Georgia 2010: GE-TR-GR

7th of August, in the morning, I left Tbilisi. I was hoping to get to Europe as fast as possible. First day got to the Turkish boarder and then managed to get to Trabzon. It was the middle of the night so almost impossible to hitchhike but I was determined to try to get as fast as possible without sleeping. I crossed almost whole city by foot (with 25kg backpack) and hitchhiked a bit but at 1pm decided to sleep for 4 hrs on a bench by the mosque. Felt kinda like a junkie but sometimes doing the plan means some sacrifices. When it got a bit brighter I headed to Ankara. Once again hitchhiking was unbelievably easy and I had to verify my plan - I managed to go 400km further, to Istanbul. Arrived there at 2pm. The driver left me in the suburbs about 30 km from the centre. No chance to hitchhike, no chance for a bus. Had to wait 4 hrs at the gas station. As usual in Turkey after 10 mins gas station workers came to me - 'hi', 'what's your name?', 'would u like some tea and something to eat?'. Beeing in Turkey for some time I kinda expected this. It was the same on my road there. Just hang around for few minutes, behave like a lost tourist which has no idea where he is and I can guarantee you'll have as much tea and food as you want. Guess it's not right to expect that treatment but it's just Turkey, you have no choice. At the station they also got wireless internet. It was not possible to use it due to cameras on the station but I just went to the next pavilon, where they were about to open a new bank (under construction) and I connected without any probs. At 6 I left to meet my host Firat. Finally had a shower, some sleep, then I spent some time with Firat and his friends. Very nice ppl, once again I was able to experience some Turkish hospitality. Next day left at 6.30. The plan was Thessaloniki (Greece). The beginning was horrible. Living in the centre of Istanbul I needed more then 2 hrs to get out of the city by buses. Earlier I thought Istanbul is 'huge' but that word doesn't show how big is it. Later on once again had no probs with hitchhiking (cheers for the Armenian team who took me to Silivri). When I got to the boarder it turned out you can cross it only with a car. It was hard to explain the Turkish why I wanna get to their car just before the boarder but finally I managed... to find a French family coming back to Europe from holidays. I went with them all the way to Kavala. So back to Greece after 2 years... Good or bad, the memories had returned...