Spain by www.born2travel.it

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20. 08. 1999 San Sebastian (SPAIN)

Amano. A 23-year-old Japanese heading to Bilbao for a holiday before going to study architecture in Moscow. He had got lost and we helped him, a new companion of adventures for the Spanish leg! In this quiet Basque town there are posters and stickers everywhere against Spain and in favour of Basque independence! It feels like being in a Latin Belfast... These Spaniards are very nationalistic, few speak English, perhaps because they are busy studying Basque, which is extremely difficult! Who knows! How strange to be sitting on this summer beach after a month of rain, wind, fog and cold! [Paolo from Vercelli, Italy]: Interrail tires your body, frees your mind, smokes up your lungs and only those with a stainless liver survive. You live Interrail inside, you carry the journey with you, your backpack is your home, the road your tomorrow. All men die, not all men truly live.

21. 08. 1999 Montecarlo (PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO)

Takx has got fixated on the casinos... So here we are at a VIP destination to see if we can satisfy this wish of his... They have already warned us that to play you have to be 21 (and we're not!) Wandering around we notice that Montecarlo is an out-of-the-ordinary city, it is a concentration of all the rich folk of France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. It is super mondaine, right in front of me dozens and dozens of super-luxurious yachts are moored, you see extremely expensive cars everywhere: Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini... There is a lot of Formula One advertising, let's not forget that a stage of the Grand Prix is raced here... Takx returns defeated. Here they won't let him play. We try in Nice, in France, they tell us that there the rules are different...

22. 08. 1999 Nice (FRANCE)

We find ourselves in front of the "Ruhl" casino. Takx has decided to gamble 100,000 lire (50 euros), about three bets, "it's hit or miss!" [Takx]: It didn't work out. But the money is still here, safe. It didn't work out because we would have had to wait until late evening (they open late here) and then the entrance alone cost a lot... Never mind... It was fate... Finally we head home. I say finally because yesterday, while I was wandering the streets of Montecarlo, I saw a nice free-range chicken, juicy and inviting on the rotisserie, and I got homesick... As I write we have reached Italian territory and here our Interrail ticket is no longer valid.

If they catch us it will be a hefty fine, but we will "manage", right Marco? Now I am starting to understand the wandering of adventurers, of no fixed abode, who get their food day by day and who never know what will happen the next day or where they will be. As I head home: tired, dirty, thinner and hungry after this trip, I can say I had fun! I left Takx an hour ago in Trento and I am continuing on to Bolzano. I am going to my parents who live near the border with Austria. After 29 hours on the train, in twenty minutes I will hug them again after all this time... Life returns to normal but it is no longer the same thing!