to nowhere in particular

no idea where i'm going, but i'll get there Read more

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Trip start
September 20, 2023
to nowhere in particular Traveler
farewell in austria
Sep 16–20, 2023 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C
spent the last couple days with the fam and friends celebrating moms 50th, packed up and said goodbye for good :')

feeling excited, but no nervousness
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munich
Sep 20–21, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C
super friendly location, chatted with two guys from istanbul about turkey, met up with lilly and boarded the train to france at 3:30 am
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bordeaux
Sep 21–23, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌧 17 °C
arrived tired as hell from a treterous tgv trip, spent a lot of time wandering around the very much beautiful city with lilly always encountering brits and germans everywhere we went

tried to keep it as low budget as possible, which is impossible a) in france and b) with lilly

what we werent prepared for is that the the fucking king of england decided to come to bordeaux to say hi so that was a lot of fun

hostel was quite alright, but when i tried to pick up my laundry on the last day nobody had a clue where it went, so now it's forced ultralight travel igRead more
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barcelona
Sep 23–28, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 21 °C
bought a bottle of jägermeister first thing after arriving with the tgv, were a bit spooked while checking in at the hostel, but turned out fine (except for me feeling a bit under the weather bc of the ac for a couple of days)

headed straight to the razzmatazz club hammered as hell, had a bomb ass time with all kinds of people, woke up with a hangover and explored the city for a bit. the shopowner of the nearest ministore was high as a kite but still managed to find some pasta cheese for me :)

met another guy from turkey the next morning at the free breakfast and a chap from argentina in our dorm, then went to go ride a jetski with lilly. in general quite a bit of aimless wandering through the city, often times seperate from lilly. also went to some bars and bought some new clothes. because of the ac cold, no beach days sadly.

i took the bus to lyon, lilly decided to pay extra and go for a train. met carla on the bus, she was on the way home from valencia and heavily debated starting a life there. talked about our plans in life and our travel experiences, later, ulysse and thomas joined in and we formed a little social club at the back of the bus, made the 9 hours to lyon a lot more fun.Read more
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lyon
Sep 28–30, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
arrived via bus, said goodbye to ulysse and helped a chap buy a metro ticket. met lilly at the airbnb she booked (she was completely brain dead that evening for some reason), made some pasta, then went to bed.

woke up around 9 am feeling shite, stayed in bed for a couple hours, then headed out to explore the city. saw some nice alleys, ate at a american restaurant, visited the hardest vintage store on the planet, bought a new charger and some high calorie food for the next week and headed home to get some rest. the flat had netflix access, so i could happily finish watching my movie.
finally sewed my german patch onto my backpack, bit off center but who cares. went to bed after a quick telephone call with my parents.

woke up at 4 am to farewell lilly (you will be missed), then slept until 9 and packed up my own stuff. tried to hitchhike to grenoble for the first time of this trip, but decided to take a cheap bus after trying for 2 hours. couldve waited longer but started to get sunburned. maybe it just wasn't the right spot, better luck next time :)Read more
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grenoble
Sep 30–Oct 1, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌙 18 °C
arrived via flixbus and had a walk through the city, beautiful mountains all around with some super pretty buildings and lots of young people. i thought i could just walk for half an hour into a nearby forest and set up camp there, but i severly underestimated the size of the city, has to be as big as chemnitz. munched down my lasagna and replenished water supplies. the sun went down soon but i was able to find a spot after many hours of walking.Read more
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la terasse
Oct 1–2, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C
(long one)

woke up in my tent above grenoble and started hiking down towards the autoroute. made a nice "direction chambèry" signat a gas station and got picked up by julie and paul after less than 10 minutes.

they dropped me off at la terasse, the closest town next to l'arche miracle. there was a kind of street vendor event going on and i bought a gold watch for 10€ in case i need to trade. headed up towards the mountains and left my backpack in an abandoned shack right beside a campable meadow. i knew neither how long it would take me to reach the rock formation nor how i would get there, so i left with food, water and backup clothes and started hiking.

had a break at a cascade about 2 hours in, already doubting that i would make it to the rocks and back. had to trespass through private area and hide in the bushes one time in order not to be seen. then i realized that the google maps marker was completely off and did some research. turns out i was headed the wrong way, but my actual goal was in the same area. after some 6 hours, a lot of trial and failure and some climbing, i finally made it up there. took 20 minutes to take some pictures and ran down the mountain in 3 hours to make it back to my pack before sundown. was on the phone with jakob for more than 2 hours and arrived in the dark.

set up camp, made some ravioli and slept till 9 am. packed up the next morning and headed to the autoroute again. was running desperately low on water at this point and bought some at a store. jumped a fence to a highway rest area where i was greeted with free wifi, a toilet and some outlets. was picked up by the first car to pass by, took me to ikea.

wanted to find a sign and some hotdogs there but managed to find only a wooden plank and some chocolate. quickly realized i wasn't going to make it anywhere by thumb from there, but remembered i still had an interrail ticket. after some debating i decided to go directly to marseille without stopping at valence or voreppe, where i was planning to hitchhike to.

walked 20 mins to the hostel i booked on the train and got settled in. had some pasta and enjoyed the company of 4 other germans. most of them had never eaten pasta with ketchup, that shattered my world view.Read more
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marseille bébé
Oct 2–4, 2023 in France
woke up and ate some breakfast with the germans, checked out and left my stuff in the hostel. i didn't really know where to go, so i just figured entering "graffiti" into google maps could be a good idea. it was. i explored the most artsy, colourful, friendly neighbourhood i have ever seen, absolute future living dream.
got a huge pizza for 5€ and took a bus up to the cathedral or whatever it was, i was just there for the views.

in the afternoon, i booked a dorm for another night because i had contacted nicolas from couchsurfing and he told me wednesday would fit him better. met my two british-indian roomies who promptly invited me to join them for a bar crawl in the evening. watched the sunset from the shore and got ready for the night out.

we met at another hostel which seemed pretty dead, so i was already debating going back and saving my money for another time. a 3€ can of monster energy managed to lift my spirits and we went in to meet the other barhoppers. everyone was super friendly and i quickly bonded with two young french-canadians, jayce and lauriane.

we visited a total of 4 bars, finishing in a small club. had a great time throughout and found out that lauriane has the same birthday as me, so we made a deal to meet up again celebrate together in naples. could tell that they both fancied me a bit (jayce turned out to be gay), but we were all to shitfaced to do anything about it.

woke up the next morning not too hungover, met the canadians for a short walk and hopped on the train to saint-raphaël.Read more
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saint raphaël
Oct 4–8, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C
had my first couchsurfing experience here. nicolas hit me up while i was in the bus to lyon, telling me he would be happy to host me for a couple of days in his coast town.

he was super nice and welcoming, but with one little twist: he lives a nudist lifestyle and only hosts if you are alright with doing so too. read his bio a bit too late but still decided to move on despite karla's concerns.

nicolas lives in a small 2-room flat, the guest bed in the main room takes up half the space. the nudist thing weirded me out a lot in the beginning, but became pretty normal towards the end of the 5 day stay. he paid for almost everything we ate, let me use his snorkeling gear, e-scooter and even playstation 5. i had a very laid back week including lots of sleeping, chilling on the beach and using the rare opportunity of playing gta v. nico even took me on a little roadtrip around the coast. all in all: would recommend.

i also saw a kid at mcdonalds accidentally dropping his burger and having it eaten by sea crows. made my day.

on the last day, we headed to toulon, where my ferry to sardinia would depart. he had to work there, so it was a nice coincidence.Read more
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ferry to porto torres
Oct 8–9, 2023, Western Mediterranean ⋅ 🌙 23 °C
after some mcmuffins and a tour around the port of toulon, i said goodbye to nico and headed down for the port. while going through security checks, my knife (that i had forgotten about) fell off my backpack and was found by one of the staff a few moments later. had to leave it there after signing some document, but they were cool about it.

i was the first foot passenger to board the ferry, immediately started making tuna wraps on the upper decks. i wanted to sleep outside and found a nice, decently quiet spot at the rear of the top deck. had to abandon it at 1 am because it got (expectedly) wet. after a stop-over in ajaccio, the ferry arrived at noon. oh yeah and there were a bunch of dolphins jumping alongside the ferry while we were entering porto torres, that was tight.

got off and spotted a lidl after a bit of strolling, realizing i had bought way to much shit in france thinking it would be more expensive here. got a baguette and some grapes and devoured them at a nearby trainstation along with a wheel of camembert. after an hour, one of the two daily trains arrived. the ride was not the most comfortable, but i ended up in oristano a few hours later, around 5:30.

i had planned to go to a campsite to spend the first night and to make some plans for the next days and weeks, but generally, i was here because of a surfing school that wasn't far away, but not in walking distance either. the bus that was supposed to take me to the campsite, or rather the bus stop, was nonexistent, so i headed for the comfort and the wifi of a mcdonalds i had spotted on google maps.

arriving there, i was just sitting down at an outdoor table, when another traveller-looking chap there started to strike up a conversation. i came to find out that his name was chris, he was from germany and had been on the road for 4 years now, currently with his caravan camper, herr schmidt. he proposed to take me to his parking spot, saying there would be good spots for me to camp nearby. out of interest (and, quite frankly, desperation), i agreed.

after he had finished his meal, we went shopping at another lidl and then started driving to his place. he was super talkative and we had some good deep talk about travel, friendship and relationship right off the bet. i also came to find out that chris was 41, and not in his late 20s, as i had expected. he had been in sardinia scince december of last year busy fixing mr schmidts water damages. he knew almost everyone in the small town we were in.

we arrived, exchanged numbers and i set up my tent. just a couple of meters away, about two dozen motor homes were parked next to some hot springs on the river shore. had some dinner in the very homely caravan and went to sleep in my tent after my weekly check-up with lilly.Read more
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fordongianus
Oct 9–11, 2023 in Italy
woke up, met chris at the café, had breakfast consisting of waffles and chocolate waffles and set up my hammock next to my tent. most of the day was spent relaxing there, other than that i just jumped into the river once and watched the sunset from a hill where i finally managed to get some internet connection and answer some texts.

wanted to invite chris for a pizza, he refused but actually planned on going out to eat too, so we went together. pizza can taste twice as good as normally when you know it just costs you 4,50€.

afterwards, we had a bath in the hot springs by the river. the night sky was super clear too, absolute 10/10 experience.Read more
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sanea scoada
Oct 11–13, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
woke up at the camp spot in mari ermi, ate the rest of my pasta and packed up early. went to brush my teeth and get more water when i noticed the foul taste of the water and, shortly after, the "no drinking water" sign above the sinks. that explains why the pasta tastes kinda weird. problem is that on top of my dead phone, i had already used about 2 litres of that water the day before and now had exactly 0 litres of drinkable water for the coming 33°C day. thank god for my water filter straw.

started walking along a dirt track, i really didn't pay much attention when arriving the day before, there had been too much happening in the car. not ten minutes later, a familiar car with a familiar andrea inside approached me. he was on ft with one of his friends who started to translate for him. andrea told me that he could drive me to putzu idu, where i needed to go today, after he finished work at 1am.

while i waited the time out at the beach, he charged my phone and powerbank inside the reception caravan. later, he even gave me his usb-c cord to replace my broken one, as well as a paper slit with his phone number and drove me to putzu idu. andrea also showed me some of the german music he liked. absolute legend, the coolest guy i have met so far.

after saying goodbye, i headed towards the surf school. it was in a way less populated area than expected, it was more of a village than a town. not a single store was open, but it still looked pretty inviting and the people were friendly.

after a bit of waiting infront of the surf club, i met one of the coaches. he gave me permission to stash my pack on the property while i went back to putzu idu to get some groceries. got a bag of biscuits, some bananas and finally some drinkable water.

when i returned, the gates were closed and no one in sight, but i could see that my backpack was still there. after hours of waiting and calling different numbers, i managed to get a hold of the guy and get my stuff back. he gave me the number of another coach he said i could contact. went down the next road and set up camp right next to thr road. there was a lot of noise, both cars and animals, so the free earplugs from the hostel in barcelona finally found their purpose.

woke up in the morning and powered on my phone. i had turned it off at 35% the evening before to save some power, now it was at 25% and dropped instantly to 5% as soon as i opened whatsapp. again, i had no power and no way of getting any. really starting to think about buying a new phone or getting the battery replaced. it should be quite strong in brand new condition, but ofc i had to buy refurbished.

bought some bread and peanut butter and ate it at the beach, dry as hell but keeps the hunger away. also gave my phone and charger to the clerk of the store where i had bought the biscuits the day before. chilled for a bit, got my phone back and went for a little hike up to the surprisingly picturesque cliffside coast. the other surfing coach, marco, had responded saying we could meet up for a lesson in 3 days.

went for a sunset swim again, posted on my insta and made some chili con carne afterwards.Read more
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mari ermi
Oct 11–12, 2023 in Italy
(highlight)

plan for today: somehow get stove fuel and somehow make it closer to the surf school.

had waffle breakfast again, packed up my shit, replenished my water supplies and went to say goodbye to chris, who was sitting, as expected, at the café. we were joined by three other friends of his, a hippie couple and an older woman, all german. they were all super friendly and told some stories of their own hitchhiking experiences. one of the guys offered to give me some of the gas he had left in a spare tank of their renovated fire engine, that's problem one solved.

i said goodbye to all of them, chris even got me a little present, a small bag of scented wood for my backpack. so cute. i started marching my overloaded ass west along a road. it was siesta and super hot, so barely any traffic. i got lucky, the third car i held my "ovest" sign out to picked me up. three swiss friends in their late twenties on vacation with a rental, they had great music taste. i got dropped of somewhere behind oristano.

i started walking again, this time it was a little harder. even if one of the drivers saw me, there were hardly any opportunities to stop. had a short breather in a small abandoned tower, about half an hour later, i was picked up by a friendly italian man.

he dropped me off and i realized that i was completely wrong there, but it was a somewhat touristic area so i decided to have a look at the attractions (tower kinda thing, pic 5). at this point, my phone and powerbank were both almost dead, the solar panel couldn't really help either.

had a nap, then i realized that both my charging cables were fucked, so my 15% battery was all i had. nonetheless, i was good on water and food, so no big worries. walking back towards the (only) road, i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw the fire engine from the guys that had given me gas earlier. i was like an hour away from where we parted ways.

again, i got picked up, this time by two very verbal italian grannies. they didn't speak the tiniest bit of english and neither did i understand them, which didn't stop them from talking to me the whole way. they took me to the next intersection and hand signaled me to get off here. back to walking.

the last ride (four rides in a day is my new high score) was by far the best one yet. i got squished into a tiny fiat with three other teenagers. three seconds in, a large glass container filled to the brim with weed rolled against my feet. the guy next to me screamed something italian, snatched the thing and the entire car, including me, started laughing.

their english was very limited, but andrea, the guy next to me, managed to ask me wether i smoked. i wasn't trying to be a pussy, so i replied "a little". it seemed to be the right answer, because this dude proceeded to unload the weed container into an empty box of fags and gave it to me.

the three italians took me to a seaside camping site where they were apparently employed and let me stay there for half the price. absolute legends.

my phone was completely dead at this point, so i went for a sunset swim in the sea before making pasta (half of which landed on my stove) and calling it a day.Read more
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putzu idu
Oct 14–17, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C
packed up in the morning and moved to an abandoned construction site of an unfinished luxury resort i had spotted a day earlier on my way to the grocery store. set up the hammock there, called home and finally got around to downloading an e-book. the hound of baskerville it is. didn't do much except locate a mobile repair shop in greece that i could visit to get my phone battery replaced.

two or three times, some tourist stumbled across my camp, apart from that nothing except a lot of beachside reading happened the next 2 days. finished the book less than 24h after i had started reading it, was pretty good. made about 600g of unsalted pasta with tuna which i lived off of for two days.

finally had my long awaited surf lesson on monday. day started with my water bottle aquitting services and emptying one litre of water into my bum bag containing all money, electronics and documents i have with me. luckily, everything apart from my usb adapter survived the ordeal. had a full powerbank, so i decided to worry about it later.

the lesson started - in italian fashion - a couple minutes late. me and a younger italian woman were the only ones there, so it was basically a private lesson. after half an hour of theory and dry training, we put on our wetsuits and got to work. the sky was very cloudy and there was a bit of rain, but the waves were all the better. i think i picked it up pretty quickly, which is no surprise considering marco told us that the conditions that day were basically perfect. after two hours of surfing, we went back to the school. rested for the remainder of the day and had my weekly call with lilly.

i thought i would get to surf again the next day, but the weather decided differently. first things first, i was awoken by the sounds of a truck pulling up to the construction site and deloading an excavator along with a bunch of workers. after years of desertation, the construction of this place had seemlingly reramped on a random tuesday morning. a couple minutes later, i was spotted the first time by one of the guys while i was already packing up. he gestured me to do just that and leave the place as i had found it. an hour later i was homeless yet again.

got some cornflakes in despite all and went to meet marco at the surf club at ten as we had agreed. the sea was completely unstirred and marco never showed up either way. took my waiting time as an opportunity to make some plans for the next days and weeks. noticed that all the ferry routes from italy to croatia i had considered don't even run in november, which means i will have to take the land way all the way up to serbia and down from there. same thing with the ferry to naples, the closest alternative i was able to book is one to palermo. actually played with the idea of taking a ferry from there to tunisia, but i wouldn't have any time for that if i wanted to be in naples for my birthday. also, my credit card isn't working at the moment, so probably not the wisest idea.

so, the plan in short: ferry to palermo, bus to catania, trekking tour up mt etna, bus to naples, birthday, trekkig tour up mt vesuvius, then up to venice by train with stops in major cities where someone could host me on couchsurfing.

confronted by all these opportunities and with all of my stuff packed up anyway, i was all of the sudden v e r y eager to get out on the road again. the only thing that was keeping me was the money i owed to the surf school. after 6 hours of waiting, finally marcos brother came by and offered to relay the money to him. i got on my way, hitchhiked two cars to oristano and even managed to catch the last train to cagliari.Read more
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cagliari
Oct 17–21, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C
sun was already long down when i arrived in cagliari. i had no idea where to go, so i booked it to the closest mcdonalds and enjoyed the wifi there. couldn't use the outlets, tough, because of my broken adapter. made it my mission to find a new one the next day. after a bit of scowering through google maps satellite images, i found a seemingly abandoned overgrown area within walking distance and headed there. got lucky and found a very secluded and quiet spot to set up camp.

woke up in time to watch the sunrise from my camp spot, which was elevated on a hill way above the nearby apartment blocks, which made for a fantastic view. but when i wanted to leave, i came to realize that i had been shut in and the gate that was open the night before was now closed with a warning sign to match. you could just step around the gate though, and i had seen people walking their dogs up there, so i decided to stick with the spot.

bought a quickcharging set (life changing), a new book (orwell - animal farm) and one year premium for an offline language learning app so i could learn persian on the go. enjoyed some of the towns views and sat for half an hour listening to some french woman singing in the street. returned after a quick supermarket shop, made a cheap variant of egg & bacon sandwich dinner and went to sleep after a call with jakob.

the next day was spent almost entirely inside the mcdonalds which was more my home than my tent at this point. calling home, i was informed that there had been several earthquakes around naples indicating an eruption of mt vesuvius. that would def be quite the experience, but i'm not going to allow myself to be scared off by some mountain with anger issues.

i had noticed that every evening around 11pm, the wind carried loud music and engine sounds over while i was trying to sleep. it was jakob who brought up the idea that it could be a car meet. friday evening, i was actually prepared to go out and see for myself, but the streets stayed quiey that night.

woke up at 3am and read through my mails again. had a short panic attack because one e-mail said that i needed a printed out version of my ticket, but then i remembered that i have a history of stuff like this suddenly going my way, so i didn't bother too much. if shit hit the fan, i could always ask any shopowner with a printer to do me the favour.

exactly as i had hoped, the digital version worked just fine boarding the ferry the next day. the drug dog looked at me a bit sceptically as i walked past him with the weed in my backpack, but i can thank chris for gifting me his bag of scented wood for obscuring the smell.

somehow managed to lose my sleeping mat in the x-ray, but apart from that, everything went smoothly. also met dongjin, a bikepacker from south korea, that i had already noticed twice as he was cycling around oristano while i was passing by him in different cars on my way to cagliari.

lastly, some cultural takeaways from sardinia:
- more old people than teenagers are vaping
- people here seem to despise bicycles, have seen a grand total of about five in two weeks
- public affection goes craaaaazy: at all times, and i'm not exaggerating, there were at least two couples in the mcdonalds laying on the benches cuddling or straight up having makeout sessions.Read more
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palermo
Oct 22–24, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 18 °C
arrived via ferry and started walking through the dodgiest streets i had seen ye at 5 am. i wasn't sure when the hostel staff would allow me to come in, so i decided to wait at least until 8am. found a spot with free citi wifi and waited it out, trying not to fall asleep and have my shit stolen.

i let myself in and after half an hour more of waiting, finally encountered the old italian lady that ran the place. she let me rest in the common area until check-in time. some hours of dozing later, i heard a bit of a commotion at the reception. another traveler had found a huge bed bug on her sheets. everybody wanted to leave and tried to get their money back from the italian lady and her son, neither of which spoke the tiniest bit of english.

there was no other hostel available in town, so i grouped together with 3 other people from the hostel, brad from the uk, henry from the us and marilou from canada, to book an airbnb for two nights. like this, the bed bug refugees were born.

we had a lot of fun over the next two days, consumed ungodly amounts of wine and had the most unhinged conversations.

sadly, i didn't explore the city much. i was occupied making plans for the coming weeks. i had gotten an invitation to visit a friend from the us for a week free of charge. after some considerable doubt about why he would do this and about the necessity of booking transatlantic flights for fun at the beginning, i finally agreed.

i was actually very close to staying one more day for a date with an fsj-volunteer from leipzig that i had met on tinder, but circumstances prevented it, so i boarded the bus to catania.Read more
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catania
Oct 24–26, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
i got off at the airport because i had seen a decathlon right next to it. while some elderly dutch couple kept an eye on my luggage, i tried walking there. turns out it's one of those highway centres, so no chance - still without camping mat, i booked a hostel.

met an albanian, a norwegian and a russian there, we went out with them the next day. had a really interesting convo about family and kids, you could really notice that it's a cultural thing and that the eastern european guys had a very traditional, conservative stance, while the the girl from norway was way more progressive and sided with me.

i also met a couple of other peculiar individuals at the hostel, one jamaican guy that just sat in the hostel yard downing a bottle of whiskey everyday and an older italian who i would describe as the most extroverted person i have ever seen.

the next day, i had to get up at 7 am for the etna trek i had booked, but i was up even earlier because there was a guy ripping ass so loudly that everyone but him woke up from it (12 person dorm ny the way). i ate some chocolate spread toast and headed out to the meeting point.

met the group, got into a sprinter van and reached the side of mount enta an hour later. out of the 20 person group, i was the only one that decided to go up without trekking poles, which made it harder than i thought. the volcanic debris is so fine in texture that it feels like walking on sand, or up a dune in this case.

because of several miscommunications, i hadn't brought any lunch, so i was more exhausted than anticipated when we reached the turning point of the tour after about 3 hours of uphill hiking with short breaks filled with geology lessons from the guides. the going down part was way quicker and more fun for that matter because you could run and slide down the ash fields.

came back super exhausted and hopped on a night bus to naples the same evening. it was operated by itabus and although i didn't sleep much, it was the most luxurious bus ride, way better than flixbus.

also, i finally decided to buy some cheap cable headphones. was well overdue after going more than a month without.Read more
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napoli
Oct 27–29, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌧 21 °C
got off the bus and went to the closest park, had toasty breakfast and was only interrupted by hungry birds, the rain and people trying to sell drugs. my first impression of the city was similar to the other italian ones i have been to: romantic names, but grimey, littered streets.

in catania, i had had my first encounter with streetside prostitutes, here it was mainly heroin. people are shooting up the stuff in plain sight, the only place i had seen this before was hamburg.

anyways, i had a bit of trouble finding the hostel i had booked a day before. the alternative would've been an abandoned steel mill i had scouted out, but i thought waking up in a bed for my birthday wouldn't be too much to ask for. after a mcmuffin / toilet break at the nearby mcdonalds, i finally managed to find my way to the hostel. dropped off my bag and started wandering around the city, as i do so often.

came back at 3, checked in and had a 2-hour nap. met silas, a bavarian and the only other guy in the hostel. we went out to grab a kebab (for some reason it was prohibited to cook in the kitchen). in the store, we met a polish erasmus guy who promptly invited us to a beer pong competition the same night upon hearing that my birthday was coming up.

together, we went for a quick shopping tour (bought a ring) and suddenly found ourselves in the liquor aisle trying to figure out what energy drink would fit a bottle of jäger best. in about an hour, the thing was empty and we arrived at the bar where all the erasmus people hung out. after another wine supply run to the 24h store, we were way too drunk to play beer pong, so we absolutely fucked it against some belgian guys.

back at the hostel, we met two americans that we talked with until 4am which gave me plenty time to drink water and sober up for the next day.

this was not only my nineteenth birthday, but also moving day. packed up, stashed my bag at the reception and went to the store to buy some birthday breakfast. walked to the shore, where i treated myself with mount vesuvius' views, a bottle of kiba, milk slices and some skittles along with my favourite albums.

sooner than expected, it was 2 pm and time to get to the next hostel to meet lauriane and jayce (who had lost all his documents at the airport earlier). things came full circle when the receptionist announced that there would be a bar crawl that night, we were hooked.

after the free pasta dinner, the group of 20 or so people assembled. it was all very chaotic, but after one and a half hours we were at the first location playing drinking games. a bottle of spritz later, i was at the second bar with lauriane eating "our" birthday cake. no idea whose it actually was, but i was delicious.

then i tried snus with lovisa from sweden, because that's the only way you should get into the stuff. was dizzy for ten minutes, then went back to normal.

we ended the night in a club and were driven home by a guy going at least three times the speed limit.

checked out the next day, farewelled the canadians and went to the main station, where i realized i had screwed up the departure time, but i was still able to book a train (for three times the prize fml) to rome.Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
roma
Oct 29–Nov 1, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
bought a 48h public transit ticket at the central station, never even validated it. arrived at the hostel, real nice place after the last ones i've been to (except the backpackers paradise in naples ofc).

explored rome for the next days and got prepared for my trip to the us: needed to fill out forms, make my gear fit the faa's standards and so on. also went to the vatican, but i don't know wheter i should actually count it as a country visited because i didn't spend a night there.

the city was the cleanest out of all of what i've seen so far in italy and overall really nice. as i'm not the greatest fan of old rock piles, even rome couldn't manage to peak my interest after more than two days. wasn't too social here either, mostly kept to myself and relaxed a bit. also somehow managed to fumble two more tinder dates bc of time pressure. however, i did meet brandon from alaska. i really want to go there some day soon.

actually, that brings me to the topic of all the 3 things i have thought about doing / the countries i want to visit the most (excluding my current mission). i have a lot of time to think, so this stuff is on my mind a lot, why don't i just make a list right here.

- alaska to mexico down the west coast
- peru, chile, argentina north to south
- antarctica

just noticed this list is very combinable, stuff for after uni??? ;)Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
flight to the states
Nov 1–2, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 10 °C
(surprisingly long one)

the (probably) longest journey of this entire trip awaits. i have to leave the hostel in rome, get to the bus station, take the night bus to milan, find a shuttle to the airport and hop on a flight to london and then to boston.

i've never flown alone before, so i basically spent the entire day waiting and going over my plans. in the morning, i had looked up restrictions on bringing camping stoves on a flight. apparently, it's super difficult and requires a lot of cleaning, paperwork and luck.

i had four options:
- bring the stove with me and hope it's cleaned thoroughly enough, risking losing it or having oversized luggage
- put the stuff into a train station locker or hostel storage room
- hide it somewhere near the airport or trainstation in milan, once again risking losing it
- find someone living milan to store it

i spent a couple of hours calling hostels, asking if they could store my stove for a week, but they, either refused or demanden copious amounts of money, as did all the otther locker facilities in milan.

i then went on couchsurfing, asking around for anyone who would do me the favour. no response. i mentally prepared for having to hide my stuff. luckily, my parents then reminded me that some time ago, our family had accomodated an italian exchange student from milan for a year. so i hit her up, and she immediately arranged for her boyfriend to keep my equipment.

i had several difficulties finding and getting to the night bus, but i barely managed in time. the ride wasn't exactly comfortable, but as good as it gets for less than 8€. i also met robert lee, a software engineer from china who had lived in the us and in germany for a year, respectively. he promptly invited me to come to china soon and offered to help me get a visitor visa. i secured his phone number and we stayed in touch, you never know ;)

in the morning, i made breakfast (half a litre of the most disgusting monster energy flavour i have ever tasted). after 9 hours, we finally arrived in milan in the pouring rain. i had been sent a video by the aforementioned italian showing parts of milan completely flooded, i just had to hope it wouldn't affect me too much.

in milan, i finally found the long awaited central decathlon, where i bought some warm socks and gloves for the zero degree new hampshire weather, as well as some new headphones (that don't sound like tin), because the cheap ones i had bought in naples were already broken.

at now around 10, i headed to the apartment of the guy that was going to keep my stuff for me. his parents were there too, everybody was super friendly and i had to refuse many many invitations for food and drink. i actually left not only my stove, but also my sleeping bag, tent, and other stuff i wouldn't be needing.

after getting two kebabs as provisions, i managed to find a shuttle to the airport. it was still raining buckets and at some points i was pretty sure we would either sink or slide off the road, but after an hour i arrived at the terminal with two and a half hours to go.

boarding the plane was the easiest part and with my newly acquired netflix account time flew, just like my plane two hours later. after a short layover in heathrow, i was already on the 777 to boston. american airlines isn't the ryanair i'm more used to, and my middle class ass was shocked to find that i actually got free food and drinks.

on this flight, i had the perhaps most interesting convo of this entire trip. and it wasn't with some 20 year old, but with the 78 year old american next to me. he was still super sharp for his age had a master in mathematics and used to be a computer engineer right from day one.

after 7 hours, we touched down in boston. border security had me by the balls for the next hour, obviously very suspicious of me and my visit to a guy i had only known for a month. i hadn't slept this entire time and my voice almost gave out a couple of times because i hadn't had enough to drink, but eventually, they let me go.

and so there i was, on the other side of the planet, finally having set foot on non-european soil for the first and hopefully not last time of my life.Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
boston
Nov 2–3, 2023 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 2 °C
when russ picked me up at the airport, i basically hadn't slept for more than 30 hours. to my pleasant surprise, he had decided to book a room in the boston hilton instead of having through the night to his house in new hampshire.

we got along well right from the start and there were so many new impressions all around me that i couldn't even really grasp everything. arriving at the hotel, i felt a bit out of place with my appearance, but that's nothing new at this point. in the room, i was greeted by russ' canine girlfriend wrigley and fell asleep as soon as i hit my bed.

the next morning, russ had a little meeting, so i had half an hour to go out and explore the city for a bit. the weather was beautifully chilly and the air felt super clear. everything was strangely unfamiliar and utterly fascinating, although really not far from what i knew. all the buildings, roads and cars around me were massive, but there was hardly anyone in sight. i was laughing to myself the entire time over the situation i had gotten myself in.

we checked out and the valet brought russ' jeep out. 60$ for one night of parking was the first of countless instances where, upon looking at american price tags, i was convinced i must be dreaming. (for the sake of readability, i'll try not to mention every one, just know i spent a significant amount of time trying to wrap my head around the prices.)

the majority of the 2 hour journey to sugar hill was spent speeding on perfect highway roads through fall forests, with the terrain growing more and more rough as we went.Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
sugar hill
Nov 3–8, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C
after a quick grocery errand in the nearest small town, i saw my new home for the following five days for the first time - and it was even better than i had anticipated. situated on a foresty hill just above a lake, it lay pretty much isolated from the rest of sugar hill (which is not too hard, there's like 5 houses there). for the first time in weeks, it was actually quiet. bliss.

because russ sometimes rents out parts of his place as an airbnb, i had my own ensuite bedroom and access to a huge kitchen and lounge with a big flatscreen. it really felt like i was on vacation from, what many would call, my other vacation. and i really needed it after almost two months of consistent travel.

much of my first days in new hampshire, i spent relaxing in the house (bingewatching dark because i managed to get russ hooked on it), meaning less outdoor activity, but as i said, it was much needed. even the relative luxury of a hostel just doesn't compare to a real home and russ was also super chill (and against the expectations of most i talked about it with beforehand, he never even attempted to murder me).

after two days, 22-yo flavien from paris joined us. at this point, i had enough of being inside, so we spent the days hiking, trailrunning and canoeing. just as with russ, i got along great with him and had an absolute blast.

and quicker than i could've noticed, the week was coming to an end over a whiteclaw (much less exciting drink than the preceding reputation would like to have believe) and a 20$ pizza.Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
boston again
Nov 8–9, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C
we went back to boston one day before my flight back, because as chance would have it, russ had a work meeting to attend there. the drive back to boston was even more stunning than the other way. this time wrigley (who, i forgot to mention earlier, brought me a lot of joy in the 5 days prior) was with us, hanging out the car window.

on the way to the hotel, i noticed a sign with a certain 7-point leaf. only then i realized that weed was legal in massachusetts, which led to me and flavien setting out on a quest to find a dispensary a couple of hours later, but first, we went to a wendy's and ordered an american sized menu. it turned out that wendy's > mcd.

we then spent 30$ (half the amount i spent in the us in total) on a 100mg chocolate bar and got to work back at the hotel. we were just coming out of the pool about an hour later when they kicked in. and kick in they did. (last pic is us, high as kites, trying to get a shot of flavien touching the top of the building). all i can say is that i've never slept deeper than that night.

and the next morning, it was time to say thank you and goodbye.Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
flight to europe
Nov 9–10, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C
russ and flavien dropped me off at a metro station in order to avoid the rush hour in boston. here, i finally experienced the america i came prepared to see. the entire time, from logan airport to the boston cbd to sugar hill, i had only seen and met people no less wealthy as russ. in the metro, i was suddenly confronted with the hidden majority of american citizens, who were much less better off.

i had some trouble finding the right connection to the airport, but arrived with enough time to spare. this time, i unfortunately had to abandon most of my hygiene stuff. i spent both flights in the aisle row, one time even giving up my seat window to a guy who was already sleeping there with the blinds down, so once again no proper videos of the flight :/Read more
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to nowhere in particular Traveler
milan
Nov 10–11, 2023 in Italy
took a shuttle from the airport again and checked in at a hostel. with a combination of sleep and hot dogs i cured my jet lag.

did some accidental sightseeing the next day on the way to decathlon, where i wanted to buy a foldable solar panel for my backpack. long story short, the price on the internet was a scam and i had to pay almost double, hope it will serve me well at least.

went to get my stuff back that was still where i had left it a week ago. this time, maura was there and this time, i also accepted the lunch invitation. they even helped me book a train to padua, which was where i was planning to go later that day, after my blablacar driver canceled on me.

mistook the arrival time on the train ticket for the departure time, so i had the opportunity to watch the sunset at the very pretty central station before setting off to padua.Read more
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