final statistics

Back home!
- I travelled 112 days,
- I slept 10 nights in big trucks, 6 in night buses, 1 in a night train (platzkarta!), 3 at bus stations, 2 in a hostel, 2 in a Catholic chapel in Tbilisi, 1 on a floor in a lodge room of an expensive hotel in Turkey, 1 in the praying room in the restaurant in Iraq, 1 on the roof of the shopping mall (with a beautiful view to Ebril's city centre), 64 by CouchSurfing with 21 hosts, 11 at friends' who I'd known before & 11 times I was simply taken home by drivers or someone who I'd just met on a street,
- I spent about 630€ (including 96€ visas fees),
- I used public transportation 25 times (from city to city),
- I crossed 14 state borders for 21 times - what means that I've been in 11 countries,
- I hitch-hiked 98 drivers (including the international bus ;),
- I had to buy a lunch for myself 28 times,
- I had 31 sex propositions,*
- I had 9 offers of a conversion to different religions (Georgian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Shia Islam, Sunni Islam, Adventists),
- I spoke in 12 languages (Polish, Czech, Portuguese, Russian, English, Slovakian,  German, Turkish, Farsi,  Kurdish, Bulgarian & Ukrainian),
- my Russian became almost fluent,
- I learnt very basic Turkish,
- 6 times I washed my clothes in a washing machine,
- I had in my hands: 1 Kalashnikov, 2 guns,
- I did an interview with one of the PKK leaders,
- 9 times I felt somewhere so good that I had a temptation to stay there forever (including 3 times when I was seriously considering it + once I really decided to move somewhere),
- I travelled about 18 350 kilometres.

Poland

I just crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border. In about 8-10 hours I should be in Wroclaw :)

back in my country

After exactly 102 days of travelling around my beloved Middle East I crossed the EU border to Bulgaria. I'm back in my country, back in the EU (eager for seeing Alina's hot stuff in Varna ;)

privilege

I'm leaving the Middle East tomorrow. My heart is torn up. In every meaning of that word. Just it.

Anyway, even if I don't have a real reason to go back to Poland, it's good to have a country what's mine. I'm thinking about my Syrian friends - they saw their friends & relatives dying, the Syrian society is fucked up completely between the two wrong sides, their cities are bombing every day. It's not even about family or friends to come back, not even about the places - the whole society they know just doesn't exist anymore.

And I have an EU passport and I'm still impertinent enough to complain. I spent 3 months hanging around the Middle East & I'm happy about one thing: inside the EU at least my own police isn't going to shoot me. It's a great privilege, trust me.

bayan

Three woman told me today in a public toilet that I by mistake had gone to woman part. If thing like that happen to me in Istanbul, it means that I must start wearing hijab to give all those muslim people a chance to recognise my sex correctly...

Nothing will force me to have long hair, nothing.

hh failure

The biggest hitchhiking failure of the year: from Ankara to Istanbul in 18 hours.
I guess I deserve the Guinness record...

statistics after the 3rd month

I've been already travelling for 3 months already - it's a high time to publish the official statistics:
- I slept 8 nights in big trucks, 6 in night buses, 3 at bus stations, 2 in a hostel, 2 in a Catholic chapel in Tbilisi, 1 on a floor in a lodge room of an expensive hotel in Turkey, 1 in the praying room in the restaurant in Iraq, 1 on the roof of the shopping mall (with a beautiful view to Ebril's city centre), 52 by CouchSurfing with 19 hosts, 5 at friends' who I'd known before & 11 times I was simply taken home by drivers or someone who I'd just met on a street,
- I spent about 470€ (including 96€ visas fees), 
- I used a public transportation 23 times (from city to city), 
- I crossed 11 state borders for 16 times - what means that I've been in 11 countries, 
- I was taken by 71 drivers (including the international bus ;), 
- I had to buy a lunch for myself 22 times,
- I had 27 sex propositions,*
- I had 8 offers of a conversion to different religions (Georgian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Shia Islam, Sunni Islam),
- I spoke in 8 languages (Polish, Portuguese, Russian, English, German, Turkish, Farsi & Kurdish), 
- my Russian became almost fluent,
- I learnt a very basic Turkish,
- 4 times I washed my clothes in a washing mashine, 
- I had in my hands: 1 kalashnikov, 2 guns,
- I did 1 interview with one of the PKK leaders,
- 8 times I felt somewhere so good that I had a temptation to stay there forever (including 3 times when I was seriously considering it),
- I travelled about 15 500 kilometers.

*- Best regards for those guys who are included in the statistics & are reading it now :) My warmest greetings - kisses'n'hugs...

sport higher education

I'm graduated in sports. I'm a bachelor in physical education. I have particularity this education because I wanted it. It was my desire, I'm happy 'cause of that & I'm sure I'm not gonna ever regret it.

But before I chose my field of studies I'd had to overcome a lot of prejudices - also inside me. In Poland I've just heard: "studying sports is for idiots" or "oh, so you did push-ups during your whole entire studies."*
You can be ashamed. Your family is rather unhappy about subject of your studies, your friends laugh of you, almost everybody predicts you a poor future.

So when anybody asks me about my profession, I immediately go to a defensive position.

It's just enough to go away from Poland to forget about all that crap. During my journey people asked me thousands of times about my join. Always when I told them that I was a sport teacher their reaction was positive or very positive.
"Wow! You have such a nice job!"
"It's cool, you can work everywhere worldwide."
"Your studies must've been hard."

Guys, it a high time to be proud of our education. We truly have something to be proud of.

* - I usually respond those ass-holes: "Well, at least we really DID something."
And one thing us more than sure: all these bastards are going to pay us a lot when they will become older.

the change

I haven't finished my "euroasia" journey yet but I already planed the next one. I'll just come back to Poland for a couple of months to realise some ideas & I'm leaving again.

Somebody told me that I would be a different person after this travel. He was right - I'm the different person already.

In the meantime, I'm heading Wroclaw :)

photos or lack of them

A lot of friends ask me: "Asia, put some photos on your blog or facebook." The general idea is good but I'm facing plenty of organisational, objective problems - starting with a very limited computer & internet access.

There's also one thing more: this journey isn't about historical sites I visit but about people I meet. The people are real value. As somebody said to me: "I'm learning." I hope to learn enough to be a bit more productive & social useful person in the future.

travel plans - updated

I decided that my journey must finish one day. I have limited time so finally I started heading to Poland. Since today every day I'll be closer to Wroclaw.

Now I'm in Şanlı Urfa. In 2 days I'll be in Gazi Antep. Later Antakya, Cappadocia, Ankara & Istanbul. After that I just want to visit friends in Athens & Varna. Next I'll just hitch-hike as fast as possible home.

In my plans was also Moldova - I'm not giving it up. I'll be there between 20th & 29th of May as a youth leader on an YiA youth exchange.

Kurdish music, part 2

A today's balance: 450 kilometres, 8 drivers. 3 if them were the Kurdish music fans - what meant 5 hours listening to the Kurdish party songs.
It's a miracle that I'm still alive & quite mentally healthy... I must've been very, very bad in my previous reincarnation that I was punished so badly :/

hitch-hiker's paradise

So I just left behind Iraq & Iran - those two dangerous, wild countries where civilised people definitely shouldn't go. If something makes me happy about this, it's just that I'm now hitch-hiking again in Turkey. The wonderful country where absolutely everybody knows what the hitch-hiking/autostop is, where nobody tries to put me by force to a taxi or a bus, where I don't have to explain why I want to go for free & what the fuck I'm doing alone trying to stop the strangers' cars :)
I really enjoy a high hitch-hiking culture in here.

PS. My next driver is the fan of the Kurdish music too. The whole family of fans... What did I do? What?? :(

Kurdish music

Guys, if you think that Arabic music is annoying, it means you haven't heard Kurdish... I hitch-hiked one Kurd from Akre to Zakho - for 3 hours I was forced to listened to a mix of Kurdish hits. But if he had looped just a one song, I wouldn't have noticed any difference... Torture.

real danger

When I write to friends "best regards from Iraq/Iran" some of them think that it's just a stupid joke. They just cannot imagine that someone can go here because of their own free will.
Rest of them know that in deed I'm hitch-hiking here but they are just sure I'm crazy. They want me to be afraid of many dangerous things here like: islamists, terrorists, talibs (they're in Afghanistan, to be honest), rapists, kidnappers, soldiers, policemen and so on.

After 2 months in the Middle East I must strongly agree with them. My life is in a danger many times every day. The locals drive their cars so badly that it's here much higher possibility than in Europe that I'll die in a car accident just crossing any street. Each moment I take this risk. I never know, if I survive the next hitch-hiking ride or if I come back from bazar.

Sulaymaniyah

Yesterday I hitch-hiked to Sulaymaniyah. I was worse in acrobatics than a 40 years old guy, I played with a real kalashnikov (what an Iraqi father can take out from the closet in the children's room...) I also caused the meeting between a Kurd and an Arab after which they both said to me that the other was a nice guy (you even cannot imagine how big achievement it is here! :) To say more: I managed to wash my clothes.
It was a good & productive day.
Probably later I'll write something longer.

blog plans

Well, I'm ill, bored, frustrated & angry. Changing the bacterial flora, food type, even the climate zone more often than once a week overwhelmed me - I surrounded. So I'm spending my 2 days in a bed fighting some stupid infection. The good side of it is that I cannot read anymore so I'm going to publish some blog post about my travel. So I'm going to write something about my 7 days long journey in the big trucks to Georgia.

Tomorrow morning I hope to feel good enough to move on. I just can't loose my chance to enjoy Iraq.

the practical usage of the safe vest

I've hitch-hiked more than 50 000 kilometres, most of it alone. I took the 2nd place among 200 teams in the hitch-hiking race from Poland to Italy. I've hitch-hiked at night (yes, it's possible), I've hitch-hiked on the motor-ways (yes, maybe it's forbidden but possible & very easy). I've caught even the motor bikes & the police patrols. I am able to arrive on time at work on a sport camp in the middle of nowhere.

If it is something I'm really good, it's probably the hitch-hiking. I feel like Yoda. In the fact: I am Yoda.

So I have no idea why I packed my ugly phosphorus safe vest before this journey. My stepfather gave it to me when I was taking my bike to Wrocław almost 7 years ago & I use it from time to time when I ride the side roads at night. But have you ever seen Master Yoda hitch-hiking in a safe vest? Yeah... it's good for lamers, not for me.

Anyway, on the first day of my journey, just behind the Czech Republic border I got stuck on a high-way. It was almost dark already, 2 metres of snow around, no place to go - just forest everywhere. The cars were moving very fast, I guess they didn't see me well so to increase my chances to not stay overnight there I decided to put my safe vest on. Yoda, not Yoda - I really didn't want to become the cubic of ice during the night.

So I'm staying on the high-way, just in front of the tunnel with a nice wide space to stop right behind me & I'm wondering myself: why does nobody stop? Why? It's the Czech Republic not Italy or southern Spain - so why, the hell, does nobody stop? My unhappy thoughts were soon broken by the police siren. So I'm fucked up completely - the first day & about 100 euro less. Bad luck...

The policeman approaches me showing the traffic camera just above me. I must've been blind! What a shame! I'm a lamer... "You cannot hitch-hike on the motor ways." My Czech (or let me be honest: my Polish) is good enough to understand him so I'm playing a stupid, 18 years old tourist. "I should give you a fee but you've got a life vest on... Over there is an old side road from where you can hitch-hike the same direction."

I said to him thank you & went off from the motor-way - just to come there back after his car disappeared behind the first hill. This time I looked carefully to keep enough distance from the cameras. I hitch-hiked a guy to Brno in about 10 minutes.

What's the lesson? When you hitch-hike on the motor ways ALWAYS wear your safe vest. The yellow/orange colour just fits your eyes.

The safe vest costs like 5 euro & weights like nothing. You can easily buy it on every gas station or in every supermarket. And it dramatically rises up the safety of keeping your savings in your wallet...

[The described story happened on January 24th, 2013]

the Middle East vs. Europe

I've been travelling the Middle East for almost 10 weeks. You don't hear anything good about this region in the mass media: mafia in Georgia, faked elections in Armenia, nuclear bomb in Iran, terrorist in Iraq, army regime in Turkey, etc. And I feel safe. I feel good. I eat their food, I hitch-hike their cars, I sleep in their beds, I see their work & their schools, I play with their kids, I share with them their hobbies. And I still feel good and safe.

All the time I meet good people who want to help me (even if their help it's the last thing I want cause I perfect manage myself alone). Nobody helped me when I got robed in Catalonya, nobody was interested in me when I was sleeping on streets in Portugal. In Europe I was taken home by completely strangers maybe 5 times during my whole entire life (& half of them were Maroccans), in the Middle East it happened to me many times already.
Paradoxically but very often I found these people more open-minded & more friendly than us, Europeans.

I was looking for an answer what makes the EU a good place for living. We delude ourselves that it's a good education, a high culture or an economical power but it's not true. Not anymore. I find young people here the same well educated, ambitious and curious of the world around.

If something makes me scary, it's the poverty - the demon of hopelessness. But when you see in the TV a photo of an Iraqi old man in the strange clothes screaming something against America, remind post-soviet villages in Poland, the Portuguese interior, Barcelona city centre, slums blocks districts in the UK, the Gypsies in Slovakia or the horse carts on the transit roads in Romania. How many people in our own land don't have proper access to education? Or just electricity or water? They are people who are too simple to change their life or even complain aloud about their own fate. The poverty makes people stupid, not the religion nor the culture.

If something can make the EU a better place to live, it's only the high ethic & law standards. It's the feeling and deep conviction of being sure about that the police is for my own safety, being sure that I'll never be forced to pay a bribe, being sure that your child will not be treated worse than a rich child, being sure that my savings & my business are safe against mafia or the government.

I want to live in the country of law, solidarity & equal chances. But when I read about another country's bankruptcy in the euro zone or the last idea of David Cameron, I leave my faith in Europe.

Iraq

So guys, I arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan. After funny conversations on the border post - the police officers were at least terrified of my travelling way. They didn't allow me to hitch-hike ("we have bad boys in our country") but they put me into the international bus to Erbil for free ;)
I arrived in the city about 5 am after 5 days long lack of sleeping (the night life of my last host was too much even for me), I don't know anyone here, my phone doesn't work correctly (like in Iran, I suspect some political influence...), I cannot contact my CS host. In a one sentence: I'm fucked up alone at night in Iraq!

What I do? Panic, cry, look for help? No. I'm going to sleep on the dirty bus station floor & the only thing I worry about is that in Iraq they have a British type of electricity plug-ins.

And what are all these mosquitos  doing here?!