during a ride, I stayed awake the whole night too, as said. We arrived, in the end, this morning around 6am local time (5am in the Netherlands) as this really kind truckdriver let us out.

Impressions of Istanbul are great so far, and tonight we'll meet a friend of mine I met at the students festival in Greifswald mentioned earlier. She will hopefully and probably show us around a little bit.
Afke will take a plane back home in about 4 days. As for my own plans, I'm not sure yet, but I'm thinking about visiting some other friends in the south of Greece around the 10th of August and then flying back from there.

Well, I hope to have put you back on track as far as following me on my trips is concerned. I hope I'll post another update sooner or later this week. Or maybe something similar to last time will happen and I will not write anything until I'm back home again.... Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading!