My Christmas Time in Thessaloniki

Hi all,

Today is 25th of December 2009. I have my first Christmas time in Greece. I have a really good time at Christmas last year in UK. And now I get also really wonderful Christmas in Thessaloniki. I will tell you what happen to me on 24th and 25th of December 2009.

At 24th there are 2 families invites me to their house. So I go to the first one in Tom's house around 1 o clock. They invite a lot of people in that party. I stay there until 4 o clock. Here is the photo when I am there.


Then I back home and I go to another family from my church that invite me for dinner. They are a German couple that recently move here to Thessaloniki. We have great conversation and great time together.

After that I go home and sleep.

In the 25th I go to the church and talk with some of the member of the church there. I take a picture with my pastor and a really nice old lady in my church. Here is the picture.

When I am on the church suddenly my friend from couchsurfing send me an SMS and asking me if I have plan for that day and he invite me to his house to eat lunch with his family. I directly accept his invitation. I don't have a plan anyway. Then I eat really big meals on his place.

I have a wonderful time on Christmas. I just hope it will be the same as your Christmas time.

Wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

TIps and Trick for Cheap Travel in Europe

Hi all back again writing for the tips and trick,

I was doing a lot of traveling in my summer. Like I say in my previous post, I have already traveling around Europe. I travel with quite little amount of money compare with other people but I am not doing that much compare to the one that really-really don't have money. I will explain later the difference. I will tell you about the tips and trick for traveling in Europe.


1. Transport.

- Low Cost Airlines (Ryanair and Easyjet)
For transport I use Ryanair flight which is really cheap. I get the promotion ticket for 1 euro that time. So everytime I fly I just spent 1 euro. So that time I will just look at their map (where they fly) and then I just make the route and find the promotion ticket. Usually they have the promotion almost everyweek, just register with them and you will have the promotion sent to your email. The problem with this Ryanair is the airport is quite far from the city so you need to spend more money to get on the bus or train to get to the city. The other problem is there are so many regulation that you have to pay attention to, otherwise you will pay more money. You will be allowed to bring only 1 bag for 10 kg (55cm x 40cm x 20cm), for your carry hand baggage. For more information about baggage you can find out (here) You will need to print your boarding pass or otherwise you will need to pay 40 euro in the airport.

- Local Transport
I always go to the tourist information office for the information of everything. Usually you will have a free map and all the information you need. You can ask for the daily ticket or any ticket that is for tourist. It will save you quite money if you using it a lot, but everything is depend on how you want to travel. For sure it will be cheaper to walk all around.

- HitchHike
I haven't use this but I guess I want to try to use it some time in the future. I have meet quite a lot of people doing this and they say it is working and this is the cheapest way for the transport. The tips and trick I get from them is just find the road to get out from the city, write your destination in cartoon or big paper and then just raise your tumb. One of them say that the longest time for them to get the pick up is 1 hour even that he already traveling around europe.


2. Place to sleep

- Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club
I use couchsurfing in almost all places I have been in Europe, but in some cities I stay with my friend. Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club is the website that people can offer their house for someone to sleep on for free. Usually is for several days and they want to host people to make friends and meeting other people from different culture. My tips and trick of staying in couchsurfing is just be nice and just do whatever you can to help your host, for instance washing dishes is one of the simplest one. If you can cook, cook for them. If they ask you to go out for a drinks, pay for their drinks also (if you have quite money to do that). All the other that you need, you can read in their profile I guess, what they like, what they don't like. And always write personal message. What I mean by personal is maybe at least more than 3 lines. You can explain yourself and why you want to go there.

- Cheap hostel
In Europe there are a lot of cheap hostel. You can find most of them easily, by looking in some website like www.hostelworld.com or www.hostel.com. You can read the rate and their location there. You can ask in tourist information also if you have already in the city.

- In airport or park
I know some people that doing this. They bring sleeping bag or tent and they can sleep anywhere. But it is quite dangerous if you do in the winter. In summer is fine but that is my last option. There is no point of doing this because compare to couchsurfing you will have a comfortable place to sleep also for free.


3. Food.

- Bread from supermarket
That is the cheapest one I can find. I don't know about the food you usually have but this works for me. I just buy the bread, ham and some cheese and put it together to become a sandwich. I eat this for my breakfast, lunch and dinner.

- Cook
If you can cook and if you using couchsurfing you can cook for them. You can buy all the stuff you need in the supermarket and use their kitchen to cook. There is only 1 times that I failed ^^. All the other host really like my cooking.

- FastFood
I guess the next option is the fast food. A lot of people do not feel like to eat fast food because they think that is not healthy. But it works for me as long as it was the cheapest one. I guess in Europe Fast Food is the cheapest one, but not in Asia. So just take a look on the price first before you decide.

- Restaurant or Bar
The next option for me is restaurant and bar. You can not avoid it if you using the couchsurfing with the guy that don't eat fast food. So just follow them, you can offer to cook for them but if it's already the time to eat .. just eat. You can separate the bills or if you have some money you can pay for him also.


4. Go around the city

- Plan where you go
You have to know at least what you want to visit in that place. All the rest you can ask the information on the place. But even if you don't know anything about the city you can ask in tourist information. Usually there always 1 in each airport or in the train station or in the city center.

- Tourist Information
It's always good to visit tourist information. Usually you can have free map. They can explain you all the time schedule what to visit and all the free places you can go. This is the favourite question I always ask.
"I will be here for ... days can you suggest me where to go and what to see ?"
"Is there any free places or free museums ?"
"What is the most famous monument/place in this city ?"
"Is there are any travel/pass card for tourist ?"

-Information from couchsurfing host
There are more information you can get from your couchsurfing. Sometimes you will have something that even the tourist information forget to tell you about. Or maybe he know the beautiful places that is not shown on the map. One of the advantages if they can have the time to show you around the city. So what I say to you is just use couchsurfing. Of course if you are a girl I am not recommend you to travel alone using this. At least have 1 friend with you.

I guess all of my explanation cover almost everything you need in traveling cheap in Europe. ... SO Happy Traveling

My summer experience

After a long time not writing this Blog. Finally I am back. I will catch up with you because there are so many things happen.

The first one is my summer holiday. I get three months summer holiday which is really-really long period of time. I want to return to my country Indonesia, but I have to pay a lot for that. So in the end my parents just told me to stay in Europe and try to save money. It's not worth to spend the money on the flight ticket and then doing nothing in my country. I guess that is the best advice I got. So I am beginning my journey to go around Europe.

I will make it short because 3 months is too long to describe all. So I will just write down only the important stuff. I am traveling with Ryanair and they say it's the cheapest airlines in Europe. I get the promotion ticket which is only 1 euro each time I fly, so I make the route and book many flights that time. Then I have another problem because I will spend a lot of money in hostel and other stuff, but my friend told me about couchsurfing and this is really change my life. I stay with someone in couchsurfing in different countries for free. I will describe all of this in my later post. But for now I will keep short. I will just tell you all the countries I went in summer. Here is the list :

- Netherlands (Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Delft, Den Haag, Amsterdam(only airport))
- Denmark (Copenhagen)
- Sweden (Malmo, Gothenburg, Stockholm)
- Norway (Oslo)
- Finland (Turku, Helsinki, Tampere)
- Germany (Hamburg, Berlin, Postdam, Wittenberg, Luneberg, Stade, Bermen, Munster, Osnabruck, Koln, Frankfurt)
- Italy (Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Roma)
- Belgium (Brussels)
- United Kingdom (Liverpool, Manchester)
- Spain (Madrid, Aranjuez, Granada, Cordoba)
- Portugal (Lisboa, Sintra)

So I guess that is the list of the country I have been in the summer. I am sorry I can not write all of my experience one by one but I will tell you more information about my long summer trip on the next post. I will try to write down all of my travel experience in Europe. I will also explain a little bit about the tips and trick how to do that.

Oke ... that is all for now. I will try to update this blog as soon as I have time.

Hope all the best for everyone