Farewell, Netherlands

Time to leave. Still, the two years have given me so much - unforgettable memory and a whole new direction in my life and... a lot of amazement from a new culture.
Bikes - everywhere; the most confident and prominent part of the traffic. And be careful when you come here - it's just too easy to get rid over by a bicycle! To make it even worse, the state of some bikes is desolate - in other lands, such bikes would not be allowed to enter a city (indeed, for instance, the Netherlands is unique in that it doesn't require bikes to have a hand brake - apparently there is no expectation that cyclists would need to brake...)
Water - everywhere. On the one hand, you have the omnipresent canals and ditches. And the fact that some parts of the Netherlands have been under the sea a few years ago... On the other hand, it's raining all the time and Dutch people talk incessantly about the weather.
The cohesive society - I was just amazed by the number of association (verenigingen) - student associations, sport association, cultural associations, you name it... The Netherlands has one of the largest percentages of volunteers in the population among European countries and "cooperative mindset" is all pervasive.
Coming from the "poor" Czech Republic, I have also noticed that "consumerism" - in a broad sense - is far more advanced in the Netherlands. People in general expect much more from their life. Almost everyone wants to own a house. Even students feel that they are entitled to live a comfortable life - so even though everyone gets a grant and a free travel card from the government, many students end up heavily indebted after their studies. A lot of people pride themselves as "environmentally conscious", but don't mind throwing away food rests or buying a new cell phone every year.
Architecture - very courageous. The first time that I went to Amsterdam and left the train in the Bijlmer Arena station, I felt as emerging in a crazy futuristic city. The UFO that I saw there just emphasized this feeling.
The Dutch are world famous for their directness or even rudeness, what a stereotype, isn't it? Still, I have noticed that the use of "please" is essentially obsolete in the Dutch language. Also, trying to use the polite form of "you" ("U") leads people quickly to shaking their heads in disbelief - even professors are addressed informally. That said, I have found the overall openness quite refreshing - there are very few tabus, people don't mind talking about sexuality, drugs, money...
Optimism - Enormous atmosphere of "we can do it" and "everything is possible". Everything should be "top" and people seek out "challenge" ("uitdaging") in what they do - at least they claim so. When you write a motivation letter for a job, it is expected that you are very very self-confident...a Czech recruiter would laugh seeing such a letter. And this optimism is also somewhat connected to the "nation of traders" tradition - many people know three foreign languages and when talking to my classmates, I sometimes have a feeling that almost everyone was an exchange student at a different continent - perhaps unsurprisingly, given that e.g. Universiteit Utrecht has exchange agreements with schools on all continents (OK, leave Antarctica out...).
Food - A shock was eating bread as lunch... Other than that, there is just overabundance of fried food - well, I guess you take the kilos down quickly when you are biking all the time... Also, when Dutch people are asked to cook a typical Dutch meal, they come up with something Surinamese or Indonesian - perhaps no one is proud of stampot or erwtensoep...

Visiting Mafija

Last weekend, I visited Mafija in Mons where she's been studying during her one year long Erasmus exchange.
The Friday when I was coming was an interesting day, first the internship, then an excursion to OCC and then hoorah to Belgium! On the border (Roosendaal on one side, Essen on the other side), I received an SMS from Mafija that there would be a general strike on Sunday and Monday -> no trains. Oops! Nevermind, I already got so far, so I won't go back, will I?

After transfering in Bruxelles to another train, I arrived to Mons shortly before midnight and soonly, Mafija appeared. Mons is to become an European cultural capital 2015 - perhaps because of repeated burying and unearthing of the roads? Also, they have three free chameleon bus lines.
The cities in Belgium look differently than those in the Netherlands. Houses seem to be a mix between the houses in the Czech Republic and in France. There are many homeless people and the overall atmosphere seemed rather gloomy (I am talking about Mons and Bruxelles and also Liege that I visited the last time; Gent and Brugge had a different feel). Also, the modern building in Belgium are usually not that daring as the ones in the Netherlands.
The University of Mons has a famous department for translators and so Mafija lived with seven other girls studying translation/interpreting. They spoke among themselves in French, so a good opportunity for me to practice! Speaking French - it seems that Dutch and French are occupying the same memory slots - it was hard to start speaking French again but then, when the weekend ended, the Dutch words were those hard to find.
On Saturday, we visited Bruxelles. A huge city, with a lot of differences. I have already passed through it once, though only briefly - yet we visited the places of my last visit again. Also a very multicultural city. Though maybe one of those where the multiculturalism has got out of the hand.
I had the opportunity to taste Belgian chocolate and cheese and wafels: delicious!
On Sunday afternoon, the strike began and I could not get back by train. Fine, let's hitchike: it was pretty cold weather, but it went quickly
Hitchhiking back: with two cars. Second ones were worried about my "crazy" (come on, I consulted a guide beforehand to make sure that I don't get into the dangerous districts! And by the hand, hitchhiking from Antwerepen at the deep night would not be crazy??) plan to spend the night walking around Antwerpen, so brought me all the way into the Netherlands. I took the train to Utrecht and the story ends...

Vacations 2010, part 5

Some more remarks on the workcamp:

• Hiking two times (etang de Garbet; Pujad de Salau - this was a meeting between Occitans and Catalonians on the French-Spanish border)
• The Pyrenees mountains seem like one of possible places to find an ideal life (there is a lot of people coming there after their retirement) in the sense "no stress, enjoy the life". Still, it will not become the paradise for the people used to a quick life pace (unless they can slow down).
• Visits: St. Lizier, Foix, St. Girons
• village festivals - a nice custom. Every village has its festival (during the summer, usually 2 or 3 days). There is food (in Seix it was a free buffet - quiches, saucissons, wine), drink, sometimes music, sometimes fireworks, sometimes something else.
• barbecue with "a guy from the mountains" (actually, he has travelled a lot in the past; the house was full of travel guides; seemed like a very interesting person) - I could have visited his wooden house, his little garden (with a plenty of various herbs, apparently also a good source of revenue - it was enough to choose the right herbs) ; so strange to see someone live like this.
  

Hitchhiking back (6.8 .- 8.8.; it took 2 days and 3 hours):
Main points: Seix ->Foix -> Carcassonne -> Montpellier -> Lyon (stopped there) -> Besancon (sleeping) -> Strassbourg -> Ludwigshafen -> Nurnberg (sleeping near a petrol station 50 km before the city) -> Prague

• Visited a Muslim marriage
• Met a Tai Chi teacher
• Met a former Matfyz student, a master from LSE, now going to start a PhD on Cambridge
• Hitchhiking paradoxes (?) - a French driver complaining that the future of France is doomed because of immigrants; the next driver was an immigrant from Morocco
• hitchhiked a caravan for the first time - almost like a little house
  
• by the way, it seems to me hitchhiking on a petrol station (i.e. directly asking the drivers) is much more quicker than the "normal one" (provided that there are drivers going in your direction); also perhaps safer
  

Vacations 2010, part 4

Still participating at a workcamp in Seix, France.
Some remarks:

• Seen artificial flowers in a graveyard. Seems somewhat hypocritical to me...
• Having sold books for Secours Populaire - a NGO, kind of a second-hand shop; but the profit goes to achieve various charitative goals. The products sold are given by people (and there is surprisingly lot of it; we are apparently living in an era, when some goods have almost no worth... (clothes, books, kitchen equipment, shoes...)
• For the first time hitchhiked at night - to see a concert of Superbus in St Girons; they say it's a pretty famous band (at least in France).
• Hiking in Pyrenees, seen the snow and a mountain lake
• Korean people drink from PET bottles differently thean mosgt Europeans do.
• in France: no sweet food as a main meal (except for breakfast; compare to Czech Republic - zemlovka, fruit-filled dumplings, bramborove sisky, various porridges...)
• Canoeing for the first time; pretty absurd, it happened in France, while it is so popular in CZ. Yeah, but liked it.
• We were visited by the workcamp association coordinator for Midi-Pyrenees and also by a "controller" from French Ministry of Youth (one of supporters of the worcamp association). Pretty interesting to talk to him. By the way - he said, workcamps in France are endangered by lack of propagation (people in the village don't know the worcamp takes place).
  

Vacations 2010, part 3

After returning from Belgium, the idea of staying in Prague, having little to do for 3 weeks, frightened me. Quickly brainstorming, I started to think about friends, who could be willing to do something together, about possible job offers, also about possibilities to again go somewhere abroad.
I stumbled upon a "last minute workcamp" from INEX, it was Wednesday, the workcamp (JR10/309 - Seix) was going to start on Sunday. I made a call there, after a few formalities, I was confirmed by the French side and could have set off on Thursday afternoon. I get to the place (somewhere in Pyrenees) on Sunday morning. It's going to be my third workcamp...
Hitchiking (just mentioning the major sites; starting 15/7 in the afternoon, ending 18/7 in the morning): Prague -> near St Gallen (sleeping) -> ... -> near Lausanne -> Grenoble -> Valence -> near Orange (sleeping) -> Montpellier -> Carcassone -> Fanjeaux -> Foix (sleeping) -> Seix
I decided to go to the workcamp in a lot of hurry, hopefully, I won't regret it (spending 3 weeks somewhere in the mountains...). Our goal here: cleaning an old garden, then preparing it for some other works there, it seems, we'll be able to get some other work in the village. The countries' composition: 3xFrance (counting in two "animators"), 4xSouth Korea, 2xLithuania, 1xRussia and me (Lithuanians and Koreans don't speak French). Just three boys.
This time, it seems the work could be quite useful - we are mostly paid by the local council money, so the mayor is pretty interested in that we actually do something, also she is interested in that we are known by the rest of the village (less than 1000 inhabitants).
The village is mostly touristic (mostly people from France, also from Netherlands, UK, Germany), deep in the mountains. I am surprised by the number of 'associatons' here (correlating to NGOs) When saying I am a East European and there are not so many 'associations' in the Czech Republic, everyone is willing to tell me or even show me, how it works - they are very nice. I am also surprised by the complexity of governmental organizations here and by the number of their employees. On the other hand, it seems they do what they are expected to do pretty well (though perhaps not in the most efficient matter). People here seem to be somewhat proud of not working too hard...
They told me, it was possible to become an 'animator' in France, even as a foreigner, even though I don't speak French too well. Might be interesting one day...
New 'skill': cutting grass with a hand grass cutter.
There is a lot of tourists, also quite some touristic 'attractions'. One thing that I also saw in Paris (generalizable to whole France???): they use a lot of modern technologies at the tourist venues, and, I would say, quite nicely.

Vacations 2010, part II

in Prague, 14.7.2010
I lost the game. The idea to hitchhike, myself alone, till the beginning of August, while sleeping in the wild; the idea failed, I was too weak for it. It seemed to me, I was almost always: looking for a place to hitchhike or looking for a place to sleep or looking for a supermarket to buy cheap food or looking for friendly people refilling my bottles of water... Even when in a city, I could not have enjoy it properly, there was too much worrying about everything.... Also, after few nights outside, without taking a shower, a lot of people seemed uneasy about taking me to their car - I was too much homeless-like... I made my decision after two successive nights, when it rained and I got a pretty bad sleep (one of those nights, I hid into a partially built object; I was woken up by a few Gentian adolescents, listening to terribly loud music, trying to teach me, how to say "homeless" (the word was probably "zwerver", as I recall it now) in Dutch - ironically, they knew hardly any English.
On the positive side:

• I've seen the cities of Gent and a large part of Brussels; a bit of Liege and Regensburg
  
• I made my second longest hitchhiking trip ever (perhaps the longest, if I count all the way from Versailles)
• I found out, that I was already pretty apt in speaking Dutch - of course, I'd been learning for just a few months, but already, I was able to strike a pretty funny conversation
• I met a few pretty nice people - perhaps the best one was a Belgian trade union negotiator (this one, while hitchhiking); yet another was a guy who travelled around a pretty big part of Asia; ... and much more. I was also told: "There should be more hitchhikers like you. It contributes to the cultural exchange." :-D
  

By the way, if I was to make a statistics of English-speaking population among French, Belgian and German people, all would fare rather badly (of course, the highly educated ones knew English often almost perfectly, yet my experience with "the commoners" was much more modest.
About some cities:

• Gent - a student city with the traditional brick architecture; I found some individual buildings magnificent, on the other hand, Brugge seemed much more harmonic and "compact" to me.
  
• Brussel - a pretty big city (counting in the suburbs); a lot of development has apparently happened in a past few years. I've seen quite some innovative approaches to "city engineering" there; on the other hand, quite some things just didn't seem to be perfectly polished (trash bins located in places, where no one used them, on the other hand, a lot of places with insufficient number of the bins; crazy traffic lights on a few places - red lights on both pedestrian and car lights 2/3 of the time....; not to mention the skyscrapers placed in the middle of historical buildings.

As for hithchiking in Germany - wonderful, as long as you stay on the gas stations and ask the drivers. Terrible, once you get into a countryside!!!

Sleeping:

• 10.7. - Gent, in a construction site, with the Gent adolescents above mentioned...
• 11.7. - in a small village between Liege and borders with Germany
  
• 12.7. - Regensburg, in a bush near a highway exit

Arrived home 13.7. in the evening...

OK, that's it.... Now, what???

Vacations 2010 - Part I

I hope to write a blog diary about the travelling, as I did for Morocco, Argentina. Just a few quick points now, to be (perhaps) extended later.

Written from an internet cafe in Brugge, 10.7.2010; post for days 3.7. - 10.7.
2.7. - 8.7.: with father and sister
8.7. - 10.7.: alone
sleeping:

• 2.7.: outside, in Germany
• 3.7.: Etap hotel, Verdun
• 4.7.: Etap hotel, Fountainebleau
• 5.-7.7.: Etap hotel, Paris
• 8.7.: outside, somewhere between Rouen and Amiens
• 9.7.: along a road, near Brugge

cities visited (not just going through)

• Mainz - a huge cathedral, didn't manage to go in; the historic center mixed with modern buildings (because of WWII bombardment)
  
• Trier - a city seemingly owned by a archbishop; a huge cathedral, having very strong atmosphere inside
• Going through and seeing Luxembourg
  
• Reims - also a huge cathedral, but much weaker atmosphere, as if mirroring the decline of Church in France
• Verdun
  
• Paris: very lively (like Buenos Aires, unlike London - comparing to big cities known to me); visited the usual monuments (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame,Louvre, Versailles, Sacre Coeur, two day-long walks in Paris); also some "less usual" ones - Fointanebleau, one castle near Paris); very tourist overcrowded (but just the most known monuments, the others are just fine); a lot of rich people, a lot of poor (and homeless) people
  

• Arras (9.7.) - 3 big squares, seems like a German city
• Brugge (10.7.) - brick houses, canals everywhere, visited a local market (and for 1.25eur (rather cheap...for a food here) eaten a smoked herring - a local specialty - wouldn't mentioned it, but it was very... special - try yourself!!!
  

passing through (selected ones; Iwill hopefully make a map of the whole trip, some day) :

• Rouen, Amiens, Lille
  

Some remarks:

• a lot of hitchhiking mistakes made in these first few hithchiking days - one ended in an encounter with a French police
• French people are obsessed with credit cards
  
• France - ordering food via Internet; just collecting the prepared food afterwards; the prize being the same as for a supermarket (the concept is "known" for other goods, yet I have not seen this in CZ in the case of food - not for a good prize)
• I thought this trip will be somewhat like (sleeping in the wild) - unexpectedly (for me) the hitchhiking makes it much more difficult; and unlike Morocco, I am not bound (by having ordered the transport back in advance) to stay for a fixed time - so maybe I'm back in CZ in the next week??? (hopefully not, still I have very intense swings of mood - I remember this to be already the case of Morocco)
• it's very hard to find a place to sleep in wild in Belgium - there is no wild, it's so populated (and agriculture is so common), that almost everything is someone's (and fenced with a barbed wire...)
• First encounters with speaking Dutch myself almost refuse to - some Vlaams people seems very happy to see someone learning the language, some of them automatically switch to English (and almost refuse to speak Dutch to a foreigner, or seem rather annoyed.)

That's all for now, I've been in the cafe for almost an hour, don't want to stay here a whole day. It was quite hard to find, so maybe I won't write for a few more days.

AAA80

I got an opportunity (thanks to my advisor) to attend a real conference in Mathematics - presenting the results of my Bachelor's thesis. Following, just a few random thoughts and remarks of mine:

It took place in Bedlewo, Poland - my first ('serious') visit to Poland. We lived in a castle and a building nearby and were wonderfully cared for.

I used almost all languages I knew (Czech, English, Spanish, French, Russian), except for Dutch and Chinese. Actually, I met a Dutch person and I talked to him, yet I wanted to get information from him, and as he was rather busy, I preferred getting information over practicing the language.

I met mathematicians, whose articles/books I'd had read before (so I consider them as nearly legends - oh come on, how many (little) books and articles has a bachelor read?) - Jonathan Smith, Rudiger Goebel, Anna Romanowska

A conversation:

"Is he good?"
"Yes."
"Extremely good?"
"I don't know, he is not my student."
(To me:) "Unless you are extremely good, don't do universal algebra. It's too isolated... Maybe try combinatorics.

I was asked several times, what Mathematics I want to do in future. A lot of questions makes one think about it thoroughly. What I have thought out so far: I don't like geometric arguments (and am not good at making them). I'm good at abstracting (yes, this part is still rather vague...).
Hmmm, but what does it mean, "geometric arguments", which areas of Mathematics does it encompass?? In what I have met so far in my life - the subjects: (Real and Complex) analysis, Topology, Differential geometry and Analysis on manifolds were full of such, while subjects encompassing Algebra and Logic mostly missed them (but also Functional analysis!!); Lie group theory was a mix. But now - does this say anything about the (mathematical) "real life"???
The Princeton Companion to Mathematics sort of divides mathematicians into geometers, analysts and algebraists. Distinction between algebraists and analysts being (succintly and imprecisely :-P ): "algebraists like equalities and analysts like inequalities". Do I really "prefer equalities", or is that just because of the plentitude of geometric arguments in early Analysis courses (together with the fact, that people in our Algebra department seemed more human-like than those at our Analysis department), that I consider myself to be an algebraist nowadays??

Being clever is not too appreciated (after all, every person doing Mathematics is; usually more then I am). What is appreciated, very appreciated - dedication, being hard working, passion and curiosity. This probably holds (as of my experience so far) in many other areas in life.

I don't want to end up doing research just for the sake of research (i.e. not interesting to anyone else, with almost no prospect of being interesting to anyone else even in future) - just a path too easy to follow in Mathematics (judging from what I saw and - even more - from the opinions of people who can probably be judged as "quality mathematicians"). But on the other hand (judging from what I saw and from the opinions of people who can probably be judged as "quality mathematicians")...there seems to be also so so much of the interesting Mathematics!

Giving talks, making presentations: slogans, pictures, examples...and motivation, if there is any.

"One has to have a lot of examples to develop the intuition."

Returned back

I'm back home.

• I took the ferry from Tanger to Tarifa (cheaper than to Algeciras).
  
• I hitchhiked from Tarifa to Malaga. Surprisingly easy.
• Spent a day in Malaga, then by bus to Barcelona. (I had a ticket from Malaga to Prague, but I was told I had to change the bus)
  
• Barcelona is beautiful, really beautiful! Pity I didn't have more time to see it.
• In Barcelona, they let me wait for 2 hours in a bus station and then told me, my bus leaves from the other bus station, on the second side of the city... Fortunately, I arrived (on foot :-) at time.
  
• The bus driver didn't want to let me in, saying I was dirty (sure I was dirty). But he let me, finally.
  

update: I made a rough Google map of my whole voyage to Morocco.

Chefchaouen, Tetouan, Tanger...

a cybercafe; Tanger, Morocco
once more from Fez:

• I tried to buy tobacco for a hookah for Hanka (the idea was suggested by Aja); the shopkeeper told me to wait, that a friend of his had to prepare it; then we just chatted and then, just by the way, he uttered he hoped the police stuff wouldn't be a problem for me - OK, it's illegal, bad luck; so sorry, I didn't buy it :-)

Chefchaouen - a beautiful city in the Rif mountains, famous for its blue streets in the medina and equally famous for its kif sellers

• I'd say some of its feeling has been damaged by too quick development of new housing (for Spaniards and also for rich Moroccans) - the new buildings often don't fit in
• the blue and white houses are impressive, somewhere, the cobbles in streets are white as well - incredible!
• I climbed on a nearby mountain; there I started to talk with a man that turned out to be a kif grower - he told me a lot about his job; then he offerd me to show me "the plants", their processingand to take some photos (if I had had a camera) - like a museum :-) unfortunately he wanted too much money :-(

Tetouan - "the white dove of Rif"; it lies between two mountains; the Ville Nouvelle has a lot of Spanish features and is particularly beautiful, the medina is special by that it was found by Andalusian refugees in the Middle ages

• the city has a very bad reputation, so I was cautious and find a place to sleep on a relatively distant place from it - and not in the nearby forest, as locals warned me not to

Tanger - even more Spanish features (and Spanish tourists); not as nice as the previous ones, but having a special feeling and rich history

• I was looking for a museum; I was asking everyone - most people seemed not to ever have heard about it, those who had were not able to show it to me; after 1.5 hours, I gave up - a nice trip around the center
• I'm returning by ferry this evening; I buy all my food for the way back here; I have two days to get to Malaga (hope hitchiking will work, it's just some 100 km from Algeciras, after all) and from there the bus will be going for another two days; next time, I should write already from Prague; I should arrive on the evening 4th September
  

Last days of the workcamp

a cybercafe; Sala Al Jadida, Sale, Morocco
day 8

• tasted snails - tastes like mussels (which I do like)
• my visit to Rabat - I went from Sala Al Jadida on foot, quite a walk; saw a lot of different neighborhoods of Rabat
• avocado juice again - indeed a cocktail: mixing a very ripe avocado, sugar and milk - really delicious! I have to try to make it back at home
• the archeological museum - quite a lot of excavations, a lot from Roman times (from Volubilis and other Roman cities), some even older; there is still a lot of places in Morocco yet to be properly excavated; as always, I was astonished what the ancient people could have achieved without the use of modern technology
• invitation for tea to a slum! - the slum (i. e. cottages made up of just everything, not at all durable materials, inhabited by rather poorer people) is just in the middle of the city, there are apartment blocks around, not too nice, but still; inside, it was not that bad (simple decorations, pictures, an older radio, a sofa...), but could be a lot nicer - it seemed to reflect the state of mind of the owners; the owner and his friends were smoking kif (which, as they willingly told me, was bad for their heads...); I guess the vast majority of "poverty" in Morocco (and possibly elsewhere) is like this - not starving people, this poverty just reflects the resigned attitudes of the people, furthermore, the "lazy" culture just encourages it

day 9

• a visit to the Exotic gardens - near Sale; the guide (12 years old) says it's totally neglected; actually some parts are, but others not and it seems there's been quite a lot work done recently; I regret it's not spring, but even with just few plants blossoming, it was nice (flowers are not the most important for me on a plant ;-) ; interestingly, most local people go there not as to a botanic garden, but as to a park
• others returned; ChefChaouen was reportedly great, just the journey took them 7 hours - so I'm looking forward to it, but...

day 10

• a new member - an American woman (32 years - the oldest one); stopped working to travel and do volunteer work for one year; she was in Europe, but after 3 months she had to leave, so now, she's going to spend perhaps another 3 months in Morocco
• we didn't work (tomorrow we should make up for it) - we went to a nice lake, almost no peopple there; a sail in a fishing boat (12 people in the tiny boat); I rode a donkey; an interesting conversation with the American (about New York, the life in USA...)

day 11

• allergy - I have a rash all over my body and I also had a mild fever; last week it happened to me once for 2 days as well, but I thought those were mosquitoes; now, what's the cause? I can only think of some local spices or perhaps the food coloring that was used yesterday and also last week; update: it's almost definitely either the spice or the coloring

day 12

• afternoon: Rabat - Villa des Arts: a very modern art gallery; there is even a virtual exposition there; quite surprising to see something like this in Morocco; though, this is Rabat...

day 13

• nothing that interesting, really...
• tomorrow is the last work day; on Saturday (the day after tomorrow), I'm going to go to Meknes and then travel again
• I'm quite looking forward to moving on - like a butterfly, unable to stay on one place ;-)

Workcamp: First days

a cybercafe; Sale, Morocco
arrival to Sale, day 1

• the workcamp takes place in the new quarter (some 10 years) of Sale - it's rather affluent, there are a lot of families having moved from Rabat
• Moroccan volunteers - more of them than European ones; they organize a lot of voluntary work here in Sale during all the year (including some 4 international workcamps); they are students, from well-off families, there's just one girl
• we're not going to clean the beach; instead gardening and painting the school we reside in
• Moroccans in general - very proud of their nation, not criticizing it (and on the other hand a lot of them move/would move to Europe...)
• other international volunteers (2xFrance, 2xSpain, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Italy) - fine people; some of them are too tourist-like (as opposed to traveler-like ;-) the "tourism" is even reinforced by Moroccan vols - we work some 3 hours a day and they consider us more as excitement than workforce
• I'd prefer more working and less leisure, sometimes there's little to do

day 2

• bad organization, really bad
• the schedule - monday to friday (both weeks): 9-12 work; late afternoon: visits to Rabat, Sale, beaches (3 times, quite too much for me); the weekend: visit to a big city
• language troubles: Moroccans talking among themselves always in Morrocan (a variety of Arabic), English, French; nothing understood universally
• lunch - prepared by Moroccan vols - lentils (a lot of legumes used here); using tons of spices (typical for Moroccan cuisine) - quite good to eat, but really too much spices; also wasting a lot of food (which I've seen in Morocco before as well)
• afternoon - going to the moussem (a Moroccan town festival, 7-30 days, a lot of them) Fantasia in Sale: groups of horse riders firing from rifles during the ride - traditional rifles, clothes...
• "culture" in Morocco - stemming from everywhere, but it's linked to conservative values (and Islam) - as it was ( and in many parts still is) in Europe (with Christianity) -- how to create "culture" without resorting to stupor and conservatism - when I return, I'll have to observe how such "culture" originates in the Czech Republic (if it does)

day 3

• morning - gardening, clearing out two grass squares in the school, pretty abandoned
• an introduction to the arabic script and sounds by a moroccan vol - some phonemes are pretty ...exotic; arabic language as such sound unusually sharp to me
• afternoon - visiting the Sale's artisan center (mostly pottery, but other stuff as well) - others not really interested, ended up in a nearby cafe; talked with a potter for a while, he liked me and gave me a cup as a gift, incredible!!!; spent a lot of time there, there was a lot of artisans (Sale being the main pottery city in Morocco, besides Safi and Fez), others thought I was lost and set off to search for me
• news about an unsuccessful terrorist attack in Meknes

Todra Gorges, Errachidia, Azrou

a cybercafe; Sale, Morocco
...little time now
Gorges du Todra

• gorges - wonderful mountains
• I went there on foot from Tinerhir, no need to use taxi - some 15 km
• oasis - I went through an oasis, near Tinerhir, there's a lot of them; they seem like a green paradise; humid, nice temperature, cultivation of figs, dates, corn, a lot of other stuff I don't know; sophisticated irrigation system; I also slept there
• for the first time, it was raining! not something I'd expect

Errachidia

• a quick stop
• I went to a big marketplace there - I talked with a father and his son at their clothes booth; about the possibilities to go to Europe (and work there) and like that; they seemed quite eager, even the Czech Republic would be fine for them...
• talking in the bus to Azrou with an enginnering student; about a lot of stuff, also about the problem with the education in Morocco (because families have a lot of children but also because children are too lazy to study); educated people apparently doesn't have problems with finding a good job, yet those without education have and prefer to do the manual work in Europe for much more money

Azrou

• a really different climate - in the mountains, it was often raining, even now in the summer; it was cold! there were coniferous trees
• also a different style of houses there; somewhat similar to the European "mountain style houses", but more...decorated; perhaps even too decorated (not to mention the "castles" of the more well-off people
• I was somewhat sick, perhaps from food - diarrhoea; but slept well and it's been much better recently

more about arrival to the workcamp and other stuff the next time...

Marrakech, Ait Benhaddou, Ouarzazate, Tinerhir

a cybercafe; Tinerhir, Morocco
I see it's quite a standard here to have a webcam in every cybercafe...Anyway, reportedly 50% of Moroccans have a cell phone and I was pretty surprised, when a Berber, from a tiny village, living in a kasba, showed me his phone, better than mine!
Marrakech

• all the building are red - quite impressive
• the famous tower of Koutoubia - but it's actually just yet another minaret, nothing special
• I saw the museum of woodcraft - very nice stuff :-) Normally, I don't understand art much, but the work of artisans-artists in Morocco attracts me
• I tried out an avocado juice - very very good, a little bit cocktail-like, but very good
• I entered some palaces in Marrakech - I don't know, as the decoration, there are ornaments; it was to see for the first time, but as every palace (not only in Marrakech, e.g. the kasba in Ouarzazate as well) in here has the same or similar ornaments, it turns out to be boring
• I tried out the local kouskous - they serve it with kind of kefir...it's interesting :-)
• Djemaa el-Fna square - it's very much touted for it's fortune tellers, cobra enchanters and so on... I visited it on the evening...and it's just too much for tourist; just too much...and it was totally overcrowded
• suqs (markets) in Marrakech - the largest ones in Morocco; though they mostly sell stuff manufactured elsewhere (but I met a carpet seller, who actually made the carpets in Marrakech)
• overall, Morocco is a very tourist country (reportedly 1/3 of GDP comes from tourism!), but Marrakech even worse
• there is a lot of green lots in Marrakech - and more are to come - actually I slept in an olive orchard very near the center

Ait Benhaddou

• the road went through the Atlas mountains - a really impressive, sometimes
  

• I didn't want to pay for the taxi from Ouarzazate, so I (only with much luck) convince driver to throw me out 20 kilometers before Ouarzazate, on the crossroad with direction to Ait Benhaddou
• Ait Benhaddou is a world-famous kasba (on the list of Unesco); a kasba is a Berber mud castle; still, I don't get it, why Ait Benhaddou, there are hundreds of kasbas in the area; some perhaps larger
  
• it was 9 km to Ait Benhaddou, then, the other day, perhaps 25 to Ouarzazate (I didn't go on the main road, but through the desert)
• I slept in the desert
• actually, it's desert only during the summer, but during that, really a desert; it was interesting to walk through there; fortunately, there are quite some oasis in the desert (furthermore, during other seasons; in rains, sometimes there is even snow)
  
• the kasba seems small from outside (much smaller than from pictures), but from inside, it's huge and maze-like; furthermore, from the money paid on entrance, the kasba is being "reconstructed" - I'd rather say some parts are being constructed from scratch; the work goes on apparently quickly
• on the way back, I saw decorations (false walls and like that...) for a movie (Gladiator?); in Ait Benhaddou, a lot of films is shot, so that's it; they wanted to have it close; it's apparently still in use sometimes (after all, there's a person guarding it)
  
• on the way through the desert, I was invited for the tea a few times, I accepted; Berbers are known for their hospitality; it was tea (but surprisingly, not their famous mint tea; but black tea of Chinese origin :-) ; to that, they offered me bread
• on one occasion I was given the bread with olive oil - never realized how good it was - have to practice in back home as well - few drops of the oil are enough
• one of them started to smoke kif (hashish); he offered me as well, I politely declined; reportedly, it's stronger than what is common in Europe - can't say, but he seemed quite affected after a while (so I exploited it and ate most of his goat butter with home-made bread); I talked about that with other Moroccans before and it's apparently very widespread
  
• on another occasion, I got goat butter - it has more distinctive taste than dairy butter and I liked it very very much; on the other hand, I can imagine a lot of people would find it disgusting - as Bzochi would said, it tastes "of the goat"
  
• they were very interested in jewelry-trinkets I brought from the Czech Republic; you could buy it in the Czech Republic for 20 crowns, but here, they take it as a thing of value; next time going to a foreign country, I have to take more of stuff like that

Ouarzazate

• a city trying to become a tourist center, but there is really not much to see
• the kasba - very large; it was reconstructed, so I visited the interior; but it's better from outside - the reconstructed interior is...badly reconstructed; there are some decorations, but otherwise, it doesn't fit the kasba feeling
• I took a public city bus - quite crowded, but fun; they pay the fare in the bus (there is a small cabin where a person issues tickets

Tinerhir

• I took an evening bus to Tinerhir - pity, I didn't realize it, but there's a lot of kasbas on the way, and I saw only the ones with lights on :-(
• in Tinerhir, there's a lot of kasbas; not big ones, but still nice
  

Essaouira, arrival to Marrakech

a cybercafe; Marrakech, Morocco
Essaouira

• a huge portuguese fortress, on the list of Unesco
• there's a lot of artisans-artists, famously painters and woodcutters; I visited a museum of the wooden stuff, it was beautiful
• I started a long conversation with some fishermen; they wanted me (half-seriously) to marry a daughter of one of them; I got a thorough excursion to various sea fish and to fishing boats; they directed me to some place to sleep: "there are some Frenchmen"; it turned out that it's an orphanage and a place of another project of CSM (the NGO, which also organizes my project in Morocco); they let me sleep there for one night, I got acquainted with the volunteers there, I got a dinner; perfect :-)

Marrakech

• I came to Marrakech; it's a big city
• it's very hot here (more than by the sea)

El-Jadida, Safi, coming to Essaouira

a cybercafe; Essaouira, Morocco
briefly:
El-Jadida

• a tourist place for Moroccans - actually just few Europeans here
• a nice Portuguese fortress
• it's interesting to see the contrasts in Morocco; there are some more conservative, there are some very liberal; it depends from one town to another (of course, Casablanca being very liberal, but the tourist resort of El-Jadida as well
• I slept outdoors, when I woke up, I saw a shepherd nearby; he looked a little bit surprised :-)
  

Safi

• a town of pottery; I visited the local pottery museum, very interesting; but even more so, the stalls of the local potters - wonderful work, I was very tempted to buy something, yet I would destroy it in the backpack
• I was invited for lunch to a Moroccan family - rather rich, rather liberal; tasted tajine, got a lot of information about Morocco and Moroccan style of life and seen a rather westernized Moroccans' (and there are more and more of them these days) house; still, there are a lot of differences to a "typical" European style of living; this stems also from that they have somewhat mistaken perception of Europe and Europeans (...oh, so many stereotypes, I've implicitly mentioned; but I hope, you get what I meant)
  
• two Portuguese fortresses; pity Moroccans don't care about the monuments more; this way, they will collapse sooner or later...
• Safi is not a typical tourist town, yet absurdly there were most people trying to beg from me (as from a "tourist")
• a night out; on a hill very close to the old medina; I slept very well :-)
  

Leaving Casablanca, coming to El-Jadida

in a cybercafe; El Jadida, Morocco
Some remarks

• Some merchants in Casablanca refused to haggle with me, saying the price was fixed. Fixed for tourists? Anyway, I haven't seen Moroccans haggling, neither. Perhaps Casablanca is already too European.
• The Grand Mosque in Casablanca is really big; still, it seems to have been constructed mostly for prestige, as there are enough other mosques in Casablanca.
• Street food is extremely cheap here (from 1 to 3 dirhams (1dh = 3 crowns) almost everything - including meals like soup, a pseudo-gyros, sweet pastry...). On the other hand, cheese and jams are quite expensive. And it's very tasty :-) Though...I think that with the possible ingredients, maybe there may be more variety. But maybe, I haven't seen enough yet.
• I've spent several hours in a market (it was reaaaally big), to get the feeling for the prices; also just for fun.
• I've spent the night in a youth hostel. After so many days, it was refreshing, I washed my clothes and took a shower...and saw a huge cockroach.
• The bus system (more well-off people use train) in here is funny, but I managed to get to El-Jadida.

Hitchhiking through Europe and reaching Morocco

in a cybercafe; Casablanca, Morocco.
I did it! It took me 4 days to get to Tanger.
There were moments of great luck as well as bad luck (mostly in Spain ;-)
The second hike I got was a French married couple; they spent a week in Prague and were returning home (near Lyon). With some more hikes, I was in Barcelona the second day (though it was difficult to get from Perpignan across the borders).
In Spain I got in a few desperate situations. I was really considering giving it up. People were taking little (I heard quite a few different versions why it was so - by the way, the hitchhiking showed me once again how "multi-faceted" the "truth" is; I often talked with different people about one topic and it was extremely interesting to see the different points of view, different knowledge of the topic, different stances...) and there were few convenient places.
Finally, I also started asking truck drivers - two has taken me; one Spanish and one British; they were very nice :-) The British took me from Granada to Algeciras (he went to Gibraltar; btw did you know that, in order for Gibraltar to remain truly British (though there are now Spaniards by now than native Britons), even the building material is transported from UK to Gibraltar?
One Barcelonian made a round trip in the city for me - beautiful! I have to visit it thouroughly one day (as well as other places I was passing).
Another topic, apart from hitchiking in Spain (there were a few false hitchhikers some years ago and since then, most drivers - mostly in the south of Spain - are afraid to take them) were immigrants. Briefly - people from developing countries are moving to Britain, France, Germany...so people from those countries move to Spain (but there a lot of developing-world immigrants to Spain, else the Spanish economy would reportedly collapse, as Spaniards are too lazy to do so-deemed "inferior" jobs). I met three non-native Spaniards - one Briton, one French and one Lithuanian.
I also saw Malaga and Costa Brava in general - tourist megalopolises! Hundred km of interrupted tourist structures!
The ferry from Algeciras was quite costly. Btw, there were migrant Moroccans returning to their country for vacations - I could have seen them all the way from France (their car is all full and on the roof there is a big blue package with yet another gifts for their families.
From Algeciras I moved to Tangers and from there I took the train to Casablanca. Casablanca is a busy city, but not very sight-seeing worth (well, I haven't seen the medina and the great mosque yet). Most buildings are just bland. I hate haggling. They mistake me for a French and they think I'm terribly rich (well, my clothes are already quite worn off, so I don't seem that rich, but still).
So far, I've slept mostly near service stations or elsewhere in wilderness, today I want to find a cheap hotel in the medina.

Trip to Romania

We finally managed to go to Romania for the trip. We left Prague 16/07/07 and returned 27/07/07. We were 7 (Bzochi, Meldath, Hanka, Laupi, Irena, Maf and me). I liked it very much, almost every part of it; I just regret some quarrels in the group. Perhaps 7 is too many, but better than being just few, and then everyone withdrawing just before the beginning.
We went there and back by bus, of the company Eurolines. It was that some of us didn't want to hitchhike all the way to Romania... Next time, I won't agree on the bus option. There's a lot of hassle obtaining the tickets, it's expensive, the bus comes late and it's not that funny.
We slept outdoors, except for one night when we were invited to a house.
We were in the southwest part (Banat). I've created an imprecise itinerary in Google Maps.
Just a few random remarks (pity I don't have more time, to create a more thorough post).

• hitchhiking - just too easy in Romania; quite a few times, we got a hike in 7(!!!); drivers were carrying us even though we couldn't speak Romanian; most of times we divided into groups of 2, 3 or 4 people - and we usually caught a second or third car; it's said you have to pay for the hitchhiking, but actually we almost didn't (summed up some three times, counting all groups - once they stopped a bus)
  
• Romanians and foreign languages - some do speak German, some English, few Spanish; perhaps it's better in other areas of Romania
• ethnic minorities - there's a lot of them; Hungarians, Germans, Romas; in Banat a lot of Serbians (it was surprisingly easy to communicate with them in Czech-Serbian) and Czechs (mostly in the Czech villages)
• the Czech villages - our primary target when we set off to Romania; I liked the atmosphere, unfortunately, the continuous flow of the Czech tourists has spoiled quite a lot and the villages has quite some "commercial feeling"
• Romanian hospitality - a few times we got food (once a lunch), one time we were invited to sleep to their home; incredible! we at first pondered if it was some kind of a cheat, but we took the chance and it was wonderful; we just felt ashamed for being offered so much (apart from food and a place to sleep also some gifts - it was crazy!) and having little to give back
• alimentara - a small grocery, sometimes with limited self-service; apparently, locals do most of their food-shopping there (and in markets, when there are some); I was just amazed, when I (repeatedly, in a few towns) saw 3 or 4 alimentaras in an area of some 100 square meters
• Romanians and environment - the most beautiful parts of nature (if well known) are the most dirty ones; in towns, it sometimes seemed to me that throwing garbage in a bin was weird, while throwing it on a street - perfectly normal
• village and town design - usually one long main street, which stretches for kilometers; consequently, villages and towns are very long and it's quite time-consuming to go from one end to the other
• plums - plum trees are everywhere; to me it seemed they were mostly used to produce liquor (and, perhaps, jam)
• Timisoara - there are some nice buildings in the center, but the center is small and the buildings in a pretty bad state
• it was extremely hot - up to some 45 degrees! Last days, temperatures dropped a little.
• Cheile Nerei - a national park; the nature was wonderful (some of us think otherwise) in the southern part, but there was a lot of people in some parts -> a lot of garbage; also, the northern part was less interesting
• one night (in Cheile Nerei) we thought we'd heard a bear, so we were guarding all the night and we slept badly - unfortunately (we have nothing to boast about ;-) we didn't see it, though around the midnight, there was a little herd of cows going around (really!)
• Buzias - a spa, though it has probably lived through better times
• there's a lot of castle-like mansions; not very tasteful
  

see also: Meldath's point of view

Back home

I returned!
I'm again in Prague.
I miss Argentina a lot.
In Vienna, my luggage didn't come, so I filed a complaint.
I feel now very self-confident in Prague (such a calm city).