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Published: March 26th 2007
Germany's future is in her hands
Serious teachers are the key to Bavarian's
advance in Germany's education system!
(Bille in Fuerstenfeldbruck) Finally, the first post during my journey...
I successfully left my hometown, which is now known to some more people (who are always welcome to meet me there in the short time I spend there...if I'm absent, my family will gladly help you I guess ), and my "hitchhiking skills" safely brought me to Sibylle, a friend of mine who's trying to improve the educational situation in Germany in the front line by being a primary school teacher in
Fuerstenfeldbruck in Bavaria.
The next stop to China was
Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol in Austria, where I met my yearlong, preferred flatmate Hermann who started a late career as a part time student in this city surrounded by beautiful mountains.
Under a perfect blue sky, we both climbed one of these mountains, which was the first challenging moment of my trip, as we didn't expect that much snow on our way...Hermann nearly lost at least one of his feet due to a lack of preparation 😊
But we finally arrived and the view was stunning and certainly a good taste of what's already waiting for me thousands of years in Central Asia...Pamir Highway, I am on my way!
Life's hard in Austria...
...especially for part time students...my ex-flatmate Hermann After leaving Innsbruck, it took me a day of hitchhiking to get to
Celje, the second city of Slovenia, the new member of the Euro-family, where I spent some relaxing days with my oldest travel mate Nina, whom I met 5 years ago in Australia, and who's now an important pillar of the newly founded branch of the Maribor university in Celje.
I passed by in
Ljubljana on my way down to "the real Balkan" and had an extremely nice and interesting host (from www.hospitalityclub.org), Tomislav, who invited me to stay some days in his home in
Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
He is the lord over tears and laughs, not to forget that his work causes endless discussions among teenagers and housewives in Croatia.
How come? He is the main editor of the script for the well known daily soap "Zabranjena Ljubav" which is the Croatian equivalent of "Forbidden Love" or "Verbotene Liebe". A really inspiring guy...and certainly not only for the dialogs he writes
After spending some great days in Zagreb, mainly with him and the members of Istrian's student club, I went on to discover what I have in my head when I think of the Balkan....Zagreb
Zagreb's medieval heritage
A golden angel on a fountain in front of the Gothic cathedral overlooking the town didn't really fulfill it yet.
Now I am sitting in the capital of Serbia and I think I finally found the real Balkan...it started on my way to here, when me and Asen, a 57 year old Bulgarian who brings cars from France to Bulgaria entered the Republic of Serbia and didn't have the required car-insurance (...of course Mr. Officer....) which costs either 250 EUR or a mildly surplus to the border guard's family budget of 50 EUR.
Asen chose the second one and told me in our improvised Russian/Bulgarian/English/German/French language the advantages of the European Union concerning corruption...(well, why didn't he go through Romania then...those who were there should know why )
But this was just a "bureaucratic" approach to the Balkan, the folklorical followed some 100 km further on the highway:
A shepherd really brought his 150 sheep to the side of the highway in order to graze the untouched grass next to the cars which passed with >130km/h...and there was NO FENCE!!! I couldn't believe my eyes and discussed the matter with Asen who tried to overcome our lack of understanding with a possible special training for Serbian sheep...well, who knows...
After finding my way
Ruins in Belgrad
they mark a less shiny era of the Serbian Republic to my host host in
Belgrad (Aleks), I started today to explore the city and just came till the scars of war which are still quite visible here (...some of you will remember the NATO's decision in 1999 to bomb governmental buildings in order to stop Milosevic...) and make you feel quite strange to see the wounds of war in such a lively city, but there is still a lot more waiting for me in the next days before I leave for Sarajevo or Skopje....I'll keep you updated!
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marinaku
non-member comment
beauty
Matthias, very nice pictures. Keep going! They add up to your instructive posts. Good luck with hitchhiking! Hugs p.s. tu nous manques ici, a Lyon