Vaida (betelgeize) and Indrė

And the Lithuanian invasion of Genova goes on! :) Someone in Vilnius should have said that I'm always happy to host Lithuanian people and it seems that they are all discovering Genova these days! Anyway, it's always a joy to meet with two wonderful girls from my dearest Lietuva!

What to say about Vaida and Indrė? They are the best Italian speaking Lithuanians I've met here in my hometown, and they just learnt it in the last 5 months, incredible! This time we didn't meet with Hospitalityclub, but with Couchsurfing, another site very similar to HC, but usually more common among American people. Anyway that doesn't count much since when people are nice they are nice, any site they come from! They spent here just one night and our first meeting was a bit more complicated than expected, since they got off the train at the wrong station! But that was a good excuse to make the first tour of the old town by night, wasn't it? ;)

The following day we could enjoy a wonderful Summer sun strolling around the caruggi of the old town and down to the sea at the Porto Antico. We enjoyed the pesto and the focaccia, of course, also with Nutella! ;) It was always nice to talk with both of them, really friendly and talkative and with my same way of traveling, which means walking, walking and... walking! :) I don't remember how many new friends I have to meet now in Vilnius, now they are 2 more, I really have to book that flight and go back to Lithuania, but if I can't go there they are always coming here, so nice! :)

Vasilina (vasilina) and Žilvinas

No Lithuanians, no party! That should be my new motto after this Lithuanian Easter of 2006! :) And after the short, but very nice meeting with Leonarda and Tomas, this time it was the turn of the wonderful and crazy Vasilina (half Belarusian in reality!) and the great sportsman Žilvinas! Double Lithuanian couple in a few days! :)

The curious fact is that I first wrote no to Vasilina's request for accomodation since I was already waiting for 2 Slovakian girls... but they never arrived so I send an SMS at once to the Lithuanians telling them I was free and happy to host them, hoping it wasn't too late! And luckily it wasn't too late... even if their Italian train was, of course! :) We spent around one day together walking around Genova, enjoying almost any kind of local food, from pesto to farinata, focaccia, pansoti, cuculli and panissa! I think they could open a genovese restaurant in Vilnius now! :))) Oh and also the white wine wasn't bad, do you agree? ;)

How I wish I could have Lithuanian guests every months, they are all so nice, friendly, easygoing... well of course also all other guests have been great, but Lithuanians are Lithuanians, there's nothing to do! :)) Maybe next Summer I'll go back to Vilnius, I don't know yet, but surely now I have another couple of reasons for that trip! :))

Leonarda (lioliolio) and Tomas

And after some Winter pause with few hosting and meetings in Genova, Spring comes back and Easter holidays with it... and it's time to meet some Baltic people again, how could I survive without? ;)) This time it's the turn of someone not met on HC, but lately found on HC as well!

Leonarda and Tomas are a wonderful married couple of young Lithuanians living in Denmark, in the island of Ærø... and they are my first married guests (good choice, Tomas!). :) Well, I didn't host them actually, we just met in Genova and had some nice walk around the old town! Leonarda already came to my hometown and she really loves it, but had never been to the "infamous" Via Prè and some of the most dangerous alleys in the old town where of course I took her and Tomas at once! :))

Once again the early Spring weather didn't help us very much, with lots of clouds and little rain, but I think we had a very good time walking around Genova on this Easter Satuday, seeing the first tourists of the season and most of all enjoying the real old Genova... which happens only with me! :)) Thanks for your visit, and I hope to see you again soon in LT or DK! :)

Suzy (suzymuzy)

What's the cheapest way to go to Praha? Flying with RyanAir to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia! It was my first time there, and it was quite strange after so many trips to Czech Rep., to finally go to Slovakia, even if for just little time. I have a couple of Slovakian friends, but they live in Italy, and so I looked on HC to see if I could find some nice people to meet there!

And a couple of days before I left for Bratislava I saw a Slovakian girl visited my profile on HC, so I said: here she is, I'll write her! And that was our dear Suzy!!! :)) We couldn't meet on our arrival there on Saturday night, since she's not in the capital on weekends but she was so nice to take us at the station when we arrived on Thursday, back from Praha, on quite a terrible day for my friend Andrea who saw his laptop PC stolen at Praha's station. :( Anyway thanks to Suzy we could spend a couple of hours walking up and down Bratislava even if the wind didn't help us very much! :)

She had an exam at university that day, but she came with us and we took her good luck since she passed it very well! :) Suzy is really a nice person, someone you can trust and I'm happy we still get in contact some time on ICQ. Surely I hope to come back to SK soon, maybe with more time to spend ejoying Bratislavian nightlife and good beer! :)

Barbora (Barka) and Tomáš

There's one city I love more than all the others, and that is Praha, the capital of Czech Republic. I've been there twice, but I decided it was the right moment for a third time there! So I said, I need a host... and who better than my long time internet friend Bara?

Meeting in real life someone you've been chatting with for a long time is always a strange sensation, but very beautiful! I could say I knew Bara quite a lot before meeting her and I was sure she would have been a great host, since she's a grea friend! So I spent 4 nights at her and her boyfriend's Tomáš flat in Vysočany, along with their wonderful little cat as well! :) They were simply perfect hosts, they spent much time with me and my friends (one of them slept there with us), went out together every night and we enjoyed Czech beer, food and hospitality at its best!

We were very lucky with weather as well, being there in March I feared it was cold and rainy, while instead we got a lot of sun, some little snow and no rain at all! It was nice to explore some "new" parts of Praha, not crowded by tourists like the centre and of course, walking with a great photographer like her, I had the chance to take good pics by myself as well! I already miss these Czech days, every time I go there I feel in love with that city, it's really a special place, with a very special friend! :)

Italo-Estonian Meeting with Ann (anq), Liina (allos), Mauro (maolong) and Raoul (nucleus)

I've been writing and chatting with Raoul for quite a long time... we share the same passion for travelling and expecially for the Baltic republics, but we never met before even if we live just a couple of hours of distance by car... And what better event than an Italo-Estonian meeting for our first encounter?

And along with Raoul I had the chance to meet his long time friend Mauro and two nice and pretty Estonian girls, Ann and Liina which came here for the Olympic games in Turin and then had the chance to explore a good part of Northern Italy, and Genova as well, at last! :) And I'm sure Genova was their favourite city, wasn't it? ;) (you cannot answer here anyway!). Unfortunately we had some discussions about Estonian beer... I made the big mistake to choose the wrong one as my favourite... yes I like A.LeCoq and they come from Saku... will they ever forgive me? ;)) I hope so and surely a trip to Estonia will help me to choose the right beer the next time! :)

So we all had a good time, even if the weather was not that nice, but it was quite warm for being in Winter, the only bad thing was the little time, as usual, to spend all toegether but I'm sure it was just the first of a longer series of meeting, at least with the other 2 Italians, but I hope with the Estonians as well! :)

Mathias (Wellnair)

Sooner or later I had to enjoy HC as a guest... and the year 2006 started in a good way, talking about trips, since I started, finally, to travel again after a long period, and my first trip was in Switzerland, Zürich, for 3 days on some sort of business trip.

It was not easy at all to find a host there... the problem was probably that we were in 2, me and my friend Andrea (andtrap), who are both nice and friendly guys, but we all know how harder it is to find accomodation for 2 people, expecially when they are not 2 pretty Baltic girls! :) But at last we were very lucky finding our host Mathias, German from Dresden, but living in Zürich since 1 year and a half.

So we didn't find a real Swiss (but do they exist?), but surely we found a great host who offered us some place where to sleep, and most of all his friendship and great sense of hospitality. Expecially on my second day there, when Andrea went to Lausanne and I stayed there in Zürich, it was nice to go around with Mathias enjoying the käsefondue and talking about our 2 beloved countries, Italy and Germany and their not so pleasant political situation... oh yes, I always have to talk about Berlusconi with my guests and hosts, it's some sort of a curse! ;) Anyway many thanks to Mathias, my first real host, my stay there in Switzerland was really great!

Maris (marisnoviks)

And it's time to restart with some Baltic guests, otherwise HC is not real HC! :) And this time I've no blond girls with me, unfortunately (:D), but an incredible guest, the Olympic Maris, Mario fro friends! :))

The weird fact is that I first met Maris on a Lithuanian forum about architecture... seeing some of his pictures of Riga I wrote him my compliments for the nice shots and he answered he was coming to Italy for the Olympic games in Torino, passing through Genova as well... after a couple of days we discovered we were both HC members as well, so it was natural to offer him some accomodation at my home!

Maris spent 2 nights here with me and he was really a great guest: not only he brought me a DVD by Prata Vetra, great Latvian band, but we had many interesting conversations about any kind of subject, and expecially politics in former USSR countries, with a special interest about Belarus, where he is partly from as well, and which is one of the countries I'm interested most. Maris is really a clever guy, with great culture loves geography and history like me (but he's much more expert than me!) and we took good luck to both Italy and Latvia watching the luge run at the Olympics, where Italy got gold and Latvia bronze! See you in Riga, or maybe in Minsk, Maris! :)

Clémentine

My first guest of the new year comes directly from Firenze with my friend Michele, and she's a very nice French girl from Strasbourg, Clémentine, alias Chococat, guess why this nickname? Yes, she's fond of chocolate! :))

She spent the whole weekend in Genova, so she had a good chance to explore not only my hometown, but also the surroundings, including the usual "must-do-trip" for all my special guests to Camogli! And she was very lucky with weather as well, in this crazy winter! She lived here in Italy for a while, for Erasmus and really impressed me with her almost perfect Italian, just learnt living here for some months, really great, better than many italians! :)

Of course we had a great time together and now another trip to the wonderful Strasbourg becomes a must! :)