And now, the end is near...

When we last left off I was in Ferrara. Going there to visit Marcello was a very spontaneous decision that turned out to be a highlight of my trip. As soon as we got to his place we set up a table on his patio and decorated it with fresh crostini bread, pasta with homemade pesto, prosciutto, and a bottle of nice cool white wine. Just a typical lunch. Followed by some espresso of course. Then his mom gets home and inquires as to whether I would enjoy some fresh spaghetti alla vongole for dinner tomorrow night. Gee, let me think. Already I am so happy I am about to cry.

After our lunch Marcello gives me an extra bicycle and we pedal around Ferrara for a bit and make our way to his cousin Christina's apartment. We hang out there for a bit and then head out for apertif hour. They take me to the best places of course, not that you can ever really go wrong in Ferrara when it comes to food. So, more wine and little scrumptious tidbits.

The following days fall along the same lines. We went to see a reggae DJ one night
at an outdoor show. We went to a beach an hour away for a party. Another night we went into Bologna to go out. One day we took Marcello's BMW motorcycle into the countryside to go to a little place that's known for their traditional Emilia Romana cuisine, especially fresh pastas. Then after a few days we got in Marcello's car and headed north to Innsbruck, Austria.

Since we had the car, we decided to get a room in a little cottage in the small town of Neustift rather than stay in the city. This town is in a valley right in the middle of the Austrian Alps, about a 20 minute drive from Innsbruck. So we enjoyed the scenery, visited the Stubai glacier, and drove into Innsbruck for a day.

Then we continued our road trip north and went to Munich, Germany. Great city. Beautiful parks, great authentic Bavarian food, and if you can't drag yourself away from the beer gardens it's ok because there's a saying among locals that three beers counts as a meal. Another highlight of Munich was meeting up with my friend Dave who I met in Malaysia. He lives outside the city. So again we were shown the good places to eat and drink and go out at night. Marcello could only stay two days but I hung out in Munich for five. I could have stayed longer. But I wanted to spend some quality time Berlin too, so I got on the train for the 7 hour ride north.

Unfortunately I caught a cold on the train ride so I had the sniffles for the first 3 days of my stay in Berlin. And I know I caught it from that fat bastard that was sitting next to me on the train, what a dick. But it didn't slow me down too much. Berlin is one of my favorite cities that I have ever been to. Not that it's the most beautiful or anything, just because of the vibe. All I can say is it's completely laid back, tons of dive bars and crazy people. In a way, it's kind of like one big East Village. So I felt right at home. It's one of the few places I've been that I think I'd be happy spending an extended period of time. And obviously there is a ton of history there, I took a "Third Reich" walking tour one day which was so cool. Too bad all I had was five days.

But it's all good, I was on my way to Sweden to visit Petra. You may remember her from previous blogs, I travelled with her for a few weeks around Asia. So I flew to the city of Gothenburg and spent about a week there. We also went to visit a couple of her friends for a night in a small town a couple hours north. It was a lot of fun. But there is more of Sweden to see, and right now I'm in Stockholm. It's very impressive. Tomorrow I head to some islands in the Stockholm Archipelago for a few days. Then on the 19th I fly to Brussels.

I head back to New York on July 26th. I'm really excited actually. And also fully enjoying the last days of what has turned out to be a 20 month trip. It's a good place to be.

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