We didn’t start off on the best foot, the trip to Madrid and I. Having boarded the flight and waiting for departure, the captain announced “the stairs damaged the door and we need to check whether the plane is safe to fly”. Not what I want to hear. At all. With a mere hour delay we left Berlin and arrived at the destination. Navigating Madrid is easy, thanks to an extensive tube network.

Nice and relaxed time in Gornja Nugla. Never too boring, with a 9 months old baby around. We are staying in a 150 year old farmhouse - I only know that kind of stuff from museums. In the afternoon we took a trip to the Jama Baredine cave - about half an hour drive away. Pretty cool stuff in there, looks like they could use it as a scenery for the next Alien movie.

Moved across the border yesterday, visiting friends from Nepal in a tiny village (17 houses) near the border. Very quiet and relaxing place.

Laid-back and pretty town with good coffee and friendly people.

Stopping over for a few days in Ljubljana on my way to Croatia. Quite a picturesque approach.

Ryanair’s pilots have decided to go on strike. Wouldn’t bother me much, except my flight was supposed to be on Ryanair. On Wednesday I got notice of its cancellation and got in touch with the airline to arrange for an alternative. That seemed almost too pleasantly easy. I do a quick search and find out that all but one of the listed carriers don’t bother stopping by Riga. So I enquire further.

Visiting Latvia for a couple of days. Berlin is parched and it’s healthy for the mind to have a change of scenery on a regular base. By now I’m choosing my destinations with a highly sophisticated process: Going on skyscanner and seeing what’s cheap. Riga is nice so far. Friendly people and convenient transport system. Parts of it could be Berlin… Hope to fly back on Friday, but Ryanair’s pilots’ strike might cause a bit of an inconvenience there.

It’s pretty crazy that flying to the south of Spain is cheaper than taking a fast train to the Baltic Sea coast. The food in Andalusia is cheaper as well, so going there for a couple of days is a really affordable option. For me it felt good to get out of my regular environment for a few nights. It’s not so much that I needed a break, that I was ready for a vacation.

Cádi, as the locals call it, left a good impression with me the last time I went (late 2015). Wanting to get out of Berlin for a few days and seeing that flights into Jerez were dirt-cheap, I decided to have a second look. The weekend was fairly busy with heaps of visitors from the area flocking to the beach, but came Monday the crowds were gone. I really love Mondays by now.

Years ago I stumbled across a show called “No Reservations”. Maybe a friend recommended it even. The centre of that show was Anthony Bourdain, professional chef, travelling around the world and eating. Eating local food, common food, street food. Watching him squat on a small plastic stool by the side of the road somewhere in Asia, slurping down some of the planet’s tastiest food, always brought back memories of me doing the exact same thing.