recovering…

Location: Rovaniemi / Finland
Odo: 285610

Sick days as usual. Fever came, fever went. Reading, internet, sleeping. I drove away from the playground and found a nice place on a dam.

image

After about 30 hours an employee of a power company came by. At first I was a little scared because he looked exactly like Jack Bauer and I was not really in the condition the safe the world. He told me that I was on private ground which is not for camping and that he would appreciate me leaving within three hours. The second time I was sent away on this trip. And in a really nice way to say the least. I should have taken a picture of him…

The last two nights I stayed at a parking lot near SantaSport (Spa + Sports Hotel) and tomorrow I’ll cross the polar circle and pay a short visit to the biggest tourist trap around: Santa’s own village. I was told that local tourism students have to serve there as elves for one week as a practical experience. I somehow got the hunch that this may mean that elves are not real which would lead to suspicion if Santa maybe is a lie. I guess I’ve to investigate further. Maybe I can shed some light into this conspiracy…

That pretty well sums it up…

image

thx to weknowmemes.com for this one

 

Actually it’s changing between both pictures from time to time. I’ve almost finished “a feast for crows” and by coincidence found out that there’s another volume seeing it standing on Eva’s desk. I bought the the bundle of the first four (e)books and thought that’s it. Seems like I really suck at being a fanboy 🙂

image

I had more scenic places to spend the night. The field seems more or less abandoned , loggers and street builders use it as temporary parking for trucks and machinery so I stopped here when I found nothing decent to stay.

 

Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose…

I'm not in the condition to fuck! -- KaLeu Philipp Thomsen

Me neither. Not even in the condition to find a decent quote or write something jolly. But at least I had a nice piece of ASS for breakfast. What I am trying to say with this weird wordplay? Probably not what you thought of. I was neither drunk yesterday nor did anything sexually happen.

image

A champinions breakfast: Strong coffee and anti headache pills. Acetylsalicylic acid (short ASA, the magic behind Aspirin). Since the German word for Acid is “Säure” the abbreviation becomes ASS… The cup is copyright by nichtlustig.de

I just caught a cold and I’m feeling miserable. Sore throat, plenty of snot, the usual. The night was cold, I slept about four hours and my breath is condensing while I’m writing this. Ten degrees in the morning sun and still about 1000km to the northern cape. What I’m I doing here? I could be in Spain or Portugal right now. Or in Hannover. The forecast says 31 degrees for Thursday in Hannover…

On the lucky side I don’t have a fever and the van warms up nicely if I turn on the heating. I guess the 11kg gas bottle will last until I reach Norway and then I’ve to see weather I can get it refilled there (tricky because of a different connections systems) or if I have to retrofit the gas system of the van while I’m running on the 5kg spare bottle.

I guess this is one of the times where you/I just have to push through. It’s no use heading for Germany yet because I would hate me for that and the summer over there is at an end too. I want to see the beauty of Lapland and stand on the northern cape. I don’t now why or what but something drags me there. There’s only one way to find out. But before that I have to wait until noon for Lidl and the sonera shop to open up to stock up on food and broadband traffic. Yep, shops are open on sundays in Finland as well.

Just spent 5390 bucks on clothing

Odo: 285448
Location: Haparanda / Sweden
"Brace yourself, winter is coming." -- The words of house Stark

A hardshell, waterproof trousers and trekking boots. 5390 smackers… Scandinavia is expensive…
image
Luckily it’s swedish crones, so it comes down to “only” 616€ but still quite a sum. Again my mistake was leaving germany without thinking too much and taking longer than expected. I thought I would be here in summer. But actually it’s more or less autumn right now. There was rain for sure (got soaked once on this trip), there will be more and the temperatures gotta be around twelve during the day and at least above zero at night. But still locals told me that it’s the best time to visit because of the leaves turning colorful, the mosquitos turning dead and the tourists (re)turning home. So there’s no use in whining, I just had to step up my game gearvise. Since everything over here seems to be very expensive, getting a good deal is not too easy. At the Haglöfs Factory Outlet the prices were more or less in the same range as German mailorder prices. Considering the 25% VAT in Sweden that’s cheap! Now I’m proudly owning Haglöfs Grym Trekking Boots, and an Endo Jacket plus the matching trousers. If they keep the promise of being top shelf outdoor gear I did quite good. So far the only experience I had was that the boots look clunky as hell but are as light as the ads suppose and that I can actually drive the van wearing them. (I should have started breaking them in weeks ago so I just put them on in front of the shop…)

Make air, not war…

I remember being in Christians flat in Gießen sipping beer and watching clips from the world air guitar champignonships and thinking how awesome it would be to go there. That was about ten years ago and we never went to this weird place far up north where they take place once a year. Just after arriving somebody told me that the place is Oulu and the time is now!

image

Sorry for the crappy pic. Just check the official Homepage for more.

It’s really a fun event, Dan “Björn Töroque” Crane did a hell of a job hosting the show and the contenders were awesome! There is a message behind it as well.

The purpose of the Air Guitar World Championships is to promote world peace. According to the ideology of the Air Guitar, wars would end, climate change stop and all bad things disappear, if all the people in the world played the Air Guitar. This is why the whole universe is invited to play the Air Guitar for the world peace at the end of the competition.

image

A clear sign to the Russian gouvernment to stop repressing people.

Home

An article about Eric “Mean” Malin, the winner of the contest