The Trip Begins

So here I'll begin my tales of Norway. Most of the following comes directly from my journal that I was writing in as the trip went on. Now that the trip is over, and it can be looked back upon as a whole, I should admit here that I wrote as I experienced. Looking back on things, moments were never so harsh, feelings never unbearable, and friendships were strengthened more than strained. I now find it interesting how dynamics of a new group play out, and how our group never had 'the alpha male', despite there being many strong personalities, and those who feel most comfortable being 'in charge'. Our group dynamic was always pretty positive, democratic, and cooperative. At times I will admit to harsh criticisms of others, but if any of our group happen to be reading this blog, hopefully it can be understood the context of these journals, and that I think you are all a great bunch of guys. (I post my innermost thoughts because I just got to the point in life that to not express yourself is a waste of life, you then become but a cog in the great machine...)


Preamble

The plan was to go to Norway to 'fix the student budget' with my friend Tomek, a med. student and one-day eye surgeon, and 2 guys who we didn't know, but were acquaintances of Tomek's sister, Kasia (by her own right, both simultaneously lovely and a pain-in-the-ass. The way to sum up my thoughts about her are "Wow! This poison tastes great!"). The guys were Andzrej and Piotrek (so really, I was going with the Polish Tom, Andy, and Pete); both political scientists, and both clever guys. Piotr has 2 master degrees, and hopes to be a European bureaucrat (his words not mine), and Andzrej (loosely pronounced 'On-Jay' or like the French Andre for greater ease) is currently working on his Ph.D. and is a human database of historical facts. (Is historical fact an oxymoron?) Everyone is polite, well-mannered and can enjoy a certain degree of pontification over european and world politics. All with interesting anecdotes, and goodwill.

The plan was to take Tomek's 19yr old mercedes benz, with nearly 300,000km on the engine, but with firm reassurances from Tomek that the last thing to break on this car would be the engine. At that point, I worried no longer. Tomek has a great way of putting things sometimes where you don't ever question what he says about it ever again. In the car we loaded a month's worth of food, as the price of everything is cheap in Poland. Food with plenty of preservatives of course... and polish garlic, which is STRONG and incredible. Highly recommended.

(from bottom left) Piotrek, Andrzej, Dr. Tomek, Yours. Mercedes in background. We made it to the ferry!

August 1

I'm in Sweden! We just spent a night on a ferry from Swinoujscie, Poland and landed at Ystad, Sweden. Funny night - 3 games of Risk, where I think I had the worst possible luck with the dice, then lots of vodka. Some foul-mouthed, Polish guys sat next to us. One dude gave me a pack of cigarettes for no apparent reason. I don't know why. He's probably lonely and repressively gay. (Aside, I took a quiz on the internet a while back, which was 'how are you going to die?', and being stabbed to death was a significant result...) Ok I said that to shock.

I slept on the top deck of the ferry in the open air on the Baltic Sea last night. I slept really well but only had 4 hours, so I still feel a bit out of it. Must say though - I love sleeping in cold weather. I need it. The Berliner heat's been killing me.

The floor didn't look so dirty last night...

Sunrise on the Baltic Sea

Good morning everyone, good lord I have no idea what's going on...

Yesterday was a fairly long day of driving, but actually it was a warm-up for today and tomorrow. The inaugural day of our trip started out all wrong. Tomek, at 6.45am woke me up to inform me that he lost his documents for the car when we went out the night before, and as such, we wouldn't be able to take the Mercedes. We were obviously distraught and in disbelief over the matter, and the rest of us (Piotr and Andrzej) were trying to conceal how pissed off we were at Tomek's fuck-up of the century. [What I've come to realize is that for political scientists, showing true emotion is a) seemingly taboo and b) entirely difficult for them.]

SO, we had to go with Plan B: Take Piotr's car, a Sköda, not exactly a reliable automobile, with poorer fuel economy, and only having Piotr insured to drive it. Not good as Piotr admits his back isn't great in general, and the notion of driving 2500km in 3 days was not making him feel very good.

But what could be done? We therefore loaded up the Sköda, to capacity, about ready to head out, when Tomek gets a call that his documents had been found and they were waiting for him at his dad's house around the corner. (We spent most of the morning from 7am retracing our steps of the night before with no luck. I wasn't sure at points during this search, and neither was he, if Tomek was going to vomit or cry. It was really an unbelievable scenario.)

So. It was then 12.30pm, 30 mins behind schedule, and we decide to take the Mercedes, which meant we had to unpack the Sköda and pack the Mercedes, all the while the clock was ticking -- we had to be at the ferry terminal by 9pm, and our ticket was non-refundable.

Now, we left shortly after 1pm, giving us 8 hours to get 450km. No problem at all, in theory, but you haven't encountered Polish roads, or Polish drivers (there is no sense of traffic flow for these drivers, but more, the passing game that goes on resembles more a game of automotive leapfrog than anything.) I think to the ferry terminal we averaged 70km/hour and that was better than expected because miraculously, the one road we needed to be on was the one that was just redone this summer. We were saying 'God bless the EU' at some points, as Poland is improving since it joined a few years back.

At any rate, it's good we're responsible (enough) guys, because we made it with loads of time, and in fact the ferry sailed at 11.30pm (boarded from 9pm).

It was good to get out of Poland because the roads were so incredibly shitty for 'national roads'. They pay much less tax in Poland, but there's no infrastructure - it's quite noticeable.

Sweden however is the opposite -- the roads are perfect, parks have facilities [see photo] and everything just looks clean. The countryside is lovely - slow rolling hills with farmers' fields over them. Reminiscent of Ontario. Germany also.