Please don’t get me wrong. I am not making fun of anything. Sometimes I admire their passion, devotion and sometimes their pureness, reactions to the ongoing events.

The first guy is from a bus, with whom I sat while I was trying to go meet my friends. Ohh, no, now I remember, it was definitely Saturday, I was supposed to work that day. Yeap, you didn’t get me wrong, on a Saturday. So it was also really early at that time. The guy looked a bit strange first, he was all tense, and busy with something. In his mind there were lots of things wandering around as far as I could see. He was drawing and writing a script simultaneously with all the speeches of the characters including Sith and so on. I think he was trying to come up with the new Starwars episode. He was writing sometimes in Turkish and sometimes in English, I have no idea depending on what. The thing that stroke me the most was his passion, on that day, on a Saturday, in the morning, in the bus, he was keeping himself busy with all of these. The bizarre part is, I guess he started writing the script on the bus, not before. I cannot imagine what kind of day he was having. Well, just think for a second, you want to meet a friend, or you just need to go somewhere, early in the morning, you get on the bus, and out of the blue you start drawing scenes and writing a script for the new Starwars episode. That would be the last thing I would possibly consider. Dream/plan about your future, your day, imagine yourself winning the lottery and lose yourself in big hesitations trying to decide what you will buy first or how you are going to invest that huge amount of money. Maybe I am just overreacting, or maybe I am the one who is being abnormal. Anyway, as I mentioned above, in this section, I am going to mention the things that are odd to me. And this one was the first. Hope it’ll continue…

He was living on a long long street, so all we had to do was to find the right house number. And we did that. Surprising, isn’t it? However, we couldn’t find the bell for his name, so we had to call him. Even though we sent him an SMS saying we were going to arrive on that day, he thought it was still one day ahead. So, when we called him, we was pretty surprised. Anyway, he came down and opened us the door and welcomed us. He showed the flat, where we are going to sleep and such. We had some nice chat, where to go and where to visit and that was the first hours of Brussels.

The next morning, we got up and left the flat an hour or so later. We went to this big cathedral, I guess they did have some discount for students or the entrance fee was really less, so we got in. We walked around and then using the elevator which has a chair kind of thing to sit on, and we got to upstairs.

From up there you really have a nice view of the city. We made several pictures. And we could also the big atomic thing from there, so we had to make some stupid photos about that too. Later we went to the city/touristic center. We got a free map there. We were walking around and making pictures as usual. Funny thing, there was this guy who was asking for some charity probably for one of his sick friedns. He was speaking in French, and after he got we weren’t understanding anything, he asked: “English?” And then he started right away saying all those thing in English like an Uzi. He wasn’t paying attention to what we were saying. After all, we said no and kept walking. Ohh, wait, I forgot something. First there was a girl telling us that story, she also first started speakin French but then he asked Zukhov whether he speaks Spanish or not and she told her story in Spanish and we said no. Yeah, then the guy I mentioned above was telling us that story and we told him that there was a girl who had told the very same story before and he kind of got upset.

Well, like an hour later, we run into the same guy again. He didn’t recognize us and again started telling his story in French, and then all in English. I was telling him that we have met before and bla bla, he was not paying attention, not at all. He was the one who was losing time, and yeah, after 5 minutes, after he had stop speaking, I repeated my answer again. Finally, he was done.

We visited several touristic places marked on the map. We were almost all the time walking, but it was no big deal. The city center is not that big. We both were already used to walk that much & fast, so there was no problem for us.

We visited a really nice park, some nice buildings, skyscrapers and the big Atomic Thing. I keep calling that thing because I don’t remember its real name anymore. Sorry for that, and let me know if somebody knows about it. They also had some student discount but it was still not that cheap, but it was almost the only thing we had to pay for in Brussels and we did it. It was nothing extraordinary after all.

I guess they also do have some experimental things going on there, but at that time we didn’t see any. So we went up took some pictures and videos and then came down again. The thing we regret was the small mini Europe Park nearby. We saw it from the top of the Atomic Thing and we wanted to go in after, but the entrance fee was so expensive, as far as I remember about 18€. So we couldn’t go in.

We ate some super sandwiches near the main train station on one of the famous squares in Brussels. We got some nice chocolate and got to the gate which looks exactly like the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. Not much people were there at the time, there was a Turkish family I guess who were trying to make something like picnic and they had drums and were making some sort of music too. We were not complaining.

After we had our rest, we headed back to the flat. That time we knew how we were supposed to find it. We again had some chat with our host Oscar, and that was it for Brussels. Next day we were going to go to Brugge.

Buyruk Alparslan – October 07 – Balikesir / Turkey

Anyway, we arrived there really late, about 4pm. The problem was we had just 3, 4 hours ahead of us and by the end of the day we were supposed arrive in Brussels and also find the flat of our host.

It didn’t take us that long the tourist information. We always start from the tourist information, because we didn’t know where or how to start. They were really nice, but all they could offer us was a tour in the tower, which was starting in like 10 minutes. We didn’t want to take it, because we were not sure it was going to worth its price. And we also didn’t have much time so, we also wanted to see the city itself. Finally we decided to buy a town map.

There were some places marked on the map, which would possibly attract tourists’ attention. We visited a couple of those. They were no where near great. Of course we took some photos. But we were still wondering whether there were some places worth visiting and we were totally unaware of that. However we still think that was not the case. It is not a very touristical city and it shouldn’t be. Anyway, if you have something to say, please let me know with a comment.

So we stayed there for 3, 4 hours and then got back to the train statin to take the train to Brussels. We were going to arrive there around 10, 11 which was really late and we were going to spend some more time to find the flat. Well that was not going to be pleasant, but we couldn’t do anything better than that after that time…

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

First we have visited a museum, well I do not remember its exact name right now but it was about modern art. And we didn’t understand shit there. There were some weird videos and photos all over and they just didn’t make any sense. For example there was this small room, inside there were just 4 small screens facing eachother. Each of them had a seperate colour as the background and nothing else, no sound, no motion whatsoever. The most weird part is: There were people waiting and looking at those screens for like 10 minutes. Are you kidding me?!?!

We visited another museum about Holland history. That was cool. There were tons of information about Holland and Amsterdam in their own histories. Lots of materials, maps, clothing and such. I guess we stayed there for almost about 2 hours. It totally worthed it.

The next stop was the famous Van Gogh Museum. To take pictures was forbidden and we just walked around. I read almost all the information written about Van Gogh. Opposite than what I’d had before in mind, he painted almost all his painting in like 8, 9 years. And maybe you’ve watched Friends, the episode where this enormous salesman comes into the flat of Joey & Chandler and catched Joey from his weak side. He asks “Do you know why Van Gogh cut his own ear?” And there was no answer there. I didn’t know that neither, but I luckily found that out. The reason behind this was he had some mental illnesses in the final years of his life.

We got out. There was a nice park out there. We saw the big sign of “I amsterdam”. There were lots of people around, who were trying to make funny pictures. We also wanted to do that. But there were really lots of people around. So we decided to come back very early the next day. We visited one or two more museum, which were not that interesting. At the same time we were seeing lots of souvenir shops everywhere around town. I wanted to but some T-Shirts, so I was memorizing the prices.

The Casino was waiting for us. We could feel that. The entrance was free, but there were some stupid security procedures that we had to go through, anyway we did that. Then for 15, 20 minutes we tried to get what was going on there. Surprisingly, it is exactly like the movies. People were smoking, with sad faces, losing, spending money. They risk huge amounts of money. Really! All I wanted to do in a casino was to play that machine with a stick on the side, the jackpot machine I guess. You could put € bills or casino coins. And I also wanted to have one of those bowls and carry them around and play with those coins. So we changed 5€ each to casino coins, and start looking for the machines. We did found them again. The casino was a strange place, even though it was quite small, all the corners looked alike, we had troubles finding the machines we had seen before. But after we had found the ones we wanted, I spent almost all of my coins in that kind of machines. And I time I won a small prize about 8, 10€. But Zukhov had much luck, he got his money back and could eat the dinner with the rest. (:

The boat trip was going to be our last attraction of the day. We knew till when they were open, so we went there just on time. We got a nice seat and view. In the boat they were telling stories in 4, 5 different languages. It was cool. It became all dark when we were flowing around, actually it was also rainy, which made it impossible to take fine photos. We did even see some boathouses which were really funny. People were just living there, eating, watching TV, taking a shower with the drapes wide open, and our boat made a small stop there just to make us able to see how they were living there.

The final stop: Coffeeshop. We grabbed two huge mugs full of Heineken. It tastes just fine. When we got out, we again walked out in the Red-Light District, but it was nothing like the day before. Not having that much fun like, didn’t make us stay there any longer. We went back to the hostel and had a small chat with the German guys as the last thing for the day.

The next morning, we went to that big sign of “I amsterdam” again and there was nobody there. We could take the exact pictures we wanted. Later we went to the souvenir shops and got our things. T-Shirts and some other stuff. And after doing some small shopping, some beer and something to eat, we got back to the station to head towards Utrecht… After all it was a really nice start to the country of tulips…

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

I was going to meet one of my Mexican friends from Furtwangen in Amsterdam and we were going to travel for the rest of the trip together. I arrived in Amsterdam like 6pm and he was going to arrive around 10, so I had 4 hours ahead of me. First, I decided to eat something. I again saw döner right outside the station. O thought that should be cheap, so I went there. There was something really surprising. Normally döner is known as something Turkish, right? And generally all the people working in döner shops are also Turks. But there, in Amsterdam, the situation was a little bit different. There were 2 black Dutch guys working in a döner shop. It was a real surprise for me. Anyway, I ate my doner and started discovering that beautiful city.

The first thing I realised about Amsterdam was, everything was so expensive than Germany, Italy and maybe also than France. For example, they do not include the very same things but just to have an idea: The Rome Pass costs 20€ and includes 3 days of public transport and such and for Amsterdam, the “I amsterdam” card costs 33€ for just 1 day. It includes a lot more free entries to museums and such but still. The food, the beverage were all more expensive.

Anyway, I got a town map, but later I decided just to walk around, in order to get acquinted with the neighbourhood. I walked through some highly-crowded streets, saw lots of souvenirs shops, nice short streets and just tourists, no Dutch people. I guess in high season, in Amsterdam, English is more spoken than Dutch. As I just mentioned above, almost every Dutch guy speaks, so there is definitely no problem for them.

It was coming to 10, so I went back to the train station to welcome Zukhov. He came from Bremen, where he met some of his friends. We decided to buy some sort of public transportation ticket, which we were able to use for a limited number of times. Then we went to find our hostel. Amsterdam was the only city that we couldn’t find any hosts from CS or HC. We knew it was a little bit outside the town. Well it was more like 25 minutes by bus. After we got on the bus, we asked the driver whether that was the right bus or not and we got the positive answer.

There was a list of the stops in the bus and we knew which bus stop we had to get off. And the driver was also anouncing the name of the bus stop at every single stop. But we didn’t see the bus stop. And after some time, we came to the final destination. The driver knew that we were tourists, so he was speaking English to us. We explained the situation briefly and he told us there was no problem. He could take us back with no further charge and he even offered to buy us some coffee. We were shocked, because that was a situation that you may never see neither in Mexico nor in Turkey. The regular bus driver doesn’t just speak English, his English was better than ours and he offered to buy us coffee. With just one word, wow!

Finally, we got to our hostel. It looked more like a hotel, first and it was. We thought we came to the wrong place, but we weren’t. We did our check-in and went up to our room. Normally in hostels there is always high security at the entrance. But this was something else. Later we found out that there are 2 extra beds in the room, so we normally can bring an extra person to the room and he/she may sleep for free. (: We didn’t know that, unfortunately.

In the room there were two German, one American and one more guy from Far East. The German guys were from Hamburg and the American guy was from Minnesota. I tried to talk about Minnesota Timberwolves, but he was that much into NBA, so that talk was cut short.

That one Saturday night and we were in high season. So it was quite possible that the famoust Red Light District was on fire. So even though it was getting late, we went back to the city. I knew where it was, based on the brief tour I had made before. It was amazing! Indeed it was red all over the place. The girls/strippers were dancing in those big window/doors. Actually I have seen similar stuff also in Nürnberg, Hamburg, later in Brussels but I don’t know why here it is that famous. They had all kinds of women there, they wanted to make sure there is always a woman for every taste of men. I think they are quite successful in that.

After some more sightseeing we went back to the hostel. We had to pay extra, because they were night buses, but it was nothing too extreme. That was it for the day…

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

Anyway, I’ve arrided in Lyon Part Dieu, the main train station in Lyon. I’ve sent my host an SMS saying what time I’ll be arriving. After I’ve arrived I also sent her where I was going to wait and after 15 minutes there she was. She came with her bicycle. There were lots of people doing that in Lyon, which is one of the things I like most about the Western European cities. The mentality to make sports not paying attention to how old they are.

I left my bags, she showed me my couch and I was ready to go out and discover Lyon. My Mexican friend, Alfredo Padilla Ley, pinche frijolero, had told me 2, 3 places to visit and I had a prioritised list of these places. I went to the Republic Street, which is like the main street for pedestrians, which is also kind of like the Istiklal Street in Istanbul or maybe Bagdat Street, I should say. I was lucky to find one of the sports shops to buy a championship T-Shirt of Olympique Lyon. They had to won the league 6 years in a row. That’s incredible!

Later I had visited one of the places I had in my list. I took pictures, I walked around. Then I moved to another spot in my list, which would actually take me to the final spot, then I was going to be done with the list. But there they had some kind of open theater, so I couldn’t go that way. But I was able to take lots of nice view pictures of Lyon.

I should also mention the river flowing through the city. One of my friends had a theory, he says: “Every f.cking European city has a river, flowing through it.” It is kind of true, actually. But I would limit those cities with an adjective “nice/beautiful”. So every nice European city has a river or a lake or a seaside. Examples: Istanbul, it is somewhere special, it has Bosphorus, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Vienna, Lyon and so on… Just think for a moment, you’ll see that I’m right…

Afterwards, I met my host again, she was going to go to a bar with her friends and I just joined them and there I tried the new French beer. It is called Desperado. Well, that is a Spanish name and that beer has some tequila in it, but they insisted on and on that it is 100% French beer and I won’t be able to find this beer anywhere outside France. I think they were right.

After a couple of hours in the bar, my host and I left and went to the flat. Because I was again supposed to get up early, the next morning and so was she. And my day for Lyon ended like that. The next morning: New Target: Amsterdam!!!

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

I went to the touristical center of course, as a start. I walked in some other direction. I again took some pictures. I had also some other places to visit that I’d marked before. I went to visit them.

I saw an interesting big wooden ball, which was guarded by fences. There stood the National Museum of History nearby. I was really curious about history, especially I started this Erasmus program. And I of course knew that we had some military relations with Austria before. So, I was almost sure that there was going to be some stuff also about my country. That urged me pay the entrance fee. Indeed, they also had student discount. That was greeeaat!

They really have lots of stuff there. Coins, maps, sculptures, cloths, weapons and such. The information is also useful. I have read them, and tried to compare with the stuff that we had learnt here in Turkey, and surprisingly, it was the same, as far as I remember. Anyway, it was really interesting to be able to see the things from the other side’s point of view.

Later I visited an enormous garden, not exactly like a garden, but it has lots green plants around and some nice fountains. Unfortunately I forgot the name. It was really cool. Neatly designed, clean, and kind of relaxing. Yeah, there were also some people who were jogging around. It is a really cool idea!

I started walking towards to the City Hall. I walked through the Sigmund Freud Park, small but nice. Then I was on one side of the City Hall, and of course I had no idea what was expecting me on the other side of it. There was a carnival there. I think they have this thing every year. They have food, drinks, special souvenir places and so on. They also had a very nice program of concerts, operas, shows and theathers. I really wanted to watch one. However, I had no time for that. What a pity!

It was already getting late. I had to go back, pack me up again, have some nice chat with my hosts, and on the next day get up early and make a trip all the way back to Furtwangen. Again with the fastest trains and connections possible, a trip of 10 hours… So goodbye from the first part of my trip!

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

5 minutes later, they welcomed me with big smiles. And 2nd thing they did was to give me a spare key to the flat. I was like “WoW, thanks”. (: I wasn’t expecting that. Later, after we went in, they showed me a couch, and I even had a room of my own. I could eat & drink whatever I want, have some towels and so on… That was like the heaven part of my trip!

I thanked them a lot. I asked them for some tips about Vienna. I left Furtwangen, right after my exams are finished, so I didn’t have any time to look for information about my trip at all. They gave me a town map and told where to go and what to do. So, I had some ideas about what I was going to do the next day.

I got a 24-hours ticket and visited the Donau-City first and then the river Donau of course. They had some artificial beaches there and some pubish things around. They looked kind of cool. I am not sure, but if they also do have the Red-Bull Airrace, it would be the perfect place for it. And how do I know it? Because I’ve already been to one, in Istanbul…

Later, I got to the city center, maybe not the city center, but obviously the touristic center. The square around St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Lots of tourists there… I walked around, saw some nice buildings and gates. That city reminded me very much of Rome, you just walk around and just see historical, gorgeous buildings.

I couldn’t get it, but it was really really hot there, almost about 37, 38 degree Celcius. So I just went back to the flat to rest for a couple of hours. There I called Sonja and we made an appointment for that evening to meet again in the flat.

After I got back to normal again, I went out again. This time to visit the famous cemetary. It was/is famous because, it is so huge. Now, if I am not wrong, 1.5 million people are laying there, and before that number was about 3 million, during the time that Hungary and Austria were united. You know I’ve been blabbering about my lack of sense of direction and a cemetary was the perfect cure to that. :p I of course got lost. It is a huge cemetary with almost no signs. Well, sorry, actually there are signs everywhere but none of them shows the way out. That was my problem, first I walked around 30 minutes, I’ve seen some interesting tomb stones and I made pictures of those. One of the most interesting part of this cemetary is, there were 3 different parts for 3 different religion. That I find really interesting. I wanted to see at least some small parts of these 3, but I didn’t have the time. Let me put it this way. This cemetary is so huge that it has lots of bus stops in it. And you always see cars passing by. It is almost impossible to walk all the way to the other side. And and because of the unsufficient number of signs, I got lost. It took me again about 30 minutes to find a sign that shows the way out. Then I could take the tram and go all the way back to the flat.

Sonja, André and one of their friends were already there. We talked for a little while and then went out again. André was driving us with his jeep. Man, that was comfort. He took us to a really nice hill with a view of the Donau. We sat down at a restaurant there. André even said that it would be on him, thank you one more time. I ate a Wiener Tafelspitz, and I tried the sparkling Austrian wine, it was all delicious. Hmmm…

Then we went to a bar, there I tried a special Austrian beer, which was also cool. I was already tired when we got back to the flat. We again had some nice chat about the world, this time. (: I took a shower and directly went to bed, pardon me, couch.

Later I figured out that they only have one train stop in that country, and that is not in the capital. They have 2 relatively larger towns which are Schaan and Vaduz. Vaduz is also the capital, but it is smaller than Schaan and Schaan has the only train stop in the country.

I got off in Schaan. I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. Instead of a train station, they had a Tourist Information. I guess, before they had lots of confused tourists, so they made something like that. So, I asked the two girls sitting there how I could get to Vaduz and they told me to take the bus number something, I did that. Well, I think I was lucky. Because they speak German there. So, I had no problems with the language. The possible problem when you go to a small country is the language. You may have problems when you want to buy something and talk to the driver of the bus you want to get on.

So I got on the bus I was supposed to get on, and got to Vaduz. It was like 15, 20 minutes of bus drive away from Schaan. There was almost nothing to see there. It is really small. I found a couple of souvenir shops and some other buildings and that was it. Yeah, I didn’t have much time to walk around, but still I think that it wouldn’t be that different. I took some pictures and bought some souvenirs and I took another bus to get to Feldkirch, a town on the other side of the Liechtenstein-Austria border.

They use Swiss Francs there, and I had about 3 Francs left and I just wished the bus ticket was going to be less than that amount and yeah my wish came true. I could buy the ticket and get to Feldkirch, from where I could take a fast train and get to Vienna.

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey

Actually I do know about Turkey, since it is my country, it is where I belong. In former times, when there was no Republic of Turkey, when the Ottoman Empire was still alive, Istanbul was the capital. It has a great strategic location, and it was a very nice city. Nobody could complain about Istanbul being the capital. However, after the first World War, the founder of the Turkish Republic, the father of Turks moved the capital to Ankara because of some military and geographical issues. Because Ankara is situated almost right in the center of Anatolia.

But I still wonder about the other countries and capitals, well, if someone of you knows about, please let me know in some way.

After I stayed couple of hours in Bern, I came to Zurich. Of course by train, using my Interrail ticket. I took the subway and went to Uster to meet my host. We went to the flat, I got rid of my clothes, we had some chat and then we both went out. He had some meeting with his colleagues, so we had to seperate. I had to discover that city again on my own. But he gave me some tips and told the places that I should visit.

I did what he said. It started raining, I had nothing to put on and I had to protect the map he gave me from water. It was kinda hard to succeed. I tried.

As some of my friends told me before, there is nothing much to see in Zurich. I had seen lots of nice and expensive shops, malls, the famous Swiss banks. It was getting dark and it was rainy. Every minute, the population of the crowd outside was decreasing. And I decided to go back to the flat. Normally, I am really bad with the sense of direction, but since I started traveling alone, I guess it also developed automatically. So I could easily find my way back. And I think, if I go there now, I can still find his place.

That night we had some Swiss beer in some strange bottle. They have small glass bottles for beer, maybe just for that one but still, it is nothing that I am familiar with… I checked my emails from his computer. Later I went to sleep on my comfortable couch. Tomorrow morning, we had some nice breakfast and we said goodbye to each other. I left for Liechtenstein, a country with a population of 30,000. Thank you Lukas…

Buyruk Alparslan - September 07 - Balikesir / Turkey