Eyes on Kenya, a good critic to this blog!!...

Well I really have to admit that I’m not really into the blogging world. For some people it is really easy and enjoyable to sit in front of a computer and start typing to the WORLD their own life experiences and opinions about particular, national or even international issues. I’m more the type of girl that would rather go out with friends and have that kind of interesting and controversial conversations in “private”, or to send particular e-mails or message to a determine group of people… but anyway, It’s done what it needed to be done.

I’ve been talking in this blog about one of the things that I like to do most in life, TO TRAVEL, I have to say that I’m really lucky to have the family that I have; the way my parents always remind me the importance of knowing a WORLD farther than the place where we live, or from where we come from.

What I’ve told you so far about my trips around the world is not even ¼ of the places that I’ve been to, nor the experiences that I’ve had there. However, even though I’ve been in many continents, countries and cities, I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. Due to that, I’m because I’m planning already another trip around the world at the end of this year; I’ve been checking some blogs related to Africa and particular life experiences of others in this particular exotic continent. Just looking around, and reading a little bit of this… a little bit of that… I found this blog called “Blog Africa” (http://www.blogafrica.com/) that talks about news, but like relevant news all around Africa and its variety of countries. The blog has many posts about politics, economy and so on. They are all very interesting, and a few ones let you link to articles in different newspapers related to issues commented in particular ones.

I personally enjoyed the one about Kenya and the problems that they’ve been recently having over there. The post is called “Eyes on Kenya” by Jannek; It shows a YouTube video of the local police over there shooting at innocent people. It is just shocking. Maybe I felt more connected to the situation, and touched by the unfairness there, because similar things have been happening in my country in the past few years; the police just do whatever they want and forget completely about human rights.

I think this blog that I found is more than a way for the creators to express the human repression spread around Africa; This blog, I believe, represents the necessity that they have to show to the world the reality of the countries, without being stopped or threatened by the governments or any other powerful organization that may have relations with the media.

I’m a person that constantly says the phrase “to be seen to believe”, because I do believe that the impact of a message that is wanted to be transmitted to the people will be better received by images than by words, and this YouTube videos posted about Kenya in this Africa Blog talks by itself. I guess is for that reason that the blogger did not write more than 1 line to describe the situation.

I’ll let you all see the video posted there, so you can as well see a little bit more of the reality of the world, farther than our own life's reality.



I still have to say that even though Africa is such a complicated continent, maybe full of poverty and complicated sickness, I’m still looking forward to go and travel all around it; even maybe record interesting videos to show to the world. Africa definitively has to be my next stop.

Cali, Colombia!!..

I went to Cali in December 2006 for 2 weeks; I went there to visit my best friend while I was living in Belgium, the same one that went with me to Germany, Luxemburg, Paris, etc etc.

I know that Colombians tend to have a bad reputation around the world with all the problems with the guerrillas, cocaine and drugs in general, but avoiding all those stereotypes I really have to say that Colombians and Venezuelans are THE SAME THING!!.. well, we just have a different Spanish accent.

I met the Colombian girl, Adriana, in Belgium, and since the first time that we spoke we had a connection; all the stereotypes and jokes against Colombians that we had sometimes in Venezuela flew away, and we just understood and felt how similar we were in many senses. Once the exchange student year finished and I went back to Venezuela I started to work to save money to go visit her as soon as I could. I stopped the university in Venezuela in 2006 as soon as I knew that I was going to come leaving here, so I started to work full time as a secretary in an office until I had enough money to pay my trip to Cali, Colombia.

I spent more than one year without seen my friend, and I was just dying to see her. At the same time I have to say that in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and other many Latin American countries around the Caribbean, we dance salsa music all the time and all around. As a result, I am really into that music, I’m saying this because Cali has one of the best reputation in Salsa music around Latin America, so I was desperate to go dancing in Cali and experience, by my own, how good the men over there dance. But anyway, I ended up, after 3 month working full time, having enough money to buy my ticket and visit my friend. I was pretty proud of myself because it was the first time that I was actually leaving the country earning my own money, and paying my own things.

Cali is a disaster; it was like traveling to another city in Venezuela; so I really can’t say that I didn’t feel like home. They were constructing a new Tram called “MIO” all around the city, so many streets were closed, and the other ones were collapsed with the crammed traffic. But I did have a great time anyway, as I said before, I really don’t mind to be in messy cities, I’m used to, Caracas is a completely mess, and I love it anyway. So, I went to the zoo in Cali, they have the same exotic animals that we have in Venezuela, so I wasn’t really amaze, but I had a great time just walking around and talking with my friend like in the all times.

Travels don’t always have to be about going to tourist places and taking pictures of everything, even though I did go to a few tourist or typical places. This trip meant A LOT to me; I had the opportunity to meet my best friend’s family and experience the way she lives in her own country; we had some typical Christmas reunions with all her family and close friends, and we even participated in a "FREE HUGS" campaign around Cali, where I not only had the opportunity to hug random people all around the streets, but to share and talk to them; I found that experience one of the most open minded experiences in my life, is a shame that I don’t have pictures of that day, only a t-shirt with the “Free Hugs” words written in Spanish.

I went to Venezuela after two weeks of cooking Christmas cookies with my friend, dancing salsa every night and meeting more and more important people in her life. Since the day I left her there, in the airport, and I went back to Caracas I’ve been looking forward to spend another 15 days with my friend, It doesn’t matter where, I just want to be with her.

NEW YORK CITY, the Capital City of the WORLD

Last year, before coming to live here in Sydney, I went for a few days to New York City, my ex-boyfriend and ‘love of my life’ lives there so I decided to visit him for a few days before leaving the American continent.

I went in winter, so I found a whole chilly city full of snow and freezing wings. I got there after 3 days full of farewell parties and familiar reunions in Venezuela, but I wasn’t really sad, not because I was not going to miss my people, country and life style in Venezuela, but because I really love to travel, and I was really happy to be meeting again my ex-boyfriend and vacationing in NYC, the capital city of the world.

The first day we didn’t go out, I was quite tired with the trip and all the emotional days back in Venezuela; it was too cold outside anyway, so I didn’t feel like struggling with the cold; I’m from a tropical country that means that we don’t have different seasons during the year, only raining and droughty, so I’m not really into cold weathers.

Anyway, I didn’t have more than 4 days to stay over there, so that means that I didn’t have much time to travel all around the city, go to New Jersey, and of course, went out at night to different parties, however, I had a great time.

I love the cities at night; all those lights from different buildings coming from everywhere just tend to captivate me in a way really hard to explain. Caracas, my native city, is one of the most messy cities around the world, but at night I found it just beautiful. The same happened to me with NY; I love messy cities, where you need to struggle to get a sit in the train or spend hours stuck in the traffic trying to get to a place or to an appointment on time; that is NYC, a chaotic city with more than 8million people trying to live peacefully between them.

I was staying in the Bronx, but not like the Bronx in the movies, where you find only gangsters all around and people that you shouldn’t mess up with. It was a quite and nice place just crossing the Broadway Bridge. I was staying with a Dominican family, which is my ex-boyfriend’s family, so that made it even better. Dominicans have one of the most funniest Spanish accents ever, and they are, just like most of Venezuelans and Latin American people, really familiar and affectionate, so they treated me like another member of the family.

I went to almost all the tourists’ places, and I loved each and every one of them. I went to the Empire State building, Time Square, Rockefeller Centre, Staten Island Ferry, American Museum of National History, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal and even to the ground zero, where the world trade centre used to be located. What a big and amazing city. The Central Park’s lake was freeze; the Statue of Liberty, which I found one of the most smallest and disappointed statues ever, was closed so I just saw it from the Ferry; and one of those days I had the opportunity to watch the sunset from the top of the Rockefeller Tower.

I just have to say that once I went to Berlin I though that I had found the perfect city to live sometime in the future, but after I went to NYC, Berlin became just a second option. NYC definitively has my heart and I’m just looking forward to go back there, but this time, for good.

Paris!!.. une ville d'amour!!

The first time I went to Paris was the first time that I went to Europe, in 2003. I couldn’t speak French at all, and I was just doing a tour with my family around 6 different countries around west-Europe. We stopped in Paris for about 4 days; I have to admit that I didn’t like the city that first time that I went. We were staying on a hostel in one of the suburbs around the city, the place wasn’t really nice at all, it was quite dangerous actually, I know it may sound funny that kind of comment coming from a Latin American girl, but seriously, the suburb was really dodgy. I guess that was one of the first reasons why I didn’t enjoy 100% the time in Paris.

It is always easier to get in love with a city or even a whole country if you speak their language, which is the opposite that happened to me with Berlin, where I was barely capable of swearing in German. But French people tend to be nasty and impolite with the people when they are not in the mood, especially with tourist that can’t speak the language at all. So, I didn’t feel really welcome to the city like in the way I felt in cities like Madrid, London, Roma, etc, where the local people tend to be really nice to tourist. But anyway, even though I was quite disappointed with a few things in Paris, I did felt in love with the Eiffel tower and some different tourist places such as Notre Dame, Champs Elise and the Museum of Louvre, which I found amazing.

The 2nd time that I went to Paris was two years later; I went for a weekend with my best friends; we all spoke French already, and we can all definitively say that we had the best time of our life. Paris was just awesome, and I have to say that my experience over there was completely different after I spoke the language and I was able to communicate with the local people. We went to Sacred Coeur, where we talked for hours with the merchants, bakers, painters, etc. what a lovely people!!!...

My best friend in Venezuela lived in Paris for 3years when she was little, so she was the most excited one in the group walking around the city. The first night we went to have dinner (crepes, of course) close to the Eiffel tower, and at 10pm we appreciated the white intermittent lights that they normally turn on for 10mins all around the tower, it was just amazing. I have to admit that since that trip to Paris with my friends that city became part of my top 5 of best cities around the world. Paris definitively is part of my heart.

Amsterdam..!! Legally free!!!...

The day before going to Germany I spent a whole day walking around Amsterdam with my best friend the Hungarian. His family visited him in Belgium for like a week, so they decided to go up to Amsterdam for a day. They picked me up really early in the morning because we all wanted to have enough time to walk around the city and visit museums and interesting stuff that tourists always tend to do.

It took us like 2 to 3 hours to get to Amsterdam; it’s definitively not so far from Brussels. I was so happy to be in another country, especially in a famous city like Amsterdam, that I was just walking around with my friend smiling and making fun of everything. We took a tour in a bote that showed us the city and its surrounds; it was really interesting.

Then, later on instead of going to the museum of Vincent Van Gogh we went to the wax museum. I had already gone to the one in London before, but my friend, the Hungarian, insisted to go to the one there, so we all went to the wax museum for him. We had a great time, we took pictures all around with famous people such as the Queen Elizabeth, The Beatles, Bob Marley, etc. and we even ended up singing karaoke and everything in one part almost at the end of the museum. We have videos and photos of that moment; it was just wonderful.

We walked a lot around the city as well. We saw, of course, Marihuana all around us. In all the shapes and ways to consume it. Lollies of Marihuana, drinks with marihuana, normal cigarettes, brownies, etc. and of course the smell all around us was just MARIHUANA as well. It was really interesting, but at the end of the day I was having a horrible headache as a result of the Marihuana’ smell surround us, apparently I wasn’t the only one having it, because the mom of my friend and his dad were complaining about it as well. But anyway, we saw tulips in every colour ever thinkable; BEAUTIFUL all of those. My mom LOVEEEEES tulips, so I couldn’t stop thinking about her all the way walking around the markets and parks. I ended up buying a bag full of tulip’s seeds just for her, waiting for my return to Venezuela two month after.

We went back to Belgium around 8pm. I was really pleased with the time that I spent with my friend and his family in Amsterdam. Once in Brussels I met up straight away with the Venezuelan guy and the Colombian to go to sleep and get ready to our trip around Germany for 15days. Definitively my exchange student year was the best year EVER!!..

BERLIN, GERMANY!!! best city EVER!!...

I went to Germany in spring 2005 with two really REALLY good friends, one Venezuelan and another one Colombian. We found this big promotion with train tickets that we couldn’t let go, 9.95euros (to go and return) from Brussels to a little town in the frontier between Germany and Belgium.

We left the house really early; around 6am we were already catching the metro to go to central station in Brussels. Around 7am we were already boarding the train, completely exited, it was going to be the first time that we were going to have a ’backpacker’ experience, or kind of. From the little town in Germany, ‘Aachen’, to Berlin we did 18hrs of trip. The thing was that in Germany they have this ticket, that I’m pretty sure is called ‘Niedersachsen-Ticket’ that you can buy with another 5people that cost you 30euros and can take you to where ever you want to go in Germany, the only condition is that you can only use slow and old trains, not the fast and new ones.

We got to Berlin at 10pm, completely tired of changing trains all day long, and looking forward to go to sleep. Almost all my best friends, including my cousin, from Venezuela were doing their exchange student year in Germany, so they putted us in contact with a friend of them that lived in Berlin and that did an exchange student year in Venezuela. We called him and he, Manolis, explained us how to get to his place. He gave us some dinner and then we went to bed.

We spent 4days in Berlin, and I really have to say that I have traveled around many countries and I have seen many cities, but Berlin definitively is one of my favorites.

The contrast between the east and the west part of the city is amazing and at the same time ridiculous. The ‘Branderburger Tor’ was AWESOME, especially when you see all around postcards with old pictures of the city when they had all the Nazi problems and the wall, and you compare to what it is now there.

It is amazing the way Germany overcame all the problems that they had in the past in such a short time. It’s like if nothing ever happened, but at the same time you can find museums, concentration camps, part of the wall, monuments, etc. that remind us that even though everything seems to be perfect and beautiful now, it was hard for them to overcome the Nazi experience, and that they won’t try to forget it, they just seemed to have learned the consequences of it.

LUXEMBURG!! a PEACEFUL City!!

I went to Luxemburg 2years ago with my two best friends while I was living in Belgium.
My friends, one Hungarian and one Colombian, went to my house to sleep over and watch some DVDs, we woke up the they after around 8am. The weather was just BEAUTIFUL, it was spring, not to hot, not to cold. We were talking about going to Luxemburg and travel around during the weekends, but we never sat out a date and a specific time to do it. Not because we weren’t organized enough to do it, but because the weather in Belgium is COMPLETELY unpredictable, and as a result we never knew when was going to be raining or simply sunny.

That morning that we saw such a beautiful blue sky and the weather was so perfect that we only needed a sweater to leave the house, we took all our stuff and ran to the train station to catch a train to Brussels, and than change to another one that was going to take us straight away to Luxemburg the capital city.

When we first got there we wasn’t really sure if we were actually in Luxemburg, we could read the word ‘LUXEMBURG’ all around us, but when we left the train station the city seemed so quite and small that we actually thought that we were in a little town in Belgium that probably was called ‘Luxemburg’ and we didn’t know, you know, Capital cities always tend to be messy and noisy, and this one was just the opposite. But anyway, we were already there, so we took a map and started walking around, heading centre of the city.

We spent a whole day walking around, no museums or anything that tourists will normally do. We were just happy to be there, traveling and having fun between us. It was a completely relaxed and unusual day for us. We saw gardens full of Tulips, path and rivers that led us to beautiful parks, and bridges all around with magical views. We just walked, laughed and enjoy the time together in this peaceful city. We went back to Belgium a few hours later more relaxed, happy and calmed than ever.