Across Europe in 3 days

So... my last few days in Lima... I was kind of too occupied to really think about it too much. Spending my last few days with Sara, eating well, as usual there, not really doing too much work, as usual.

On my flight to Madrid, I was checked-in to a first-class seat! So I managed to sleep through the free food (which would have been welcome, where are the signs saying "yes you CAN wake me up for meals!" that i can hang around my neck)? Landing in Spain and walking around a sleepy Saturday-evening Madrid was a bit of a culture shock, to tell the truth. Europe is so QUIET, so LIGHT and so SHUT! Having it be light at 8pm and everything be shut, along with the quiet was kind of depressing in a way. One very organised bus ride later with no tags on my luggage (what if someone steals it!?), no vendors selling food before/on/after/under/out-of-the-window-of the bus, only europeans and some backpackers, not really talking to each other.

Actually, it was in Barcelona (where I wish I had stayed another night instead of Germany) that I realized how far my Spanish had come. I boarded the plane, leaving the Spanish zone, realizing that I really had no communication problems in Spain at all. Sure, they talked differently, but expressing myself and repeating things back with rougly the right conjugations to confirm that I had understood was no problem.

So we landed in The Middle-of-Nowhere, near Frankfurt, Germany. I stayed in a €30/night B&B (after sleeping on a plane, then a bus, and not really washing or changing properly, it was a welcome splurge). I was just too tired to think, probably should have ventured into the centre. Anyway, it was so ghastly quiet, I hadn't slept properly, walked into the completely dead sunday-afternoon village with one shop (an off-license, closed). Very depressing.

One thing that cheered me up... a HOT SHOWER! It had been quite a while since I really had a hot shower that didn't have a track record of personal electrocutions. Heating elements in your face! Why? Well, it was ok in the summer...

Anyway, so I flew across from this place and to the tiny airport of Kaunas. Mantas, a guy I had met one evening, two years ago, picked me up. AFter we failed in finding a bus to Klaipeda from there, I stayed at his place in Vilnius for the night.

Next morning, got a bus to Klaipeda.