Location: Nuuksio National park, north of Helsinki Odo: approx. 284200
Helsinki was feeling wrong somehow. Not too bad of a city at all, some nice places, some nice folks, not as shiny as swedish cities, a place which just seems real. Almost familiar… Since I developed that certain “I think I’ll stay at home today and will not do anything but reading and drinking tea” mood I flew from the city to the Nuuksio National Park. Just a half hour drive of the city center lies the first inland place on this trip which seems to have some magic in it. It’s difficult to put in words but it feels good being here. My senses are pleased with beautiful nature and my head is spinning free.
Here it came to me. Helsinki has a little more that 600k inhabitants in the city and 1,3m in the metro area. Seems familiar indeed… It’s Hannover again! Or at least the size and the bits I saw. Another indicator for the wrongness I felt was stuff that S. told me. She’s quite interested in alternative living projects, especially eco villages. There are not too many in Finland and by coincidence she was just about to hop on a plane to germany to visit “Sieben Linden”, a quite large eco village just about 50km away from Hannover. So I came here to search for intentional communites and the locals go to my homeplace to find these. That was the second time somebody asked me why I’m coming here to search stuff which is just at my doorstep at home.
Today was also the first time where I started to have second thoughts in my travel plans. Almost a month into the trip I really miss partying with friends. Right now I would love to do just that. I know I would get sick of it soon and would wish to get going again fast. Probably I’m a little bit homesick. I really took it slowly so there’s no big WOW all the time which normally compensates for that. The trip is just nice. Lacks a little bit of partying actually but that’s more or less my own fault since I missed most opportunities on purpose.
So I’m feeling a little lonely and I’m about to drive into the wilderness where there are no people to meet online and few to meet in real life. Sounds wrong somehow. Since it seems that none of my friends will join in on the trip for some time I’ll probably spend some time just with myself. Maybe that’s just the right thing to do. I still have no clue what I want to change in my life. And judging by experience I won’t find that clue partying or hanging out at home.
It’s about 1500km to Hammerfest and another 2800km from there back to Hannover. For travelling in Germany this seems like a really long distance. I guess I just give it a shot. If it’s too boring I’ll to switch to “Australia Mode” where this would be a short trip to the outback. Maybe I’ll even find decent company on the way… I should get the soundsystem going and gather some audio books anyways…
(posted a couple of days after writing, feeling more content about travelling on now…)