My dear North, here I come!

This post will need to be in English, the keyboard without scandinavian letters is too difficult to use to write in Finnish - I hope also someone English speaking is reading this! I'm writing this in Belec, a small village a little north from Brno, at Jeremy's place. He's one of the people along the trip it would be definitely be interesting to get to know better - Jeremy manages to make a living by writing fairytales for children who want to learn English, also he teaches teachers and what have you: check his web site at http://www.jeremytaylor.eu/index.htm

The hills here are not the Carpatian mountains and this house is not quite as big as count Dracula's mansion, but I've still been having hard time to believe that someone could be as kind to a stranger as Jeremy's been to me, at least out of pure altruism - I was a little bit afraid he might turn out to be a vampire and try to eat me during the night, after helping me to a lot of great home-cooked food. But this did not happen, now I have to believe it: it's just my extremely good luck with hospitable people continuing here!

Night in Salzburg

The previous week has been arduous, now a new challenge to the mind and body: home is still far away, long lonely miles ahead of me. So I cycled from Bodensee to here during the past seven days, that making it a roughly 1000 km week. Along Donau I felt like I was flying, just like these Hungarian guys performing their stunts along the way:



Still, the day was long, the longest so far, 192 km. In the nighttime, Tonava todella oli kaunoinen (sorry for the detour to Finnish), even though the following picture might not do the night justice


The good people I met in rest of Austria and in the Czech Republic made my days. First there was trouble with the Austrian hills, but the text message from CS-Jasmin flattened them out: she told me I could spend the night at her parents' place in Michaelnbach. The equation "Not much time + long distance = X" got solved happily after me cranking it to their place, thinking about a roof on top of my head for a change! Seitsemän veljestä as an audiobook was again of help, all that supisuomalaisuus in it helped to give me endurance. When I made it to the destination, it was difficult to get the delicious pizza eaten, everyone bombarding me with their questions and comments - a very, very nice evening for a change and in contrast to the previous days' hardships, even more pointedly so. Later Jasmin sent me a message, telling me what an impression my way of traveling had made on her. That was a welcome comment, of course one of my aims on this trip is to show to people that "it is possible on a bicycle!", "it" being anything from touring Europe to riding to the lake 10 km from home - it's not always necessary to use the gas-gulping vehicles, now is it?

Then I made it to Krems, staying with Manuel through CS: it was a shame I arrived late after the Donau-ride, it would have been good to get to know this guy better. My mobile phone's charger had broken down, so off I went finding a Nokia Shop. Actually, it's a small miracle that it's the charger that broke and not the phone: The E52 dropped on the ground when I was riding one downhill 30 km/h and it only got scratched a bit! Maybe the fact that it's made in Finland has something to do with this, or maybe I just got lucky - anyway, it's a great tool, this phone.

Also for the more engineer-oriented readers of these posts, here's a picture of my solar power plant, a 5-watt solar panel. It works fine when the sun is shining bright, but in cloudy weather it's not much good. The panels can be connected in a series (is that the correct way of putting it? "sarjaan") and you'd actually need two of these for reliable charging of a mobile phone - so don't believe in the nice pictures showing happy people charging their laptops with these! Still I'm happy to have the panel with me, it has saved my butt a couple of times.

Also the other equipment-related problem that has arisen on the road, one that concerns life at home, is that I'm sure not to be able to fit my newly-sized thighs in any of my old jeans anymore! Leaving from Krems, there was a private "kampf" with the river Kamp, with the little roads often being over 20 % steep - they were marked "sportlich" on the maps placed on the riverside and it sure was sport enough riding up them with all the stuff! Then, a spectacular wind behind my back pushed me all the way to Czech Republic: Even on flat ground, even with my tired legs, speed was between 40-50 km/h! I sure am happy I had the wind behing my back. Something unexpected happened as well. Ja kun tuuli tyyntyi, en huomannut sitä, vaan jatkoin lentämistä. Luotin luonnon olevan sinä päivänä puolellani, mutta tuulten mentyä yöpuulle huomasin luottamuksen kasvattaneen minulle siivet, luottamus luontoon vaihtui tämän ymmärryksen myötä luottamukseksi itseen. Tuli mitä tuli, minä palaan pian Pohjolaan!

Before Jeremy's place I spent the night on a beautiful small peninsula between a lake and a river. In the night I got scared out of my mind: after setting up the hammock I climbed the small uphill to my bike, only to find some large animal hopping into the lake from the trees. It made a huge splash and swam away, I still have no idea what it was, but I had to take a large sip of the Austrian fruit booze I had with me for emergencies to sleep that night!

I'll close this post with the first impression I had of the Czech Republic, the beautiful hills in the background, with the huge windmill dominating the landscape. Still there are some curves along the road home, some hills to ride over. Yesterday, we watched with Jeremy the Czech film "Kolya", it has these same hills in it. Even though the film won an Oscar, it's worth watching: Czech it out!


Oh, one more thing! When I finally do make it back to Finland, it will be time for a homecoming party. If the bike, the man and the mind hold together, then I will be back the first weekend of September - I will keep you posted! Let's go somewhere outside, let's go by bike (also my dear master Hossi from Tampere, get the Jopo on the train and come to Helsinki!), I'll cook you something from the different countries I've visited - I hope a lot of people can make it, it would be good to meet as many of you as possible!