In the summer of 2008 I was given a month long vacation. I decided I wanted to spend that vacation challenging myself. I biked from Helsinki, Finland to Berlin, Germany by myself. In the course of the trip I went across 6 new  countries: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany. During the trip I got extremely sun burnt, very ill, stung by countless bees and loved every minute of it. Why? Because I went across some amazing countryside, I dared to do something new, and I met some very interesting people.

Here are some old posts from when I was on my adventure.

Tallinn and Sexy Shorts

So, I didn’t exactly see Tallinn. Well, that’s not true. I saw it. Like with my own eyes did I personally see it? yes.
Can I tell you anything about it?
no.
Things weren’t going right for me in Tallinn right from the begining. Right after cycling off the ferry I was in trouble. not even five minutes after getting to the country I almost got hit by a bus. Just inches from getting hit. I was going straight and the bus started to turn. I started shouting,”WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” When I realized that the bus driver was not going to stop and I wasn’t going to be able to stop in time I did my best impression of Lance Armstrong and leaned forward and peddled my heart out. I feel I can not make you understand how very, very, close it was. On lookers all gasped as I just made it. One guy gave me a whistle for my amazing split second survival.
I quickly found the sign pointing to the bike path that I wanted and went the direction it pointed to. This was the last I ever saw the signs for the bike path. I kept biking anyways, following the street signs for Pärnu. I knew this was the most direct route south.
It must be said that the roads and sidewalks in Tallinn are extremely bumpy. As I was going over one of the bumpy roads I could tell my basket holding my back pack was about to fall off. The Scandinavian Air people destroyed my basket along with the wheels and I never was able to get it the basket back on properly. Right as I was thinking that it was about to fall off-it fell off. I had to run it over, even with my stuff in it.
There were three very lovely Estonian girls who witnessed the crushing of the basket. They picked up my basket and kept giving me suggestions for how to fix it. In the same vein to how I’m not sure I can make you realize how close that bus was to hitting me, I also feel I can’t make you appreciate how truely flat my basket was. One girl kept trying to pull it back out. I got all embarressed and just took the flat basket and put it on top of the trash can and biked away from it, thanking the girls for their help. I guess I’ll have to wear my backpack the rest of the way.
After that I just kept peddling. I followed the bike paths which are,thank god, in the middle of traffic. If having cars able to hit you on one side isn’t scary enough having it on both sides just adds to the adventure. However, yet again I almost got hit by a bus and as I swerved out of the way of the bus I almost got hit by traffic on the otherside.
By this point I figured it was best to just buckle down and see how far I could get. On my way out of town I saw a mall. Since I hadn’t been to a mall in around a year I felt the need to stop in. I got a pair of biking shorts. They are very short, have a padded crouch, and have a sexy orange stripe down the side. If I wasn’t already getting enough looks for being…well…being me… these short shorts scream, “look at me! look at me! Look at me peddle past you very sllowly! WEEEEEE!”
Seriously the shorts speak to me and that is what they say.

A Word of Advice

If you are going on a long bike Ride…Lets say a month long one across six countries. If you think to yourself…hmmmmm… I deserve nice soap and shampoo cuz I’ļl be working hard… Don’t …please.PLEASE. Believe me! Don’t buy anything thing that has Honey in it. Why?

BEES!!!!
BEES!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz
And they get real pissy if you try and get them off you or out of your bag.
 I rode a 130Kms today and I’m in Latvia.

Of Course, Darling.

I’m glad I know Russian. It is rusty but it has come in handy a few times here. However, a few times I found myself speaking in Dutch with people. When they give me a really weird look I take a second and think oh, yeah… I look like a klootzak. But come on… outside of English aren’t all those other languages the same?

I had to come into Riga to get my handlebars and a couple other little things fixed. My handle bars had come so loose that I could spin them all the way around, I biked the last 50kms that way. I went from sport shop to sport shop looking for advice on where to go. They finally sent me to Treks.
I couldn’t be bothered to try and explain what is wrong with my bike with my broken Russian. I also realized I don’t know any of the parts of a bike in Russian. I guess it never came up while I lived in Kyrgyzstan. When coming into Treks I asked the guy if he spoke English and he said, “Of course, darling.” I don’t think he meant to be suggestive, I think he was just trying to show off his English. But he leaned in when he said it and used a suggestive tone.Needless to say, I was more than a little sketched out.
He kept asking Me questions about America and yelling, “Las VEGAS!!! CASINOS!!!” Michigan- Las Vegas, Lakes- Dessert… I mean it’s all the same really.
He tried to get me to drink their “special”, very refreshing water. Again he was probably just trying to be nice but he said it in the creepiest way possible. I kept telling him that I had my own water and it was fine.
“But our water is so special. It is in the back. Do you want to see our special water?”
I had to decline.

I’ll be heading out tomorrow afternoon. Hoping to make it to Lithuania in a couple days.
Oh, and there is a Mariachi Band staying on my floor in the hostel…. my life is kinda random,eh?

Sometimes it only takes one, sometimes it takes six

I know it isn’t conventional wisdom to chat with men who are laying face down in a ditch, but I was desperate. At least he was talking to me, so far this was the best lead I had on getting my bike fixed.
After we had done some introduction and discussed how beautiful I was for a while I was able to steer the subject towards maybe getting my bike fixed.
Of Course, of course he knew exactly what to do. I gave him the innertube for the bike. He tried placing it into the tire. When I pointed out that I had done the same stupid thing and that you need to take the wheel off first, he agreed with me and than continued to do the same thing. Pyetr than asked for all my tools. I handed him the swiss army knife. He banged around with it about the same way I had. He realized he needed a bigger wrench and went to a neighbor ladiy’s house to get one. By doing this he had alerted the masses that there was an American with a broken down bike in the area. All of a sudden there were lots of people. Where had they been before? Pyetr had done exactly what I had hoped, he got some people out to help me.
Pyetr was totally useless at fixing the bike and hit on me the whole time. I know his type: drunk, old, face down in a ditch… These kind of men love me and will always hit on me. Pyetr’s wife and son even joined in on helping fix the bike. Pyetr’s son was actually the most helpful. They did eventually get the wheel off the innertube blown up.
There became a problem with getting the wheel back on the bike. No one could quite remember how they got it off. While we were trying to remember exactly how the wheel went on Pyetr tried to…well for having no nicer way of putting it… tried to kiss my bussom… I made it very clear to him that he was never NEVER NEVER NEVER going to be thanked that way. He was so upset he went off and sulked. We were finally getting somewhere with my bike, it had been 6 hours since the original puncture, so I really couldn’t care and I let him wander off and sulk. Once the wheel was on I had all these extra parts that no one knew what to do with. I put the extra parts in my backpack and thanked everyone and rode off.
They did exactly what I hoped they wouldn’t: they watched me ride off. I had to go back for my bags that were hidden in the field. So, when they saw me head off in the wrong direction Pyetr’s son and a village girl who”spoke English” came by car to tell me I was going in the wrong direction. I pointed out my bags and thanked them again.
The 15kms to the city felt incrediably long. You learn to curse every bump in the road when you hear parts of your bike, that were on it only hours before, rattle in your bag with every bump you hit.

Clink-Bang-Pop

Honestly, I’ll pay people for their labors. I will. I swear. Again it happened to me. It took me four hours and five different bikes shops before someone would fix my tire. I was suprised I didn’t need a new wheel after walking it that far. The guy “fixing” it assured me I didn’t need it. He put the wheel on.
I rode off and right away it was clink-bang-popping. I came back tot he guy and he said there was nothing wrong with it. I kept pointing to my ear and using my teacher voice with him like he was one of my students in Kyrgyzstan, “LISTEN!!!” He assured me nothing was wrong. I realized this was going to go no where cuz he had already “fixed” it and he knew he wouldn’t get any more money from me for anymore work.
Naturally after struggling so hard to get out of Lithuania and being only 30kms from the border I knew there was only one thing I could do… Make a run for the border.
Making the worst, most awful noises I have ever heard I made it into Poland. I have never been so excited to get out of a country. I literally was begining to feel like Lithuania would never let me go.
So, I made it to Suwalki Poland. Oh, and can I just make a side note…. Who knew Poland was so hilly? Damn!
I ended up getting the pimp daddy room at the hotel I stayed at because that was all they had left and all the other hotels were booked up. They let me name my own price. Holla! However there was some dirty art on the wall. I find there to be a fine line between artistic and dirty sometimes. Or just weird and free art that they put up in their hotel.
Here in Suwalki they have imformed me the back tire is unrepairable and that I need a new back wheel. They don’t have them. They didn’t think anyone in town or any of the towns near by would have them. I have decided to bus it down to Warsaw. I figure it is major city and hopefully someone can get me a new back wheel there and maybe speak English…since I know no Polish.
From here to Berlin or from Warsaw to Berlin are about the same distance. So, if I can get my bike fixed I’ll still feel like I did it.
However, this whole ordeal has made me realize I want to compile a book on bike problems in a 100 different languages. So, friends if you know some other languages please send me a note with parts of a bike in whatever language you know. I haven’t actually flipped out over this. I’m kind of proud of my resolve I have had through this whole thing. If something constructive can come from this whole thing than I won’t mind that it happened. Stay tuned for if my bike makes it….

Pa-OOSHY

Sometimes it takes me a while to learn. It took me a while to realize that people in Poland don’t stand in line. I have heard many jokes over time about how Americans will stand in line for anything. Although, I have to say I have never seen a culture so willing to stand in lines as the Dutch. The Polish on the other hand…
After being second in line for about 15 minutes and about every minute or two I found myself in second place to a new person. I started to realize I was going to have throw my weight around if I wanted to get some service. I’m not good at it… seriously you would think I would be but I get all panicked. Can’t we just make a nice neat line and I gradually move up when I’m in the front it’s my turn?
Today I did get a little annoyed by the constant cutting and had to retaliate a little bit. I took my frustration out on a woman who didn’t even do it very smoothly. She first stood behind me, ya know like a how you do normally in a check out line, and then right as the guy was grabbing his stuff and leaving…she…I can barely type it… she.she. she side stepped me and threw her stuff on the counter and put her money in the little money trey.
I was shocked.. I did some loud exhausted puffs of air and out of no where stated very loudly, “OH, THIS BITCH IS CRAZY!”
This caught her attention when she stared back at me I decided to go back to my old stand by move. When people get pushy with me or cut me I like to stand uncomfortably close to them. It doesn’t bother me but they become incredibly uncomfortable very quickly. She could feel my presence and I could feel her tense up. Now all of a sudden she could scootch over. I scootched too. And with a huff put my stuff on the counter. I even held standing uncomfortably close to her for a second or two after she got her receipt.
I have to admit I am always surprised when people get pushy with me. I mean I won’t actually do sanything to hurt someone, but it is the potential of me doing something that should make people not be pushy with me. It’s like at bars in college and sorority girls started getting all attitudey with me I was always extremely surprised. Really all 5’2″ 105 pounds of you is going to give me ‘tude? Nothing every came to blows with the sorority girls since I could get out of any problem with them with my superior wit and sarcasm.
I guess all I think is that if I saw me I would go, my that is a big girl…maybe I’ll just wait in line. So, Poles get in line… or get prepared for me to be literally breathing down your neck.

Walk Away

I saw a guy today listening to a walkman. Like a proper Walkman. Remember those? With a tape cassette and everything. He was just standing there. Doing a little knee jiggle with the music but otherwise not aknowledging this archaiac music listening device. I would talk more about this but my record is skipping and I should go take care of that.

The Philosopher

To be honest despite all my travels I had never truely traveled alone. I always wanted someone there to experience all the new things with me, someone to take photos of me, and most importantly someone to talk to about… whatever…just be there so I wouldn’t forget how to carry on a conversation.
Most of the time during my bike ride I would stay in these little towns where I had to stay at the one hotel in town. I might do a little chit chatting with the receptionist or maybe with a couple people around town. However, for the most part these interactions would not be considered conversations.
In the Baltics I occasionally stayed in hostels. The crowds were a bit different than the usual crowds at hostels I stayed at before. To begin with they were considerably older and almost always all men. On a few occasions I got an entire women’s dorm to myself because I was the only woman.
When I arrived in Warsaw it seemed the perfect place to strike up a conversation. It was by far the most cosmopolitan place I had been since Helsinki. Also, at the hostel I was staying in the people seemed a bit younger.
The hostel had a bar that at the assigned happy hour has ridiculously cheap beer. This was the place to have a conversation. I took a book with me just in case but I could feel conversations filling up in my head that I was going to have with people. The book would just become a prop for my dialogue. I knew it…
I went into the bar and ordered a beer. Was told it is even cheaper if I ordered two, so I made plans to come back and get one after the one in my hands was done. There were four tables in the bar, 3 of them full of people from all over world discussing their recent travels. There was also one empty table. I took a spot on the edge of the empty table and sat near a group of young Brits laughing and joking very loudly. I sat with my beer and would laugh at their little quips. Nod in acknowledgement of some place that I had also been and would also refer to as a “shit hole”. There was the hope that someone would notice how cool and interesting I looked, despite being really sweaty and in clothes that hadn’t been washed in a sink a week. When no one noticed I got another beer, did a little chit chat with the barman so that maybe one of the little groups would notice I speak English. When I sat back down with my second beer I realized no one was going to include me and I didn’t have the initiative to include myself. So, I slammed the beer and went and watched a Zombie movie in the park by myself. And I got a Doner Kebab… It was actually a pretty good night.
My second night in Warsaw after spending the entire day trying to get my bike fixed and than back to the hostel(for the record you take the wrong way in Warsaw and you are suddenly facing some mighty big hills to climb in order to get home) I knew that it was now or never if I was ever going to have a conversation again. If I didn’t have one today I would never speak with anyone again. I don’t know why my mother always tells me I’m a tad dramatic…
I entered the happy hour with the exact amount of money for two beers. I made the same deal with the barman that I had made the night before. I took my one beer and my book and turned to find a seat. The same three tables had people chatting and laughing and the table that had been empty the day before had someone sitting at it. Nice looking guy, looked about my age, sitting alone with a beer and a book… he officially had a red bullseye on him as my conversation target.
“Can I sit here?”
He looked up and had a big smile on his face. It was that kind of smile that says, “Yes, Yes thank god I don’t have to sit alone any longer pretending I care about this book in any way shape or form”
“Ah, yeah… sure.”
He closed his book as I sat down he wiped one hand on his jeans, grabbed his beer with the other hand, smiled, and inquired, “So, see anything interesting today?”
“Ugh, I guess but I had to run all over town trying to get my bike fixed….” I said it in a gruff never speak to me again voice. I than picked up my book and started reading it.
Not actually reading it of course. More holding a book in my hands, having an intent look on my face, while thinking, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! HE CLEARLY WANTS A CONVERSATION! GEEZ PERFECT INTRO!!!! COULD HAVE TOLD HIM ABOUT THE PHOTO EXHIBIT I SAW!!!!! AHHHH SO STUPID!!!!!!”
He waited for the conversation to start for a long time…an uncomfortably long time. He took some pulls on his beer, looked around, sighed made it clear he wasn’t that into his “Europe on a Shoestring” book. After a while he looked me up and down(this is how not reading I was I totally knew what he was doing the entire time) and went back to his book. After 15 minutes of silence between us, both of us only looking up from our books to look at the people laughing at other tables, I decided to just stop being such a lame wussy and say something.
“So, ah… did you see anything interesting today. Or, ah, do anything fun?”
There was that smile again, but I noticed this time when he shut his book he left his finger in it in case he needed to come back to reading the book quickly.
“Oh, ya know Warsaw is just another big European city, they are all kinda the same aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but with little differences you gotta go looking for what makes the cities unique.”
“Well, I’m thinking I’m going to have to head back up to Estonia because each city there was unique.”
“Oh, yeah ?I loved Estonia.”
“Oh, you have been there…”
Houston we have lift off…
I was engaged in a conversation. We chatted for an hour or so by ourselves. Than eventually a woman from the table next to our table interrupted because she had heard me speaking to the receptionist earlier about where to put my bike. The girl from the next table wanted to know how it was going on a bike and did I like the book “along way around” by Ewan McGregor. It took a while for us to get on the same page that I was on a bicycle, not a motor bike.
This revelation that I had pedal biked from Helsinki suddenly gave me street cred. The crowd in the Warsaw hostel was considerably different from a crowd you would find in a western Europe hostel. Most of us had traveled through the Baltics. Some had come up from the Balkans. Others had seen all of Poland. It was an interesting group. However, they had all come by train or bus so my bicycle some how made me that much more ambitious and courageous and interesting. Most of all I found some how it made me in there eyes a much deeper person. I’m not deep, I’m not philosophical and before that night in Warsaw I had never been confused as being deep. For reasons beyond me I went with it. I took my new role as this deeply philosophical woman that they will have met in Warsaw.
It was all going well until I found myself say, “Yeah, ya know in a bus or train you see the places. But on a bicycle… oh, man on a bicycle you feel these places. Ya know what I mean?”
They all nodded that they recognized what I was saying. The problem with that is in my head I was thinking, “No. no I don’t know what you mean? How are you feeling the road Carol? Is it in the sore butt or the sweat rashes, the sunburn, or the tick bites, or the random rashes from random plants you have never seen before? what are you feeling?”
This is when I knew it was time to get to bed. It took me another hour to pull myself out of the conversation that was now involving about 10 people. It was fun playing the philosopher, but it’s not me. I could only hope that someday these people would have a friend who tells them what I will tell you all now:
Just because someone is on a bike it doesn’t make them any deeper than the next person. It just means they’re an a-hole who can ignore huge amounts of pain in their a-hole…
See if I were deep I would have found a better way of saying that.

Nun Down

I can’t describe how hard the wind was in Poland. I took some photos that I hoped would show it but they aren’t even worth posting now. When I was getting some groceries before leaving Konin I wasn’t sure if it was actually as windy as I thought or if I was a big wuss. It wasn’t till a few days later when I finally got an English Channel (Sky News… It blows… only thing worse than CNN Headlines)that I knew. The weather man was all happy and giggles and as he scanned over the European Continent, “Oh, and it is extremely windy in Central Poland… and in Belarus….”
What?
I stood up and grabbed the television.
“GO BACK TO THE PART ABOUT CENTRAL POLAND!!!!!”
I sat waiting for them to go back to the weather. When it eventually came back on I was on the edge of the bed about a half a foot away from the television, ignoring the fact that my mother had always told me to sit at least 3 feet from the television. Any closer and I would go blind… That is what I believed for a very long time…. But back to the weather…. Blah blah blah rain over all of England blah blah rain in Scotland too…blah blah of yeah Ireland has rain too… blah… to the continent it is really hot in the south blah… and then he laughed and said, “There are some gale force winds going on in Central Poland right now.” back to blah blahing. I don’t know what a gale force is, wait let me wikipedia it….
They didn’t have anything.
I’ll google it…
Found it on answers.com
Gale:

A very strong wind.
Any of four winds with speeds of from 32 to 63 miles (51 to 102 kilometers) per hour, according to the Beaufort scale.

Well, now I know what a gale is but I didn’t when I heard it on the news. I only had heard it from Owen Wilson in like every movie he has ever been in… look for it.. he likes to mention a gale blowing in a lot of movies….
It was nice to know my struggle against the wind was a very really one. These winds were so strong and I was going the completely wrong direction. If I had been biking from Berlin to Warsaw I would have claimed it was the best biking of my life. Since I was going the wrong direction it became some of the most challenging. I had to peddle going down hill.
Down Hill.
Peddling.
Had to.
The bike would have come to a complete stop if I didn’t keep peddling. I would be struggling to go down hill while I watched old ladies on bikes whipping up the hills in the other direction, big smiles on their faces. I believe there are few things in life that are more frustrating than that.
So, when leaving Konin I stood at a an intersection with my bike walking for a little bit- at least until I got some cover to get back on the thing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a nun walking. Poland has lots of nuns and they are everywhere, just walking around, doing God’s work. I have to say I don’t have any memories of ever seeing a nun in the flesh in America, especially not with the outfit. So, naturally when I see a nun it grabs my attention. I could see that she was blocked from a majority of the wind by a building. I thought when she gets past this building that wind is going to hit her hard. And the gale did not fail me. The wind knocked the nun right to the ground.
I just stared on. It was one of my worst humanitarian moments but I was across the road, shocked to see a nun in the first place, and I went into an even greater shock to see a nun on rolling around on the ground. There were about nine of us who were in the general area looking on. No one moved. Were the others also Americans not used to seeing nuns and had been thrown into a temporary shock? Or was this a normal site for the Polish-a nun on the ground? Either way it took her sometime to regain herself and get back up, this time bracing herself against objects that could stand up to the wind.
If you ever question if it is windy and you see a nun rolling by like tumbleweed in the prairie the answer is: yes. Yes it is windy.