David Grajal

When I woke up in Milan the entire city was white. It snowed during the entire night. And it didn’t stop. By the time I went to Pavia and I went for a walk it was snowing a lot. Another misconception… I thought Italy was as warm and hot as Spain!

Reading the Wikitravel (Using Oxigenguide, a must have in the cell phone for travelers) I realized that Milan does have nightlife but it is not in the Statione Centrale area. Well, maybe in another occasion I will be able to experience it. What I’ve already tried is the Italian aperitivo. Between 19h and 21h lots of bars in Northern Italy have a buffet with fast food, pasta, rice and small snacks.

You only need to have one drink to have access to the buffet and you can eat as much as you want. This is such a beautiful idea I don’t understand why it does not exist in Spain. Owners are happy because bars are full, customers are happy because they feel a great value for their money. I feel the idea is specially good for students because they can eat for cheap, something important in otherwise expensive Milan.

Jumping@Pavia

When I landed in Bergamo last evening and I was surprised because two reasons. First, it was freezing cold. As much as Germany. And second, the entire city looked dark and deserted. Where was the people? I was expecting lots of Italians having fun in the city center!

I was lucky because I had a couch in the city center. Giancarlo Rosso was my host, a really nice Italian guy that studied Arabic culture and language for pleasure. We had a long conversation till late at night speaking about the differences between northern and southern Italians and beautiful places he visited in northern Africa and middle east. He has traveled a lot in the area so it was quite a revelatory experience. I didn’t know the sand is pink in the Moroccan deserts and now I’m already planning to see them with my own eyes in the next weeks!

Couchsurfing in Milan

On 4th of February, 2010 I left Germany for good. This is the last post I will write from this city. This is what I wrote when I first arrived at Würzburg. At that time I could not imagine how much this city was going to change me. I feel different because I changed a lot personally and professionally. I’m more confident and more caring. I’ve met a lot of people that have influenced me. I’m still as open minded as before but I’m stating to forge my own oppinions. I guess I’m just becoming an adult and this is time to start a new stage in my life.

My lovely apartment and my friends stayed in Würzburg. I spent my last days in the city saying goodbye to the city and the people and just having plain fun. It has been another hard goodbye, leaving the city when I felt most comfortable. I will always remember the places, the smiles, the people, the jokes and the amazing good times I had there.

The next time I will be in the country I will be just a tourist. This is a weird feeling for me because I really think of Würzburg as my home. Thanks everybody for making it possible.

I visited this beautiful German city in June. Here in Leipzig there are no traditional houses made entirely of wood and even if the city have a river, it doesn’t have a castle. That’s a massive difference in comparation with Bayern. When I visited Leipzig, the city was specially colorful because taken for the biggest national Goth festival. It was really interesting to see the extremely elaborated clothes goth people use. There are complete goth families where everybody, including seniors and children wear goth clothes!

Jumping in Leipzig

In Leipzig I met  Carolin and together we practiced tightrope walking on a park. It was my first experience doing this stuff and I need to say that it was a lot of fun, but I still need to practice a lot more: I could barely stay longer than 2 seconds on the rope before falling!

First time doing tightrope walking

Goth girls

Recently I bought the cheapest DSLR camera in the market, a Nikon D40. I wanted to learn basic photography and the only way to do so is to actually go out and take lots of pictures. You can learn photographic composition with the camera integrated in your cellphone, but to actually play with the light you need the correct gear.

These are some test pictures I took on my first week. There is such a massive improvement over my crappy compact camera that I wonder how come I didn’t bought a DSLR before. Now and I have the basic gear and I only need to improve so I ask for tips and tricks to every photographer I met!

Wide lenses test

Macro test

Sunset light test

Night photography test (yep, I'm still missing a small tripod)