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Heading North

Silence can be a good thing. The reason for my silence is simple… I have been having too much fun to spend time on the computer writing. It’s hard to even begin to explain the crazy adventures we have had so far driving around Europe, so I will do the next best thing and break it down like a list.

After buying the Fiat, a friend and I headed south for Turkey or at least that’s what we planned. To avoid the Slovakian mountains we headed west into Czech Republic and then down to Bratislava Slovakia and then on to Budapest where the plans changed.

After spending 3 days in Budapest we realized a few things. A) we really missed Poland. B) it makes more sense to drive north where its colder since the Fiat is an air cooled engine and the heat of southern Europe was killing the engine. C) it’s always fun to change plans.

So that said we drove back to Krakow where we stayed for 3 days seeing old friends. Then we drove up to Warsaw the capital of Poland and happened to arrive at a prefect time. On Saturday Aug 1st Warsaw celebrated its 65th year from the uprising against the Nazis which ended in the Germans blowing up 85% of the city. Also during the 63 day uprising some 165000 people were killed. It was really good timing for us to be here this weekend as we were able to learn a little more about Poland and also since the people here are in such a friendly party mood.

On a car note… the fiat is running good other then the fact the engine is making such a loud rattling noise people stop and stare when we drive by. I took it to a mechanic in Krakow and he said nothing was wrong with it and that it’s a Fiat what do you expect.

During the drive up to Warsaw the noise became louder and louder… when we drove into Warsaw it sounded like the engine was dragging on the ground. I opened the engine when we made it to the hotel to find that the muffler clamp that holds then muffle on was broken and that was making the rattling noise. Today I spent some time trying to act like I knew how to fix it. I did mange to get it a little tighter but I still think we might need a new muffler clamp.

Tomorrow (Monday) we are driving 400km to Lithuania, where we will stop for the night and then up to Riga Latvia where we will stay for about 5 days and also that’s where Nate is going home from. Not sure what my plans are after Riga, I might head over to Sweden to meet a friend or drive up to Estonia by myself.

Sorry for such a boring update, I promise to write soon about the adventure and the police tickets…etc.

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Posted by Jimmy under Uncategorized |