Amsterdam

I stayed all day in the squat helping moving old crap of all kinds... no pictures today also...

Amsterdam

We woke up at yo's house and I cycled around till we met again in the squat... didn't carry the camera with me so no pictures :p

Amsterdam

At noon we went to the traditional fire of Amsterdam in the first sunday of the year all christmas trees are burned together in Museumplein.

smoker's room in de peper

There we met Mark and after we had dinner with friends in Overtoom 301 in the Organic Vegan restaurant De Peper managed by voluntaries and with really amazing food... made me record Casa da Horta a vegan project I was used to visit when in Porto...

me, yo, mark, soile, andreea, helena, kodrin and bogdan in de peper

Amsterdam

Overtoom 3001
We woke up early because Yo was contacted the night before to organize the Samba Band (Rithms of Resistence) for a protest for Gaza today, we met other players in Overtoom 301 an old squat now a social center with a music studio where the samba band practice and then we carried the instruments by bike to Museumplein where the demo started.
They convinced me to play shackers because they could arrange few people to play that day...

returning with instruments

Amsterdam

All afternoon we cycle around...we went to the public library, one of the highest building in the city...
We then went to visit another squat of a friend, it's amazing the amount of activists projects you can see, lots of social centers and squats everywhere...
After we ordered a little the attic at Yo's squat and had dinner with roger, soile, bogdan and andreea there.
The squat is really recent and full of crap still only one, of the four floors, is livable so there is always work in the house to be done...

Amsterdam

We stayed most of the day in the squat, and we walked a little in the neighborhood...

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