My life partner, Jullia, and I have decided to embark on a journey to check out different places where it would be nice to relocate for a while. We got in touch with different people from different parts of Europe and decided to pay them a visit so we get a real feel of life in those places.

After many changes of the initial plan, it went like this: London, Carmarthen and Bristol (UK), Momjan (Istria, Croatia), Venice (Italy). We also ended up spending a day in Cluj (Romania).

The land of liquid sunshine

London, we hated it. Me more than Jullia. The noise is almost unbearable. However, spending time with Roy, an artist and a good friend of Jullia, was really lovely. If our whole experience of London would be based only on the time spent with him, we would sure want to get back there. 

But it wasn't. :)

I can see now why London is considered a vibrant city where everything happens but I can also see how that is mostly valid if you have lived there for some time now. For newcomers, most of the good events are just barely visible. 

Our second day in London was reserved for the free museums, which are most of the big ones. Total disaster. They have just become museum malls. The noise and agitation inside the museums is sometimes even greater than the one out on the streets. Yep, even inside the art museums.

Another failure was to see inside the Science Museum the section dedicated to Atmosphere which was sponsored by Siemens. One of the main topics in the exhibition was how clean is nuclear energy (which is so false). Of course, Siemens builds nuclear reactors. Now, that is everything but not science.

Something I really wanted to do in London is to taste some good indian food. An old friend of mine, Cristina, invited us to one of the best indian food places in London. She just warned us that we might stay in line to enter the restaurant. Definitely, a new experience to try. We waited inside the restaurant around 90 minutes to get a table but it was worth the wait. The food was awesome. The youth memories tales with Cristina and her partner were priceless.

My favorite phrase of londoners: liquid sunshine. That's how they call rain. Ain't it in good spirit? Some people hate rain but if we loved something about London, that was the weather.

Enough of London

Next day, Carmarthen where Roy's brother was very kind to host us for 2 nights in his home. And what a home! This part has been my favorite part of the whole journey. Mike's family is one of the most beautiful families I have ever seen. A big and united family which clearly enjoys spending time together (and not only for holidays).

For the last 10 years Mike spent his free time to build the most awesome garden I have ever seen (more than 600 trees and half a hectar of flowers). When we'll have our own place, I'll definitely challenge him with a garden of our own. We really enjoyed spending time with Phillipa, Craig, Hanah and Viv, all proud members of the family.

On our second day there, they gave us a great tour of a small part of Wales and I was really glad to introduce them to Geocaching. It was one of the best days of our whole journey.

Carmarthen seemed like the best places to live in. Quiet, small and beautiful with a great community around. However, Mike's family, unknowingly, gave us a very good reason on why we shouldn't relocate from Romania: having a big family to count on. If we move, we'll just be alone and it will take at least a generation to get to enjoy life as they do. In the meantime, our families here will not be the same with us being away. Not moving though, means being stuck in the same political and identity crisis we face today. We'll just have to put everything in balance and take the best decision when it comes to going or not going.

On a beautiful Tuesday morning we left Carmarthen for Bristol. Way too noisy. Way too expensive. However, seeing Banksy works in real life was worth it.

We also got acquainted with how the UK system works. Just like the US one, it is very much based on credit history. I find that sooo wrong. We struggle here on how to do things without being dependent on banks, and when you look at systems like this, they just make no sense at all to us. Our only chance of moving to UK and rent a place is to pay one year in advance. ?!?!?

More to the East (and South)

Anyway, the next day, around noon, we found ourselves in a bus towards Pula somewhere in the beautiful Istria of Croatia. We met in Buje with Rand, my former "boss" and one of my best friends ever, from BalkanSunflowers in Kosovo. We stayed at a friend of his, Michael, an american who is more of a balkan (and proud of it for the good reasons) and has a house in Momjan, around 30 km from the sea side.

The whole istrian experience has been, again, amazing. Great hosts (Michael and Marjana), neat cave adventure, long walks between beautiful landscapes, cycling on the coast, good ice-cream, great sunsets in old towns with Venetian arhitecture, truffles, pasta and good balkan movies. Let's not forget political debates on world issues that could just go forever. :)

Almost 4 days spent in Istria, a region we might want to go back again, but probably in the winter when the the sun will be a little bit more forgiving. :)

Our next destination Venice. Won't talk much about it cause we didn't really enjoyed it as much. Lots of garbage, lots of boutiques, lots of buildings in a bad state and advertising banners in the biggest square. Nope, not really our style.

The long way home

The next day we arrived in Romania, more exactly in Cluj. Alexandra from urbangourmet.ro (of which she is really proud and should be) invited us to a great place called Qui One Quint. In a couple of words: old furniture, great host, amazing tea. We'll go there again one day.  Long chats with Alexandra who was a guide for us for the short time we spent there. We definitely promise to go again one day and stay some more :)

From Cluj we took the train to Brasov. The experience was a great reminder why we want so much to move from Romania. 7 hours spent in a double deck train with long distances on which it went with just 20km/h, no or very little air con and bad smells.

Anyway, we are home now. Tired bodies but rested souls. The whole journey is definitely something we will remember about. As for pictures, you know I don't like to take any, but Jullia has some. :)