Amsterdam

We woke up and return to the squat to meet everybody and start planning the new year's eve plan :p

yo and me ready for the cold winter outside :p

There we had dinner all together and went out to pass the year in the street, over a bridge listening to all crazy dutch who use thousands of fire cracker every where in the town!!!!

ready to party...

Then we went to a crazy small party in a cinema hall to have music and fun :)...crazy night :p

Paris -> Amsterdam

Waked up after 5 hours of sleep at 2:00 am... Peter started driving and, after passing Belgium without stopping, we stop in the deposit where Peter had to deliver...

After he drove me to Harleem and there i caught a bus to Amsterdam...

first picture of Amsterdam... the city of bikes ;)

Central Station

Arriving there I looked for Yolanda's house in the center, a recent squatted building... She met me there and we cycled to her other house...

really nice to meet Yolanda again, she was other of my inspirations to make this trip... as she had travel all last year around Europe also by bike (from Portugal to Turkey) in a similar way as I'm planning (Bicycle + other transports except plane)...

Somewhere in France -> Paris

After 8 hours of sleep we wake up and start the trip, all day talking, Peter is a really nice (and crazy) dutch guy who leaves now in Spain.
Then we had to stop again to had dinner and sleep, around 18, in the suburbs of Paris... Really weird time to go to bed :s! Being a truck driver should get you crazy fast :p

Barcelona -> Somewhere in France

I woke up at 6 because my mother was also going away and my plan was to try to hitchhike to Amsterdam.

Luckily, I found a public bicycle bad parked and (I know it was illegal, but at least i returned it to a right parking spot :D) cycled to a cross that led to the highway direction France.

After 1 or 2 hour a car parked and i could ask them to leave me in a gas station in the way... There, I was asking the people who stopped for an hitchhike direction La Jonquera, the last small village before the border with France, a place Tomaz told me was great to hitchhike everywhere in europe, as thousands of trucks park there to fill the tank every day...

It was a really small gas station and most of the people who stopped was going in the opposite direction, finally I met 2 guys who were going in that direction and even to France for holidays but they had to stop in their house to have lunch and pick two horses (they were horse ferradores)...

Martí showed me his house and I had lunch with him, his brother and wife and their children... The house was really beautiful and in the end I helped with the horses and we start the trip, after some hours we were in Jonquera.

As it was around holidays (Christmas and new year) there were not so many trucks as usual as the truck drivers explain me, so I had to wait (asking all the trucks that i could) for a truck direction Holland, after 5 hours, the first truck I asked going in that direction let me in :)

Peter drove for some hours and had to stop, somewhere in France, to sleep (by law truck drivers must stop several hours per day and work in crazy schedules)...

Barcelona

Last day with my mother in Barcelona, so we decided to visit other parts of Barcelona even under some rain :D

Barcelona

Heavy rain day...
Walking under the rain

Luckily, this is not my bike :)

Barcelona

By the morning we went to visit some Gaudi's buildings, starting by the Sagrada Familia.



The rest of the day we visited the city and had a "cinema" night in the room :p

Barcelona

As good tourists, we walked all day by the beautiful streets of Barcelona and visited some markets for fresh food for christmas dinner :D...






Lots of places are now (during winter and specially around christmas day) under construction (repairing) or closed for holidays... we still walked a lot and observed the outside of beautiful buildings.


At night, we had a great christmas dinner at the room and after we walked a little near the center ;)

Elche -> Barcelona

In the morning i caught a train to Barcelona, after leaving my bike in Alicante, I will now meet my mother in Barcelona for christmas ;)

I met her at the afternoon and we visited the (rainy) city a while, she rented a room in the center and we cooked together and talk all night ;)

Elche

Mabel's house :D (Stencil translation: "turn off your tv, stimulate your clitoris")

We met again for having lunch and pass the afternoon together at Mabel's house, waiting to go back to Alicante to see a Circus Fest organized as tribute to a friend who died recently.


The show was really amazing and really strong, a mixture of fun and loss in everyone's face.

Alicante -> Elche

We woke up early to arrange everything and store my bicycle, I decided to left it in Javi house and continue now for a while withou bicycle, as I'm meeting my mother for christmas in barcelona and don't have time to cycle there now...

By car, we went to the village of Javi to lunch and pass the day with Javi's family, really nice people and a wonderful place.

Javi's family

At noon we went to Elche and stayed at Mabel's house... There, almost all my old hosts and friends I made join together again!! Eva and Lucy, from Sevilla, Victoria, from Argentina, Susana and Nilo, from Granada and other two friends of them Marta and her friend from Venezuela (I can't remember his name :()

(don't remember his name) Eva, Marta and Lucy, Javi, Mabel and Nilo, Susana, Victoria and me