My trip to Santiago

What was the plan? Start the trip with the midnight train from Vrbas, arrive to Budapest in the morning, do sight seeing till next morning when I have the flight to Barcelona. Yeah right...

Day before the departure, tired like i just finished triathlon race, but still half of the things are not done. Searching the internet about the things to see in Budapest and Barcelona is the last thing on my mind. Midnight train? No way man, I´m moving the departure to 9am, I need to sleep.

Entering the Inter city train, air conditioning, electric socket over my head, computer pluged in, enjoying the ride. The conductor: "Dude, this is first class, your ticket is for second class. Get to the back in the stinky hot compartment with no electricity, and watch The Big Bang Theory as much as you like". Well, he didn´t use those exact words, but you get the picture.

Arriving at the Budapest train station and realizing that I don´t have Tibors phone number, and the old high-school buddy is supposed to pick me up. I go into the internet caffe, and type Tibor a message on a keyboard that is dirtier than a public toilet. He calls me and tells me where to meet him. "Ok Rade, where do you wanna go, what do you wanna see?" "Forget about the sight seeing, take me somewhere to eat and have a beer".

We take a quick tour by car, and the most interesting to me was a bar that works like wall street. If a drink is sold good, its price rises, and if not it drops during the night. I feel sorry for the guy who does taxes for that place.

Couple of beers + fatigue = I pass out in a siting position. Suddenly I wake up around 2:30: "Tibor, we didn´t set the alarm, or called a taxi to the airport! -Relax dude, I did all those things, just didn´t wanna wake you up"

I throw away all my food because my bag is heavier than allowed, also I tie my winter jacket around my waist, and stuff my pockets with all kinds of things. Finally, nobody checked the weight of the bag, just the dimensions.

I get on the plane, "Excuse me, I don´t know my seat number. -Sit where ever you like son, our airline is like city bus". I take a window seat with a wonderful view of the wing and the engine. On the way, the plane personnel tries to sell me meals, drinks, parfumes and a newspaper that reports that some obviously famous women did something obviously very interesting.

In an attempt to find a left-luggage department I lost about an hour and got to know the Barcelona airport better than my own backyard. On the bus station i check the bus line map. 46 seems to be going to a populated area of the city, so i go in and after 40 minutes I get to a big roundabout, with a big sculpture/fountain on the middle, with some interesting looking buildings around. Ok, I´ll get down here, it seems like there is stuff to see. I think the name was Plaza España.

During my walk I take photos of buildings that I don´t know what they represent, but look nice. I climb to the National museum of Catalonia (later I found out where i was actualy climbing). The more I climb, the view gets more beautiful and beer gets smaller and more expensive. Draft beer in a plastic cup of 2dl is more then 3 euros...

I go back to catch my connecting flight and conclude that all the products are advertised by Pau Gasol and FC Barcelona players.

I get to Santiago de Compostela hungry, tired and dirty, but a had a nice wellcome from my coordinator Victor and two volunteers that came before me (Maxi and Sol), and they take me to my new home for the next entire year.

Rade Radovic