Where is Fred?

Photo: In the dunes in Morocco, playing the tamtam big time!

Yes, where am I?? When was the last post?? You people must have stopped checking the blog already....no update, no update, no update.
I had a tooo great time in the desert of Morocco playing the tamtams, as you see on the photo :)

No, actually I HAVE BRILLIANT NEWS!!! Today I received my visa for Iran! Mister Ahmadinejad allows me to visit his country for up to 30 days. I better not ask for a tourism tour to one of the nuclear factories....I might end up in jail labelled as a spy!
So today I arrived back in Rome, for the third time(as you can read on the 'follow my footsteps page' which I just updated with all the places I have been). This morning my alarm rang at 5.00am, to catch the train from Rimini to Rome. I will explain later why I left so early!
So anyway, I was supposed to go first to the Embassy of Iran to pick up my passport with new visa. Yes to pick up my passport. They had to have my passport, I couldnt bring it with me. So the problem was, I could not request a visa for Azerbeijan at the same time. So I had to wait for a week for my Visa for Iran to be finished, which I picked up this morning, exactly one week later. And then I went to the embassy of Azerbeijan to request the visa but ofcourseeeeeeeeee it was closed again! As earlier I have been here in Rome already, 2 weeks ago, and the embassies were closed the week. Perhaps because there were a few national holidays in Italy, althought the foreing embassy has not much to do with Italy. But still they might adapt local holidays...
Tomorrow is my third try to request the visa for Azerbeijan.

What have I been up to? I think i need to check back my old post where I was the last time...hehe. It has been some time ago. I spend pretty much all the time in Italy. After Morocco I flew back to Spain, to Barcelona. I spend a few days there. It was a nice city to see, but not my style at all and I have nothing interesting to stay about this city...only that it was very touristy again.
Actually the first night was very nice. When I arrived in Barcelona at the airport. Wait let me jump a few situations back. Back to Morocco, back to the airport of Nador. Oh by the way, I stayed in Nador in a hotel, which was fully booked by the military of Morocco, because king Mohammed VI was visiting Nador. And all the military was staying in the hotel. While it was such an interesting hotel for me stay in, because it was next to the bus station, and it was the cheapest in the city!! That is why I wanted to stay there, and then I was fully booked by the king himself....well, the kind boss of the hotel did some phonecalls for me, and the managed to make a room available for me. I think they were sorry for me that the hotel was fully booked and I felt they thought I was completely lost, not knowing where to go because I did not know a different hotel in this city etc.etc. The guys did their best and I had a room for myself! That was very nice of them.

Then, after Nador and after Melilla, I went to the airport the fly to Barcelona. This airport, everything was sooo unorganised! There were about 4 queues in front of 2 check-in desks. The persons checking in, I think they were checking in 5 passengers at the same time! People were literally queue jumping, because they had for example a baby-pram or a big box or something silly...which they thought reason enough to queue jump! Anyway, I got myself checked-in proppely. I think I had the benefit that I was 'different', blond curly and light skinned which allowed me to queue jump as well, so the checkin-desk took my passport first when were with 5 people at the same time offering our passport to check-in hehe.

Once in Barcelona, the bus just left so I had to wait for about 2 hours for the next bus. I got on contact with Tiziana, an Italian girl from Sardinia(and yes she is very proud to be from Sardinia although she keeps saying not. haha Don't be angry when you read this please!). Well I cant disagree because I found Sardinia very nice when I visitted the island a few years ago. We went for a coffee and talked and we were glad when the bus finally arrived. However after half an hour, I felt like we turned around....and indeed, again half an hour later we arrived back at the airport!! The bus driver was not informed that two flights were delayed so we had to go back to pick them up.
So 2.5 hours later we arrived in Barcalona finally! I think it was about 7pm when we were in Barcalona, and I left that morning at about 9am....such a waste of the day! That is why I prefer taking the train. It takes equal time but you dont waste the time waiting everywhere.
Maybe you remember I started this story with the sentence that the first evening was very nice. That is because, first when we split up in Barca, I went to a supermarket to get some water and Fruits. And the cash-deck I got talking to this guy. I forgot his name right now unfortunately. I feel ashamed, but the only excuse I can give is that I meet so many people, pretty much every day!
But with some research and thinking I remember his MySpace name: TV Placenta! I was searching for video placenta, so it took 5 minutes. Which reminds me I promissed to send him a message.
It was really interesting, and we ended up having deep discussions about life and much more for about an hour, just on the kerb outside the supermarket. Barcelona started good for me!
Later that evening I was meeting Tiziana again with her Italian friends. Very nice evening!

After Barcelona I flew to Pisa. Coincidentally the next day my mum and sister were also flying to Pisa, so i met with them the next day. Still everybody was trying to push over the leaning tower while being photographed...so instead, I decided to try and push over my sister instead!!
End of the day I went to Rome, to arrange the visa. But embassy was closed. So the day after I went back to the north to Arezzo where I was meeting my family again, and we spent the day in Arezzo and Sienna. Both very nice cities.
In the evening I took the train to Grosetto, and the next morning I continued to Piombino where I took a ferry to Elba. A beautiful Italian Island. There I spend two days. I wanted to hike to the top of the mountain, but because it was a Sunday there were no busses to the vilage where I wanted to start. So I decided to rent a scooter and drove through the mountains and around the mountains along the coast. Very nice very nice!
After Elba I want back again to Rome, and this time I request the visa for Iran succesfully but could I not request the Azerbeijan visa since they took my passport as I explained before.

From Rome I took the train to Cesenatico, north east along the coast. Friends are living there, and I did not see them for I think 2 years. I had two great days there. And it was nice to see the vilage again. I borrowed a cycle which I pedalled around in the area two town further up and back along the beach.

After Cesenatico, next stop was Rimini. 30 minutes be train to the south. There I have been a few times before. A friend lives there and in the evening I surpised him by showing up at his Discoteca Life. He offered to stay at his place where all the very international staff stays as well throughout the summer. So the last days I spent together with people of my age from Australia, Canada, Argentinia, Poland, America, South Africa. All very nice people and I was having a great time with them!
This photo was taken in the hostel in Rome by Matthew from New Sealand who was very inspired by my trip

And to make the circle round, today I went back to Rome to pick up the visa. Tomorrow I go to the Azerbeijan embassy and hopefully soon all is done and I can continue to Sicily to meet Salvatore and hopefully I can rickroll Andre another time as he will be in Palermo as well at the same time!!

PS: I hope to have the 3rd flamingo finshed soon :)