On Any Other Day

Blog silence is good silence!

Last Monday I welcomed my first ever couchsurfer into my home, and although I was a little nervous to begin with I must deem it an unmitigated success. A young Swiss gentleman called Florentin has been kind enough to enrich my life as what was intended to be a two day stay turned into one and a half weeks of integration into my social life and a spontaneous three day road trip to Oulu.

After a lively JD Vappu celebration last week, we hit the road heading north. We took the coast route through Pori, Vaasa and Kokkola, with only one unintended detour and little traffic. The 800 km drive took us around 8 hours not counting numerous breaks, so we made good time considering the long and winding minutes spent behind trucks and trailers.

Oulu I must say was not what I expected. I can imagine it's quite a nice place in summer, and already now the weather was more than warm enough to enjoy strolling through the city. It does leave something to be desired with regards to an organized city centre, but along the waterfront there are plenty of cuteish hang-outs for food and sun worshipping. We spent half of Saturday there before we went on a roadtrip within the roadtrip, up to the Swedish border crossing of Haparanda and to the island of Seskarö where we consumed a bit of wild game and watched the locals posing for pictures on the beach. We were hoping to go swimming, but up north the ice has not yet broken and hence there was no chance to jump in the water (thank God).

Heading back from Oulu we took the inland route through Jyväskÿlä, Jämsä and Lahti. My oh, so clean car changed color from black to brown as we set off on muddy local country roads around Pihtipudas to locate a Shell station in Keitele (and as it turns out that station only caters to diesel trucks), and suffice to say I got my fair share of Finnish country side! The stretch from Jyväskylä through Jämsä down to Lahti is gorgeous, and much more similar to Norway than anything I've seen as of yet in Finnish nature.

All in all, we did close to 2000 km this weekend, spending around 23 hours in the car and listening to dozens of albums. Although this sounds like way too much it is possibly the best roadtrip I've ever been on, and I only regret not having time off to be able to continue down the Swedish coastline on to Stockholm and taking the car back by boat from there. It definitely gave me the inspiration to rekindle my thoughts around a Romania trip, although this year it's not likely to happen.

On top of the travel loveliness, I think I've learnt more about myself in the last days than the last couple of years combined. How do you react when a complete stranger inhabits your guest room, what do your instincts say, and are you able to fully understand and comply with them? I've experienced a mixture of maternal instincts kicking in, extreme honesty and need for trust and the kind of intensity that comes from having little time. I think I've gained a long-lasting connection from it all, and although I don't think I'm likely to find a CS match again that will be able to dig out the same amount of "spontaneous me" from underneath it all, I will keep it up and hopefully be able to learn some more about myself and the world in the process.

"I like where this is going,
yeah, cause I know where it's been."
Bon Jovi - Any Other Day (Lost Highway, 2007)