Today I got locked up on a parking lot. After I had to leave motonet because they were closing I cross checked some prices online. An truly awesome store btw: car, motorcycle, boat camping and outdoor stuff. Looking up from the screen I saw two guys locking one of the gates of the parking lot. When I started to drive in their direction they drove off. Dickheads… All gates were closed. A local couple was locked out and couldn’t get to their car and I was locked in. At least they could translate this sign…

“The parking lot is closed 15 minutes after the shops. If you’re locked in call the following number and pay 40€”

They guy tried to phone someone in the store and I had a look at the gate. I asked if they would consider opening the gate ourselves illegal and got no answer.

13mm bolt & nut… One nut already missing…

Hmmm, if they would really have wanted to lock it the would have used the chain hanging on the left because the joint between the actual lock and the gate is just two bolts. The rest of the story is quite short, his wife (?) started laughing when I gathered tools from the van and didn’t stop until we had “locked” the gate again and were driving off. Didn’t take that long actually…

Odo: 284136
Location: Helsinki, Finland

That roadsign on the highway and the fact that I crossed a timezone (Finland is GMT+3) made me aware that I drove quite a distance to the east. I spent some fun days at Turku, made friends with a very decent local who brought me to a vegan book cafe.

I forgot to ask for a translation but probably it says smash fascism… and that ponies are awesome 🙂

feeling at home in a bathroom of a vegan cafe… the first time I actually saw political stickers. And yes, I photographed all of them. There were no more.

The resemblance of the harz mountains is growing stronger. It’s not that flat anymore and it’s rocky as well. The view from my friends window could be anywhere in the wester

The same window from the other side.

At the moment I’m in Helsinki. Yesterday a very nice local gave me a little guided tour around the not so obvious sights of the city. An former freight harbor is being converted to housings. The process will take 20 years and the city actually paid somebody to coordinate the usage of the area in between. Urban gardeners are given free soil and water by the city. Walls are put up for graffiti artists. There are large Freight containers for different projects like a cafe for example. And there’s quite some space which people just use as they want. Some folks build a sauna but that was too much for the city, they took it down. A pizza oven was accepted after some quarrels though. I quite laughed my arse off when a motorcycle driving school did the first lessons of a student (drive around cones) just next to some stunting guys making wheely circling, stoppies and wheelies sitting on the handlebar. I forgot to take a photo.

It seems the alternative scene isn’t that strong over here. Info shops, cultural centers, squads, alternative trailer parks (I’m still searching for the translation of Wagenplätze), independent youth centers and places alike are not very common in scandinavia. I already got some hints for possible causes but I think I’ve got to investigate further…

The visit was different to most prior travels of mine. I was there for almost two weeks and didn’t learn any of the language on purpose but at least a few words stuck anyways. I didn’t taste any specialty. I went to no museum and did no sightseeing. I stayed at a campground once and slept one night in a hotel. Instead of touristy activity I spent plenty of hours talking to the natives getting to know them and the country.

Some observations:

• The swedes are a sporty bunch. You don’t ask anybody if they go to a gym, you ask them to which gym they go to. Runners everywhere, families tend to exercise with their children. There even public “gyms” just like there are public playgrounds in germany where you have different stations to work out.
• Alcohol consumption seems to be quite low, smoking seems uncommon as well. Smokers tend to take at least 5m of distance to non smokers when outside.
• The standards for equality are high. I met women who said that they are no feminists at all but from my point of view were more feminist than plenty of germans claiming themselves feminists. Very self confident and laid back at the same time. Awesome company!
• The swedes love to be outdoors. Having a boat and a summer house at or near a lake is quite common. Companies do sport activities outdoors to raise the team spirit.
• Stockholm is a very nice city but they try their best to keep motorists out of the city. As a foreigner you don’t have to pay the general city entrance fee but parking is around 2€ / hour from 9-17h in most places. There is no such thing as free parking and there’re places which are even more expensive and/or fees apply all day. So expect to pay 15€ / day just for parking. My suggestion: Leave the city at 09:00 to one of the nice lakes around the city (10km / 15min drive), enjoy your day there and return at 17:00. Not exactly environment friendly but at least budget friendly…
• The “swedish bikini team” (as featured in “Married… with children” (Al Bundy) and old US beer commercials)) is fake. They are US actresses with blonde wigs…
• I saw no hitchhikers at all
• A swedish mile is 10km. Roadsigns are all in km but some swedes tend to give distances in swedish miles.

All in all I liked sweden a lot and I will come back for sure. The only reason I have to push on was best described by eve: “So you drove 1400km just to be at a place which looks exactly like your home place?”. No, I didn’t. I love the south of sweden exactly for being like a vaster, flatter version of the harz mountains but I’m travelling. So I want to see new stuff which means I have to move on. I can imagine living in the Stockholm area though. It’s just like a 1,3 million inhabitants town in the middle of the harz mountains. Does it get any better than this?