A journey through Europe in a Slovenian Volvo

Two years ago, the same year I was moving to Vienna, I made a quite memorable trip through Europe. I flew to Milan, where I was staying at a friends place a couple of nights, and then I went to Siena which I wanted to see during the summer, because I have visited it in March earlier the same year, and I figured that summer would be more of the prime season of Siena. And indeed it was, however I guess the most memorable moment was that I was kind of adopted to one of the district that has a champion horse at the famous Siena horse championship. From then onwards I am belonging to the “seashell”.
Since I was suppose to move to Vienna two months later, and didn’t had the intention to go back home to Sweden in-between I travelled quite heavily, which is a thing I don’t recommend to others who are travelling in Italy with train. From Siena I was going to Ljubljana in Slovenia where my girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) lives. From Siena, I went to Florence, where I switch train to Bologna, where I switched train to Venice, where I switched train to Trieste, where I switched to bus to the Slovenian border, where I could take the train to Ljubljana. A lot of beautiful cities, only two problems I did not had any time to stop in any of them to watch the cities; secondly it was only Ljubljana that had escalators at the train station. With a 30 Kilo heavy bag (luckily there were only a few on the plane to Milano, so I didn’t have to pay any extra fee due to heavy luggage) and two rucksacks, one on my back and one on my front, I believe I retrieved some extra muscles that day.
After a couple of days in Ljubljana with my girlfriend, I was on my way in her car towards Vienna. I stayed over the Whit weekend in Vienna at friend’s place, making some interesting things, which I never did again during my whole year that I stayed in Vienna. One dumb idea however, was leaving the lights on at the vehicle. Being used on a little more modern cars, where the lights goes out when you take out the keys, I manage to forget the Volvos from the beginning of the 80s doesn’t work in the same way. Also Austria on Whit Monday is the wrong day calling for assistance. Nothing is open in Austria on Sundays or holidays. But on Tuesday I was on my way again. This time, Darmstadt, right south of Frankfurt was my goal. A journey that would last a whole day. My first stop was Passau at the border between Germany and Austria. It was an extremely hot day, and I was almost dying in the car. After a lunch in Passau, I went on. Somewhere on autobahn, I think it was nearby Nuremberg but I am not sure, suddenly out of nowhere there was a huge traffic jam, I couldn’t get anywhere. I stood more or less still for two hours, then as suddenly as it appeared the traffic jam dissolved, the cars disappear and I could continue at full speed (or at least as much as the old car could stand – around 130 km/h).
Darmstadt maybe hasn’t got a very good reputation as city. Already the name which means “intestine city” in English, lower a potential value, then telling that it is famous for its technical university which building were made in the 70s in concrete making it even worse. In fact I only now two technical universities in Europe that have beautiful buildings KTH in Stockholm and the University in Cambridge. Then you can imagine what I think of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. However there is something I like about Darmstadt, I don’t know really what, maybe is it because the charming woman Antje is living there… or was it just the nice (gemühtliche) time I had there. I also went to Frankfurt where I experience apple wine (appelwoi), with cottage cheese and musik (no not music, it is chopped onions in a vinaigrette sauce), and to Heidelberg, which I guess is the tourist city number one in Germany for American tourists.
So after the visit in Germany I went down south again, towards Switzerland. Knowing a little bit about Swiss culture, I wouldn’t have thought that it was such a strange thing, but since I never have been stopped at the customs before, I actually felt a little offended when I was stopped at the border. It didn’t not make it any better that the petrol tank is leaking a bit when it is fully tanked (which it was at the moment) and when the customs saw that the owner of the car, my girlfriend, had an Arabian last name didn’t make the situation better. All the things in the car was thrown out, they went through all my belongings, and ask me for my “real purpose” in Switzerland. The hard thing was for me was that I didn’t have a really purpose I was just going round European in a car I had borrowed visiting friends. Hard to believe. Maybe. The best thing of it all was that the girl in Switzerland that I was visiting absolutely wanted to go to Germany the next day. Going into German was no problem, but then back, again the Swiss custom stopped the car, however having a Swiss citizen in the car made it much simpler.
After a couple of days my journey continued over the Swiss Alps safely into Italy. The only fear was when I saw how fast the petrol meter was going down, when I was going upwards the mountains, but I made it to a petrol station on the border, which took both euros and francs (the Swiss currency). In Italy I went to Milan again where I visited another friend this time. A study colleague from my university in Stockholm, who was making exchange studies in Milan. One thing being technology students in Stockholm is that you have to steal street signs. My friend was living just by Viale Enrico Fermi (Fermi is a famous physic scientist), and of course we had to steal it, and bring it to Sweden. In the middle of the night we went picking down the 20 Kilo heavy sign made in marble, put it in the trunk of the car. Reparking the car since it, there was a witness who saw us. The big problem was just that one centimetre in front of the car there was another car, and behind the car there was another one on the same distance. Trying to get out of such a parking lot, does not make attention less. However, I managed escape, potential police men chasing us, and the next day me and the car was on its way towards Slovenia again. However, I left the car and the street sign in Slovenia. Since my wisdom tooth, who has given me a lot of trouble through out the years was infected again (there wasn’t a dentist who wanted to pull it out, until one and half years later). I found a cheap flight to Stockholm the next day from Budapest, and I put myself on the train the same day.
Well there this story really ends. But one might ask what happened with the stolen street sign. Well my girlfriend (who then was my ex-girlfriend) transported it a few months later to Vienna, when we both were going to Prague. In Vienna I kept it for another few months in a found the perfect victim for “trafficing” the street sign to Stockholm. My female blond Swedish friend, who was flying back to Stockholm just before an important party, where the sign was to be delivered. The luggage became of course too heavy, but she is a good in flirting, and managed to convince the personal that if was essential things she had in the luggage. The only poor part of the history is that the sign was broken into two pieces. The story of my female friend was that the sign must have been broken in the airplane. The story of my male friend who retrieved the sign, was that they got so excited when seeing the sign, so they went on having wild sex on it upon its arrival. I still don’t know what to believe. The weird thing is that after the sign was delivered it disappeared, and I still don’t know where it is.