Hello everybody! In between I arrived in Crete, the biggest Island of Greece. I will spend the next two weeks with my parents, my younger brother and my uncle and aunt. In some days my mother will celebrate her 60. Birthday, actually the reason I came here. Our place here is just amazing. The small but wonderful house is around five miles away from the sea. On the other side we are surrounded by mountains (okay, not like in Nepal, but majestic, especially so close to the sea). We are living very close to a small greek village, where are very good friends of us living. I was here the first time, when i was thirteen months old and since then almost every year. So it feels like a second home, even if i still can`t speak greek, like i would like to do. But one day I will stay here for a longer time and then I will finally learn it. My Grandfather was the first in the family, who visited Crete. He was a Translator here in the times of the second world war. And he came back with my Grandmother, after he was able to come again. And again and again they came. So they became friend to Manoli and his Family. My Parents followed and also stayed here, as often as they could. In the End of the 80`s my parents and grandparents started to plan this small house (my grandfather was also an architect and my father has a lot of skills as well), buyed some ground from our friend and my grandparents watched over the project, when it was built, what is very necessary in Greece... So in 1989 the house was finished. Still it was not allowed for Foreigners to owe own ground or houses in Greece, so it was officially Manoli, who was the owner in the bginning. Later he transcribed the house to us. That time it was so much cheaper than today. Later it would have been almost impossible to realise this house. It is a very peacful place, the views are like postcards, we are cooking for ouselves, sleeping outside and when the moon will get smaller we will have a phantastiv view at the stars, because there is almost no light pollution. I will have time to write down my reports about the second part of my big travel, improve this blog and also swim, read and relax. What will happen after staying here is widely open. As I had some very spezial meetings in Stuttgart, there is maybe a reason to come back. But still i would like to go to Asia again as soon as possible. My Family would like to see my in Germany again and would give my the time and space to write for my book. After I could still travel again. But now it is time to arrive in Crete and settle down for some days, before i make any decision. But how did I came to Crete? I didn`t wanted to flight. I had so many flights in the last months (10 in four months) and actually I don`t like to travel that fast. Especially flying directly from Asia to Europe is always a kind of nightmare, not because it is that long, but because the change is just too fast. So I decided to make the same travel, I did almost exactly one year ago, when I started to travel: I took a train from Stuttgart to Munich, to catch the night train to Venetia. As I had only a seat, I expected that I wouldn`t get a lot of sleep. Like the last time I meet some nice people, who are doing the Interrail; this time two guys from Brazil and another one from Norway. Very nice people. And they have been very pleased to meet me as I was, also because there was another german man in our compartment. And he was already fucking bloody drunk, when I arrived. He always tryed to talk to the other guys, but only in german and especially one of them was a little scared about him. He seemed to be a professional drinker, not totally stupid but had sadly a attitude of racism. But actually it was very funny to watch him. Conversation with him was also in german very problematic becaus of his state of mind... The Guys from Brazil and me went to the Bar to have some white beer and good talk. Later a english guy joined us and I came as well in contact with a german travel group, who finished there education and went with there teachers to Rome, the final destination of the train. I joined them after a while and it was very funny. As it belongs to such a trip after finishing the education they have been very very drunk and made a lot of noise. Some times they have been very short before beeing kicked out of the train... As i couldn`t afford another drink i just stayed sober and had still a lot of fun to talk to them and laugh with and about them. The remainig time i tried to sleep a bit. Also our german „friend“ was in the same danger to get kicked out of the train. He needed ten minutes to find his ticket again and talked nonsense to the italian service personal. And only in german... Once I heared him shouting from outside the train when we stayed for a longer time in Verona. He complained about his missing luggage. He just could`t realise that the train has been sepereted (the missing part was already on the way to Rome) and couldn`t find his place again as already often before. Then he asked my, if I could imagine if he could buy some beer at the train station... The plan of the three Interrail-travelers was to go to Milano in the morning and to come back to Venetia later. Once, when our train stopped, they saw another train, that would leave in some minutes to Milano. So they decided quickly to change the train. One of them forgot his sleeping bag. I tryed to bring it to them, but was not sure how long our train would stop. As I was already expecting, that they didn`t realised the missing item, I was already relaxing again, when I heared somebody shouting my name. It was one of the brazilian guys, who was staying in the train, maybe 7 meters away. „Throw my sleeping bag!“ And I did. Through the window, which was only possible to open 25 centimeters wide. And I was sucessfull, what affected a lot of joy and laughing at the other train... Finally I arrived in Venetia in the early morning and as I was very tired and absolutely sure I wouldn`t be able to stay awake the whole night, after so many days with so less sleep, I decided to go to the same hostel where I stayed last Year. The only problem there is that you can`t check in before 4 in the afternoon. So I lay down in the garden and had some sleep. After that I walked through Venice until the evening. Such a wonderful city. Very crowded in the summer and almost everywhere unbelievable expensive. Renting a Gondola for example would cost 80 Euro for 45 minutes, a espresso easily more than 10 Euro... But Venice is also nice without much money. And the dorm in the hostel costs 20 Euro and there is a supermarket with reasonable prices very close. Unbelievable how many beatiful women are in Venice... And my Charisma seems to be amazing in the moment. But you know: i am not like this, even if I`m not always pleased about it. I am still searching for real love. However. In the evening i meet one of the guys i would share the dorm with. A very nice guy from England. We had a nice talk. Then I went again into Venice. I love to get lost in this beatiful town. And it`s so easy if you don`t concentrate on the path. But as I was amazingly tired I was finally very pleased, when I found the Hostel again. Still the english guy was sitting on the terrace, in beetween acompanied by a guy from Taiwan. It was very funny to talk to them. I told them about some stories in Asia and how I became Mr. Coconutyoga. Especially the reaction of the Guy from Taiwan was interesting. He told my, that my life sounds for him like a movie (and i am not quite sure if he believed me everything). And I realised how right he is. Anyway, we had a good time and I smoked also some powerful Basilikum with the english guy, who looked then after a while very destroyed :-) The next day I had another short walk through Venice before I went to the port to get my ticket for the Passage to Greece. Leaving Venice by Ship is a very nice experience, because you are so close to the place of San Marco and the Lido. You can see almost the whole Panorama of Venice. Then I fall asleep. I had two beers with me from the super market and drunk them in the sun when i woke up... After that I met some very nice and funny people, who used to live in Berlin-Neukoelln for decades. We had a very good talk and I got invited for a ouzo. As I was already very drunk then I decided to make a drinking break (also because I had only money left for a hot dog and one last white beer. After having that beer later, i got invited by an austrian couple for a glass of wine and then by two guys from Salzburg for some Ouzo. But I just had a little bit and was prepared to fall asleep after. But this two guys had the certain plan to get in contact with girls... So they finally started to talk to a group of irish girls. They have been already amazing drunk. One of them had birthday. So we joined them. It was very very funny. Later we went to the disco on the ship and at least then everything went kind of crazy. It was a small dance floor, surrounded by small tables, occupied by lonely and greedy truck drivers who watched the girls dancing... The irish girls apoached the scene and tookover the place J They didn`t missed much crazy things to do: shouting in the mikrophone of the DJ, wasting the dance floor with their drinks, making very funny but also very displaced choreografies in the middle of the dance floor, so that everybody else had to leave and so on and so on. Sometimes i was laughing extremely hard about them. As I wasn`t able to afford another drink I got more and more sober but also got more and more into a dance feeling. Actually I stayed there until the disco closed... The offer of the girls to join them to go to Korfu was tempting but impossible to follow without any money and the birthday of my mother ahead. I met also some other nice people in this evening and it was a good one. The next day I had to sleep a lot and the journey seemed to be very short. And I was so lucky. Somebody gave me his cigarettes without asking him and the parents of the two guys from Salzburg and another couple from switzerland gave my a nice lunch package, as they heard that I was hungry and didn`t had any money. So great! From Patras, where I arrived at 8 in the evening I took the bus to Athens (for sure I had still the money for the bus and the ferry to Crete even if it was so tempting to use it for drinks ;-) ), where I arrived around one o`clock in the night. As I couldn`t afford any place to stay I went to the athenaen hill „Lykavettos“, where I found a place where I could sleep. I had another cigarette at the top, where you have the best view in Athens and then went to a short but good sleep (the only problem is that you have to sleep on a very steep ground). The following morning I went again to the top of the hill and then through Athens with a lot of Stops in Parks, at the Areopag, very close to the Acropolis and went through the Plaka, the most charming area in Athens, before I went to Pireaus to catch my ship. After another night on the ship with the last food of the lunch package I arrived in Crete. And here I am!!! Much love from Greece, Mr. Coconutyoga
