Budapest

It's in Budapest that my trip started - a lovely 5 days with the even lovelier Giuliana. Are we not a nice couple?
Budapest is a really nice city and the world knows about it - it's full of tourists. One thing to mentionne so, it was bloody cold and rainy so the pictures are not so great, sorry about that. Below you can admire a view of the palace on the Buda side taken from the tour of the Basilic on the Pest side. It was destroyed and rebuild many time hence its 17th century style.

Another impressive monument is the Parlement - even more than the English parlement on the Pest side. We never woke up early enough to be able to visit it...
Me in the cover market, next to our 5 stars appartement (thanks Giu for finding this lovely place). Half of the market's visitor are tourists (a special floor full of souvenirs shop is dedicated to them) but the ground floor is a proper market where Englisg is not much spoken - good place for shopping.
The two famouse adventurer, going to discover the secret of Asia...
Our host and guide for the weekend - Fabien - best friend at grammar school spending 9months in Budapest for an internship and a friend of his, the lovely and full of life Francine!
Fabien brought us to a medival restaurant (I loved it of course) where you eat with your fingers (even so the girls were a bit redunctant at the begining, after 5 attempts to us a fork and knif, they abandonned and played the game). Below you can the the portion for 4people - we almost finished it at 5... Ilias you would have lovde the place!
During the dinner I was even made night after completing 3 trials:
- what is your favorite colour - Red, mh not blue
- kneel down in front of Giu (standing on the table, I could look up her skirt :-) and singing her a love song (chevalier de la table ronde...). Some people in the restaurant sung with me...
- And finnaly make an owth (don't remeber what i said)
After those hard trials I was made knight - Pierre the Brave!!!
And then we took the train for Lviv!
See you

The departure

Finnaly I find some time to upload some pictures! I know I was a bad boy not giving much news those last days... but you should know how I am, a bit lazy (a lot?) and always busy with more interesting stuff (visiting Ukraine).
So here they are, me happy in front of my parents house with my 10kg backpack - all my stuff for the next 7 months!

My mom was kind (sad?) enough to come with me to the airport to give me the final recommendations - it was very nice to share those moment with her!

See you soon,
Pida

Here we go! I am on the road in Budapest, enjoying this lovely city and its thermal bath with Giuliana. I will upload some pictures as soon as I find a cheap internet access.

Pida

The way to Moscow (2)

Dear Readers (hoping that at least 2 persons are following the blog ;-)

It has been some times since I last posted some news. It’s not because I suddenly stop thinking to my trip but I was so busy celebrating my return to Switzerland that I couldn’t find one second to write. A short day in England, to get my last luggage back, convinced my that I made a good choice to leave - the weather was so typically English (10oC, strong wind and rain) compare to the lovely month of May in all the rest of Europe (averaging 25oC, sunny and nice). Walking back to the office was like wandering across a ghost town, a traumatising experience that I wish no one to experience - good lucks guys (Mark, Ilias and all the others) for the future…

Back to the trip: I’m going to leave on my birthday, 29th of May, for Budapest to spend a lovely weekend with Giuliana and visiting my very good friend Fabien who is doing an internship there. I’ll meet as well with Matthias Kahl, ex internship at RRFCS, who will join me for a full month throughout Ukraine and Russia. The first stop is Lviv in west Ukraine, city rich in History that was conquest by different empires (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth than Austro-Hungary). After 2 days in this city we are heading east to Kiev, spending 4 days in the city, waiting for my Russian visa to start – 10th June) and then Moscow.

Talk to you soon,
Pida

The point of no return

My resignation letter is on my boss’s desk. That’s done! I’ll be leaving my job end of April to go back to Switzerland and get my travel sorted.

Everything seems so close now… last straight line!

The way to Moscow

My leaving date from England and my job has been decided: it's going to be end of April. That should give me enough time to make a proper handover at work and see the results of the latest big scale test.

To celebrate my return to Switzerland after 2 long years, I'll organise a big party at my parents place (thanks for welcoming me and all my almost normal friends) during the first May bank holiday, the 3rd of May.

Then I can finally start to organize my trip: getting Visa for Russia, Mongolia and China, organizing a good travel insurance (cross finger I won't need it...) and of course the necessary vaccinations - it's going to be fun!!! I hope I can get that done in 1 month and start my trip early June direction Moscow!

How to get there?? The shortest route is to go to Praha (19hrs trip) and then take the train across Belarus to be in Moscow in only 31hours. But because I have time and don't want to buy a Visa for Belarus, I'll try a more interesting route south of the first one across Ukraine. First stops in Wiena (16hrs) then to Bratislava (only 1hr) after that, direction Hungary to Budapest (3hrs) to finally arrive in Ukraine capital's Kiev after 24hrs. The journey continues direction Kharkov (6hrs) and finally crossing the Russian border direction Moscow (12hrs).

That will be already quite a trip. In total over 62 hours of train but I will stop at least a few days in each big city on the way to stretch my long legs and discover Eastern Europe. I'm really looking forward to this first leg of my trip.

Once upon a time...

A young man from Switzerland lost in the middle of the English countryside:

Name: Pierre-David Andre
Location: Loughborough
Status: In a relationship with the beautiful Giuliana
Employment: Development Engineer at Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell System
Hobbies: LARP, RPJ, Squash and badminton and of course drinking good whisky!


After more than two years in this small town where a third of the population are students I had time to discover most of the subtlety of English life style: lack of sunshine, mini squirt, drunken students, disco music and English ales. This can sounds like a great and enjoyable life but it's quite repetitive with not much new excitements and you should know that a lot of my good friends like Barbara, Luca, Graeme, Fiona, Chris, Matthias, Alex to mention only a few, already left each time with a part of my soul. And of course my dearest Giuliana back in Rome!

I need new challenges, meet new people and see different life style, therefore I'm planning to leave and travel around the word and in particular in Asia.

I set the following rules for my trip:

- Only one flight allowed, for the return
- Travel during at least six months
- Destination Nouvelle Zealand
- One backpack only as luggage

I share with you the first sketch for my trip:


- Train to Moscow with stop in Berlin and Praha
- Than travel with the trans-Mongolian with break at Perm, Irkust, Ulan Bator and finally Beijing
- Once there, Travel along the China Sea direction Thailand
- Who knows...

I keep you updated!

Pida