I just started feeling a bit bad. I've kind of disbanded this blog, but checked in now to have a look at the stats (bottom of the right-hand column) and saw that people are in fact visiting. So I guess I'll have to put in a bit more effort here again...
I'll start with a brief summary of what has happened this summer (click the links for pictures):
I spent my vacation trying to get a tan by my mom's summerhouse/cottage in Norway (near the city Fredrikstad). Then I visited Stefanie and Mitsou, Kristina and Laurent in Strasbourg, before traveling by TGV to visit Jan Walter in Tours (recommended sight: Chateau Chenonceau). Then a brief stop in Oslo before flying north to visit Regina and Peder, as well as Hege and Dag Ragnar, in Bodø, including two trips to the Lofoten islands and one trip hiking the Lurfjellet mountains just south of Bodø. Eventful and lovely vacation!
Afterwards, I've spent most of my days around Oslo, with the exception of a visit to the U.S. for training, including one weekend in New York (recommended sights: Rockefeller Center and MoMA), and one weekend in Chicago (recommended sights: The Cloud Gate and the Art Institute). Cool!
And finally, I've been race-sailing the Norwegian championship for the 11:MOD class (pictures by Fredrik). Also a lot of fun, but please don't ask about results... ;-)
Ten days and 1422.6 kilometres after I left Oslo, Kristina welcomed me to her and Laurent's apartment in Strasbourg Tuesday June 27.
Day 1: Fredrikshavn - Hobro (115 km on map / 124.8 km on the bicycle computer after 5 hours and 24 minutes)
After a night on the boat from Oslo, I rolled off the ferry half past eight Sunday morning June 17. I had a nice meeting with the bicycling paths in the flat country of Denmark (which should turn out not so flat further south), said hi to the windmills, had a lazy Sunday lunch in Aalborg, and ended my first day at a reasonable hour in Hobro. In lack of restaurants, Alanya (the first) served dinner.
Day 2: Hobro - Vejle (138/154.5 km @ 6:13)
On the second day I learned the importance of precise navigation; having fueled sun protection and energy in Bjerringbro, I somehow missed the exit to Silkeborg near Kongensbro and did some 15 damned kilometres extra (on the map!). Consequently I had a late lunch in a forest near Silkeborg. Rolling down national road no. 13 among cars and heavy lorries, a rainfall stopped me to put on protective clothes--only to stop after ten minutes. Conveniently enough, a friendly old farmer refilled my water bottles with the most refreshing water (some 22 kilometres north-west of Vejle). Finally in Vejle, people in the youth hostel neighbourhood must be living for their gardens--yet, they have to turn to Alanya's for dinner (which I did, anyway).
Day 3: Vejle - Flensburg (112/135.7 km @ 5:52)
After sharing room with a snoring but very nice Danish guy from Copenhagen working on an archeological project in Vejle, I followed road no. 170 south against the wind towards the German border, only stopping for food in Haderslev and other necessities along the way. The stress resulted in a very painful right hip, and I had to abandon Schleswig as destination and stop in Flensburg where I saw a physioteraphist--and all she came up with was some light massage and the usual advice of going easy. The Germans themselves went crazy, as they won their game in the World Soccer Championship that afternoon, and I had pasta in a nice and quiet Italian restaurant while Jake (an American student wrapping up his studies in Stockholm by bicycling to visit friends in Hamburg) arrived to share room with me and Miyazaki (a Japanese guy travelling Europe with a particular interest in thatched roof houses) at the youth hostel. Nice meeting you, guys!
Day 4: Flensburg - Neumünster (99/112,8 km @ 5:27)
I tried to follow the advice of going easy on Wednesday, and stopped for an early lunch in Schleswig. But after meeting a language professor in French I was so cheered up that I failed to feel the pain and rolled straight through Rendsburg all the way to Neumünster, only cursing about paved roads and a silly misnavigation placing me nicely in the centre of a field. Neumünster youth hostel was governed by a strange but nice lady and filled with kids crazy about soccer, but offered the most awesome room! In addition, I found the nicest, calmest, and best serviced dining place (at not so cheap but still a fair price) in Bistro Blechknapf located in the refurbished and reused paper mill factory Dienstleistungszentrum Papierfabrik just two blocks away! Neumünster is not a nice city, but certainly has its share of qualities.
Day 5: Neumünster - Soltau (137/144 km @ 6:33)
Thursday started with my brand new Fujifilm Finepix V10 going into "pink mode", and my minimalist pack now comprised a piece of high-tec waste--amazing! In an attempt to turn waste back into high-tec digital camera, I stopped by two camera shops in Hamburg. But Fuji has no "camera replaced, no questions asked"-service, magic remains a mystery, and I had to continue with pink mode on. Consequently, as I am not crazy about pink, there are no more pictures from the trip... Sorry about that. Lunch in Hamburg meant sleeping somewhere else, and the day ended at a hotel in the quiet city of Soltau.
Day 6: Soltau - Elze (120/125 km @ 5:27)
After one night in drab Soltau, Celle followed as a marvellous place and I almost regretted that I didn't go the extra 47 kilometres (on the map) the day before. Instead, I had lunch in wonderful Celle before rolling to and through Hannover. I stopped reasonably early in a place called Elze some 31 mapometres further south. Elze featured a hotel by the train station and that was it. So I ate dinner, slept and had breakfast there. Nice hosts, though.
Day 7: Elze - Bad Hersfeld (175/192 km @ 8:16)
After a few days in flat terrain, things got bumpy south of Hannover and all of a sudden I found myself climbing uphill and speeding downhill on my way towards Göttingen, where I planned to stop by a bicycle workshop and find out why my bike was squeaking. A guy directed me to Radsport, where it took three minus two seconds to conclude that my crank was about to blow. Being exceptionally kind, the workshop guy--whose name I should have known but don't--called around town, the next town (Kassel) and even Frankfurt to find a spare bottom bracket for my FSA crank, but without success. Neither did any of the open shops in Göttingen have a spare Shimano 105 crank that I could change to, so I had to continue with the squeaky one--after lunch of course, this time at Nudelhaus. I continued head first towards Bad Hersfeld along a "scenic" route, meaning a nice drive by car and a heavy ride on bike. Yes, it was nice... And so was it to finally find a place to stay in Bad Hersfeld, where a music festival was attracting visitors en masse, filling up the hotels... Dinner became a repetition of Elze: schnitzels.
Day 8: Bad Hersfeld - Frankfurt (135/183 km @ 8:13)
Sunday is excursion day, and this Sunday the local bicycle club arranged a tour in the area around Fulda. For a period I felt like a participant, but got rid of the competition when I continued beyond Fulda. Instead, I got into serious navigational trouble and wasted time, energy and my spare inner tube before I found the right track towards Frankfurt. Cursing around on gravel roads and doing some major detours in the heat almost made me loose my mind, but serious refuelling with an awesome piece of cake in Neuhof saved the day, and I even got a bed in a youth hostel in the busy soccer-city of Frankfurt. Meeting real skyscrapers for the first time was not the grand experience I thought it would be, but nevertheless an experience.
Day 9: Frankfurt - Heidelberg (90/99.9 km @ 4:10)
Waking up to a working Frankfurt on Monday, I got my bike to a (work)shop and had the crank replaced with a Shimano 105. But it wasn't exactly done in a flash, and as my room-mate at the hostel told me that Heidelberg was a very nice city, I dropped the plan of going to Speyer and stopped for sleep in Heidelberg instead. A clever move, as Heidelberg turned out to be very nice (and Speyer very ugly...)--particularly the old city of Heidelberg, where I had my last German dinner.
Day 10: Heidelberg - Strasbourg (140/150.9 km @ 5:59)
Except from being one day early, everything was going as planned when I left Heidelberg Tuesday morning. I even found the way to and through Speyer when the sky became dark and it began raining. There was also a piece of action, as two cars bumped into each other at the petrol station I was at when the rain began. I left the involved parties arguing uninterrupted by me, and rolled on in rain-protective clothes only to take it off a few minutes later when the rain stopped. Focused on getting to Strasbourg I totally forgot to stop for the normal lunch break, and only stopped by the occasional bakery for energy refill. Being eager, I reached Lauterbourg in France earlier than expected, and recalculated my arrival in Strasbourg. Which I failed tremendously at, and therefore had to send two SMSes to Kristina postponing my "new" arrival one hour each. I finally arrived in Strasbourg just before 5 p.m.
I don't know where I'll go bicycling next time, but did I hear someone mention Strasbourg-Brest...?
Besides participating in the sailing regatta named Færderseilasen last weekend, I have spent the last days preparing for this summer's trip to Strasbourg. It turned out that Olympus couldn't repair my digital camera in time (they had to send it off to Portugal!), and I ended up buying a Finepix V10 from Fujifilm. It's not the best camera money can buy, but I get a cool camera (I ordered the orange version of course) and in the end that's what really matters, isn't it? I might not need its video game feature, but who knows what skills I'll develop during ten days of bicycling...
I have also finished mapping the route from Fredrikshavn to Strasbourg, and it totals at 1246 kilometres--given that I don't look for places to sleep or eat or do things like occasional sightseeing, relaxing and other boring stuff.
In addition, I have planned how to pack the things I have to bring, like a set of clothes and some foodish stuff (energy drink powder, to be specific). And maybe a spare tube, a lock and maps. I will send other necessities for my stay in Strasbourg by parcel--hoping that the postal service is able to get ten kilos from Oslo to Strasbourg faster than I can go there by bike.
Tuesday, Karl helped me adjusting the saddle, which resulted in a very back-set position. So today I stopped by Sykkeldelisk where I bought the bike last year and got some additional assistance from "the pros". They calculated the seatpost a bit higher, and the saddle a bit forward again. I guess I'll have to adjust the seat on my way south.
Adding to the circus of preparations, I even got my hair cut today. Some of you might ask why the heck I did that here and not in Strasbourg. The answer is that I don't know, but my hair was growing long and I felt like cutting it. Besides, I paid it with a gift-card that was lying around.
Before I close this post: Today is Stefanie's birthday. She is a very nice girl who lives in Strasbourg. Happy birthday, Steff! See you soon!
Kind of annoying, yet at the same time very nice, Tony the Beat by The Sounds has been playing in my head since I got out of bed this morning.
The reason may be that I was at Beitostølen this weekend, taking my snowboard and cross-country skiis for a final trip. What this has to do with The Sounds? Well, before going, I created an audio CD with both their albums for playing in the car (Beitostølen is a three to four hour drive from Oslo). In addition, yesterday was a looong day at work and when I finally got home and discovered that I had to clean the stairway in the building where I live, I HAD to play some noisy music to set (or blow?) my mind straight.
That's probably how Tony the Beat got into my head, and doesn't seem to wanna leave anytime soon. Which is perfectly fine with me! :-)
So, the time has come, my bags are packed and I am ready to go. Almost. I just have to stop by a couple of shops tomorrow morning--need to get an avalanche pole, and hope that Jan's avalanche transceiver comes in my mailbox before I leave. Because I am taking Wednesday off (and Thursday before Easter is public holiday in Norway), and fill up my mom's car (she has already gone on holiday to Peru) with people, snowboard and equipment for climbing the alpine mountains of Sunnmøre on the west coast of Norway. Espen, my ex-roommate from Strasbourg, is from a small place called Ørsta and has invited Lars (also one of my Strasbourg roommates), Satu (Finnish girl who also was in Strasbourg), me and a couple of others to this amazing place for skiing/snowboarding the steep mountains!
Now I only need to get some sleep and get ready for the eight hour drive...
Running from one family party to another, stuffing myself with traditional (rice pudding, pork ribs, turkey) and less traditional (reindeer) Christmas food, I had great fun playing diverse activites during the days between: ice hockey with Jan, his brother and some of their friends, a nice walk in my home town, swimming with Ragna, skiing with Jan and more of his friends, and sledging in Korketrekkern with Trine Lise, Bente and her Portugese friends on the last day of 2005. I also enjoyed the nice atmosphere of café Teketohpa ("Apoteket", or "the pharmacy" spelled backwards) with Lars and Jan after which I tried the new cake tin I got from Arnljot for Christmas, baking a chocolate cheese cake. Unfortunately, it was too heavy and not particularly good, which is a shame because it took a lot of French chocolate to create it. 2005 came to a close at Line Mai's place on the second last night of 2005, and ended in the hospital home of Anniken on new years eve.
