A Place To Hide

I am so overdue with this post, but there has simply been too much going on for blogging to be high on the list of priorities.

Short on Croatia (the rest of it):
We didn't spend much more time in Croatia after the last post, as we left the country the next morning, heading for Trieste in Italy via Slovenia. Although the swimming was top notch I have no wish to return to the touristy parts of Croatia ever again. Perhaps if I could find a secluded island somewhere this country would be more down my alley.

Short on Slovenia:
Not much to report, I'm afraid. We took a wrong turn before exiting Croatia and hence entered the country a bit east of where we had planned, but it was easily corrected after a bit of fumbling around in a crossroads, and we crossed over into Italy within a couple of hours from entering.

Short on Italy:
I'd never been to Italy. Love Italian food, have always wanted to learn the language, have to admit to a certain weakness for the men... but had never been. And oh my, did it live up to expectations! The small shops, the narrow streets, the sensual language - ARGH! What am I doing in Finland again? We spent some time in Trieste before heading northwest in direction of our passage into Switzerland. Experienced a gorgeous rain storm that we could enjoy from bed looking out on the balcony in our room. I want to go back to Italy. ASAP.

Short on Switzerland:
Hm. Part 1 of this holiday's family check-up took us to Florentin's hood. We started out in Zurich where we hooked up with one of his girlfriends whom I enjoyed conversation with over beers while the young gentleman proceeded to get himself a little bit pickled :) The next morning we swam in the river that runs through the city, which I have to say was a thrilling experience! Mother, brother (x2) and father were visited over the next few days, and I met some brilliant people. We rounded it off with another night in Zurich where Florentin's friend Christian gave him a reprieve from the girlfriend while I worshipped Paul Auster in a local pub. Oh, and I found a dragon. And got a speeding ticket. :/

Short on Germany:
I've always liked Germany, but this time around we got ourselves into a bit of a spot as we entered the not-so-nice town of Kassel. If you ask me what was bad about it I'll be hard pressed to give you a concrete answer, but as with Moldova it rubbed me the wrong way in _every_ way. A big contributor was probably that we had been travelling for three weeks about this point, and were getting a little tired of it. We spent a night close to the Danish border in a town that was closer to the Germany I like, however.

Short on Denmark:
VROOOOM! Did we even stop in Denmark? Ah, yes, we had lunch at a roadside diner. Otherwise little to report, I had my eyes set on Örebro and Denmark is mostly flat anyway. Nice to see the windmills in the ocean between Denmark and Sweden, though.

Short on Sweden:
We pushed on a bit into the night to get to Örebro without stopping along the way, and yay! Back to the farm :) We spent a few days with my family, basically being lazy, going swimming, barbequing, drinking beer and simply having _holiday_! To say we both needed the rest would be an understatement. From there we drove on to Stockholm and took one of the party ferries over to Helsinki, where our roadtrip ended around 10:00 the next morning.

To sum it up, this road trip was a massive undertaking, no doubt about that. The reader stopped at 8 700 km, we used the spare tank of gas a couple of times, had a couple of rather hefty navigation conflicts, three and a half weeks with temperatures between 30 and 42 degrees C with very little access to water, mosquito bites de luxe, a sudden allergy attack that lasted for two weeks, and sometimes a definitive lack of relaxation and holiday. What we also had, however, were hundreds of hours spent in excellent company without conflicts, a car with AC and sunroof, great sights, good camping choices, good hotel choices, good food, good drink, functional systems, maps, loads of weirdness and a very, very good time.

Back in Espoo I'm now in my second week of being back to work, and since the end of April I have not only added 10 previously unseen countries to my list, I find myself living with a gorgeous young man and am contemplating getting my master's degree over and done with. Not quite sure yet how this came to be, but big thanks to karma for paying a lot of attention to me lately :)

"If I told you all the times that I'd done wrong,
could you bathe my soul and wash it all away?"
White Lies - A Place To Hide (To Lose My Life, 2009)

Kiss The Rain

I'm writing this from Rijeka, a dodgy industrial town in Croatia. It's likely that today will bring us out of this country, through Slovenia and into Italy.

Short on Moldova (the rest of it):
Not really my kind of country, this. The differences between rich and poor are extreme, and apparently the country has a trafficking problem unlike no other nation in the world. The roads were actually surprisingly ok, and the monastery was scenically beautiful, but otherwise I'd not recommend one goes out of one's way to get there. We rented an apartment in Chisinau instead of finding a hotel, and this I must say was a very pleasant surprise. We used the rental agency suggested in the Lonely Planet guide - easy to find at the bottom of the hill where Beer House is situated.

Short on Romania:
For me, Romania was pretty much the purpose of this roadtrip. I've been fascinated with this country since I don't know when, and have been talking about making it the destination of a roadtrip for years. I am very happy to say it lived up to expectations. The trouble is, I'll have to go back! We stayed in Brasov four nights, with one night of camping on either side. Monasteries, castles, good food, mountains, crap roads, ice-cold rivers, sheep, rattle-snakes imitating birds, mist, Swiss vampire wannabe's, milk-carrying and -distributing monks, in general a beautiful country with lovely people.

Short on Serbia:
The Balkans were not really plan of my initial itinerary idea, but as I had no real preference after Romania it was as good a suggestion as any. I had little relationship with these countries up front, so it brought a couple of surprises. First of all, crossing over into Serbia from Romania was a piece of cake. The countryside in the east was a bit boring after the mountaneous regions of the previous country, but Belgrade was quite nice and I think it grew on Florentin. We spent one night there, and the following night in a national park close to the Bosnian border. Spine tingling views, and a bit scary roads at night. People follow the traffic rules in this country!

Short on Bosnia:
The border crossing from Serbia was almost like being in the EU again. Ok, they did stamp the passports, but otherwise there was very little ado about the whole thing. Bosnia was gorgeous. I never realized how montaneous it was, and Sarajevo certainly left me wanting more. We only had a couple of hours there, well spent in a small restaurant called Club To Be Or Not To Be where a one-man chef/waiter/cashier impressed me no end with his ability to juggle his guests, make dinner for all and still look like he was just having a totally normal day at work. Drivers here are almost en par with the Latvians. The majority drive reasonably well, but there's a lot of dodgy passings and it's quite exhausting to navigate the narrow roads circling around the mountains.

Short on Croatia (so far):
Border crossing? What? The lady laughed and looked like she was pretty amused by the antics of tourists when we kindly asked her to stamp our passports. Croatian roads are pretty much like the Bosnian ones - meaning very few potholes but very winding and lacking of straight stretches. The ocean is _beautiful_. Most of you will know I have an affinity for the ocean along Norway's coast line, but I could be willing to throw Croatia into the competition. Waters are sparkling clear, and the water is cold enough to really cool you down even though the temperature ranges in the higher thirties still. There are, however, tourists _everywhere_! Having been spoilt with the solitude it gives to drop off the beaten track, this was not a welcome return to the Western world of money spending sun worshipers. They also create havoc on the roads, as the mix of different driving styles is nothing short of a health hazard.

Temperatues have been between 30 and 40 pretty much for three weeks straight now. Norwegians like me are not built for this kind of heat, so it was very nice to finally cool down a bit in the ocean. I'll probably blog a little bit again from Switzerland. Catch you on the flipside!

"Kiss the rain and wait for the dawn."
Billie Myers - Kiss The Rain (Growing, Pains, 1997)

Lost Highway

I'm on the road. Currently in Moldova, writing this en route to the Orhei monastery outside Chisinau. Up until now several countries have been undertaken with neckbreaking speed, and until I get to Romania I'm not really planning on slowing down anywhere. I could use a day with a book, my feet up and a bit of quiet, though, the contrast to how I usually travel is like night and day.

Estonia was a pure transportation stretch and hence didn't bring much of interest. After very few hours of sleep the night before I actually slept through most of it. Day 1 ended as we reached one of Latvia's national parks where we set up camp with the tent Deb and David so kindly bestowed on us (thanks you guys, it works like a charm!). The morning after we had breakfast with a stork. Seriously.

My first couchsuring experience on the surfing side of things took place the following night, as we hooked up with American Jimi who lives and works in Latvia. He had just moved house with his wife, and showed an outstanding amount of hospitabiliy taking in a couple of unknown surfers on his first night in a new house (and WHAT a house it was!). We also got to hang out with the dog and Jimi's daughter, both lovely.

The next morning we started our career with police confrontations a bit sooner than expected when Florentin ran a red light (typical!) and was presented with the doubtful honor of receiving his first ever ticket. Since then there has been so much going on I'll not bore you with a step by step recollection of it all. A few key notes on the countries, however:

Short on Estonia:
Early morning ferry with already drunk Finns. Pancakes in Tallinn. A lot of road. Drivers starting to get a bit impatient. I mostly slept, but woke up as we passed a motorcycle passanger who had fallen off the bike. Aparently he seemed to be doing well.

Short on Latvia:
GREEN! They've had a bit of rain this summer, and I guess that explains the abundant greenery all over the place. Oh, and the gardens, they are lovely. It looks like the Latvians really put a lot of pride and love into the tending of their green spots. Storks are everywhere, as are speed-crazy drivers. Riga is quite nice, but has little on Tallinn in my opinion.

Short on Lithuania:
A little field'ier than Latvia, but still green and nice, and I got my first swim of the trip following one of many detours. We spent a night in a hotel in the centre of Vilnius, in the squeekiest bed ever - kept me awake most of the night (Florentin.. again!) - but the breakfast was good and we found a bookstore that sold Lonely Planet guides. Most important.

Short on Poland:
Another transportation stretch - we knew we wanted to get from Vilnius and as far down into Poland as possible in one day, with Lublin being the priority target. A day of driving later, we checked into a hotel in the old town that made up for the lack of good breakfast with excellent location, good service and a good bed. About here it started getting really, really hot. I almost had a heat stroke opening the car doors the next morning. Went for swim no II in a packed lake somewhere on the way to Ukraine. Insane amount of ongoing roadworks in this country!

Short on Ukraine:
The border crossing into Ukraine was a bit of a wild card. I was not one hundred percent sure we had all documents needed to get across, but as it turns out we were fine. A ridiculously young border guard asked me some questions about our camping equipment, listened somewhat half-heartedly to my answers before plunging into the core of the matter; "Any drugs?". When I could satisfy him with a clear "No!" in response, the rest was pretty much just paper work. And we got a stamp! Alas, by this time it was so late we ended up emergency camping on some dodgy backroad that set a new world record in the amount of potholes per square meter, and we got a zillion mosquito bites setting up the tent. First destination L'Viv took a while to figure out, but once we had it nailed this city became the first proper full-blown sightseeing session of the trip. As I am not the happiest of campers when temperatures are high and no water is to be found, this was all a bit too much for me. Sleeping arrangements were made on a hillside of a FSC forest that was supposed to hold bears. We saw none. The next day was spent driving to Kamyanets-Podilskyi, a smaller town in a natural park quite close to the Moldovan border. We spent a night in a hotel there, came across a Shell station (Yay!), accidentally reset the km reader for the trip (checking a fuse.. but we managed to calculate our way back to 2098 km so far), and again did a bit of sighsteeing in extreme heat. Ukraine became the by far champion country in numbers of nights spent as we were a bit time-confused the next day (reset the clock as well of course) and decided to go swimming and camping one more night instead of rushing across the border at dusk.

Short on Moldova (so far):
The border crossing was rather uneventful. Five desks where people wanted the exact same documents and answers to the exact same questions took about one hour, and the only unexpected event was a CO2 tax for non-Moldovian cars of 30 moldovan Leu, which we didn't have. Fortunately my relentless storing of money in all kinds of pockets turned up a 5 Euro bill in a jacket, which they accepted (even got change!) and we were free to go. Moldova has the biggest sunflower fields I have ever seen. They stretch so far all you can see is yellow. Beautiful.

As said, this is being written in the car while driving along one of Moldova's main highways as quickly as the endless potholes allow us. Roads have been pretty shitty since Southern Poland, but nothing like we expected when it comes to aggressive drivers. In fact, Latvia was by far the worst in that respect, since then it's been manageable (of course it helps to drive a car that accelerates ten times as quickly as the heaps of junk metal they drive down here (although there are really expensive cars around as well)). The road police has given us a couple of scares, as they are pretty much all over the place and will jump at the chance to squeeze some money out of a foreigner. After the first ticket we have, however, managed to get out of it with just being stopped one more time, also this deserved as Florentin made a dodgy left turn onto a main road. There's a first time for everything, including bribing police officers to let you go without a fine. 'Nuff said.

"Guide the cars, you've got the keys, farewell to mediocrity.
Kicking off the cruise control and turning up the radio,
got just enough religion and half a tank of gas,
come on, let's go!"
Bon Jovi - Lost Highway (Lost Highway, 2007)

Everlasting Love

I love this song. I mean it, I love it to bits. It makes me happy no matter how trodden down my general mood might be, and makes me want to dance around naked with flowers in my hair. Uhm. Well. It makes me happy, ok? :)

One of the things I love the most about this track is how many times it has been covered, and how, no matter how lousy the cover is, the song still never fails to put a smile on my face. So, now I want you to spend some time discovering why, by looking through a couple of the very, very smile-inducing videos I've linked to in the below. Wait until the very end to listen to the quote version. And then come back and tell me it didn't make you want to sing your heart out! I'll never believe it :D

The song was written by Cason/Gayden in the mid-sixties, and debuted by Robert Knight in -67. One of my most cherished tracks is the Love Affair version from -68, however. After that, artists like Carl Carlton, Rex Smith, Sandra, Gloria Estefan and U2 have covered it, and on the Bridget Jones Edge of Reason soundtrack there's an artsy-fartsy version by Jamie Cullum, which kinda makes me smile even broader because he tries to be so different and the song still owns his ass when he kicks off the choruses.

If the below version should, for all intents and purposes, fail to put a smile on your lovely face, find the U2 version. And while you're at it, remember to give this life we're leading some credit, because it's pretty darn beautiful!

"Where life's river flow, no one really knows
'till someone's there to show the way to lasting love.
Like the sun that shines, endlessly it shines.
You always will be mine, it's eternal love.
When other loves are gone, ours will still be strong.
We have our very own everlasting love."
Love Affair - Everlasting Love, 1968
Ah, and turn up the volume, damn it! :-)

The Same Deep Water As You

I have the prettiest, fanciest and loveliest laptop in the whole wide world and I shall never ever sleep again.

"I will kiss you,
I will kiss you,
I will kiss you forever on nights like this."
The Cure - The Same Deep Water As You (Disintegration, 1989)

Fill It With Devils And Dust

Today I finally finished Jane Eyre. After a couple of weeks of relentless social activity I took the afternoon to myself to sit down with the book in the sun and finish off this peculiar story. Although I am often puzzled at how little is taught of English classics in Nordic schools, I must admit there is a certain pleasure in being able to read books like this, Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility without knowing how they will end.

I fell a little bit in love with Jane, but she does sometimes carry on something chronic about trivialities that made me wish she would just get on with it! Might not have been a good idea to not read any modern literature between Wuthering Heights and this one. I will now disappear back into the wonderful arms of Paul Auster for a few days, as I've recently completed my collection of his works and hence have a book or two (as if I didn't already have more than fifty unread waiting) to get through.

Movies watched:
Madame Bovary (the 1949 adaption) - Good, very good. What a horrible hag of a woman, though! Selfish to the end. Hoping for a fairytale ending my ass, what about taking responsibility for your own putrid actions?

La Dolce Vita - Ah, I hate Fellini. Sure, Ekberg was gorgeous, but this movie is just one big yawn of an exhausted attempt at being interesting.

Rocket Science - Not really what I had expected, and I'm no big fan of the leading chick. The leading boy does his job well enough, though, and I got a couple of laughs from it although I kinda think I wasn't really supposed to laugh at those moments.

"What if what you do to survive kills the things you love?"
Bruce Springsteen - Devils And Dust (Devils & Dust, 2005)

A Thousand Beautiful Things

Strangely enough Richard Marx' Greatest Hits have been the soundtrack of the last couple of days. Don't ask me why. Today I am giving Annie Lennox' Bare (2003) a listen. Have had it for years, but never listened to it before now. It's quite nice, I always liked her voice.

In addition to the long list of movies below I watched Singin' in the Rain this weekend. Hadn't seen it before, and unfortunately I have to say it disappointed me a little. I guess being a classic and all I assumed it would have something brilliant going for it, but most of the time it just annoyed me a little and I was happy to see it end. I think part of it is that the female actresses give me the creeps.

Over the last two days I've watched Gone With the Wind, also this for the first time. Now here we have, on the other hand, a proper classic. I love this movie. But the ending! What's up with that? And I don't think Scarlett is annoyingly spoiled, I think she's just confused and fighting like a cat to get a grip on her existence. Oh, and Miss von Teese must have had Vivien Leigh in mind when she perfected her public facade.

"To live,
to die,
to breathe,
to sleep,
to try to make your life complete."
Annie Lennox - A Thousand Beautiful Things (Bare, 2003)

...Not By Begging On His Knees

For some reason I've been waking up really early this weekend although nightly activities should have sent me sleeping until noonish the next mornings. Helsinki nightlife on both Friday and Saturday is a bit too much, to be honest. (Getting old, are we?) The good thing about early mornings is that I get to catch up on my reading and movie watching. Well, to be honest the reading is going nowhere at the moment as I am in my second month of trying to get through Jane Eyre. It's not that it's a bad story, it's just waaay too long! I wish they would just get married and have it over with, but apparently there's some kind of objection to that at this stage so I guess I'll be going at it for another week or so.

You, Me & Dupree has been passed over on numerous occassions as I'm not the biggest believer in the Wilson/Hudson combination. Quite harmless, of course, and surprisingly it did produce a number of laughs. Also, the soundtrack is at times interesting, so all in all a pleasant surprise.

One of my pet peeves is movies that deal with abnormalities, fetishes, things about which you shouldn't really speak. Movies like Fur, Quills, 9 1/2 Weeks and Sex, Lies & Videotape, I don't know, I just love them. I can now add another film to the list, after watching Secretary, a study in submission with Maggie Gyllenhaal as the leading lady. The choice of lead actress in particular makes this movie enjoyable, as her voice and stature suits the role perfectly. The story deals with a self-cutter who replaces an addiction with another as she starts working as a secretary for a young lawyer with a penchant for ladies who do as they're told. Also, the soundtrack is put together by Angelo Badalamenti (of Twin Peaks/Mulholland Drive fame).

I also watched the film adaption of Alessandro Baricco's Silk. I've not read the novel, as his Without Blood almost bored me to death when I read it a year or so ago. Keira Knightley, pretty although she may be, does little to lift this film. I have difficulties with Michael Pitt after seeing him in Funny Games, so he didn't really work either. The two Asian ladies portraying the far-off ideal woman and the closer-at-hand prostitute, are quite lovely and add to the visual strenghts of the movie (because beautiful it is, no doubt about that). The dialogue is quite modified to portray a less erotic image to the movie goers. A shame.

The Island (Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson) is another one of those movies that I've been passing over several times in my hunt for entertainment. Perhaps I should stop doing that, as this one again surprised me positively. It's kind of a mixture of Lost and Aeon Flux, and I even think Johansson did an ok figure. I must still be the only person on the planet who actually enjoy some of her songs but not really her movies, though. In fact, the best thing I've seen her in is Timberlake's video for What Goes Around Comes Around, and I suspect that to be mostly because the mood of the video reminds me of Bowie's The Heart's Filthy Lesson.

My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days is a French piece of overly artistic crap from 1989 that is "deeply affecting" according to Rotten Tomatoes, "deeply disturbing, boring and shitty" according to me. Not worth the time it takes to watch it.

Speaking of disturbing, a week or so ago I watched The Dreamers, the movie where Michael Pitt (again) hooks up with a couple of French twins. Apparently it's a well known fact that this movie deals with siblings that are a bit too close, but I didn't know and hence it gave me a bit of a start when they started being overly familiar with each other in a not so modest way. Could be interesting and quite down my alley of unmentionable topics, but the acting isn't very good and the menstruation scene in the bath was a bit... unsavory.

Apparently Once will be featured at the outdoor cinema Engel in a few weeks, and I might be interested in catching that. Also, me and David have been talking about doing the beer tram somewhere early July. Give me a shout if you're up for either.

"If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to.
And if you want another kind of love, I'll wear a mask for you."
Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man (I'm Your Man, 1988)

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Why are the things that should be easy sometimes so difficult? And, at the same time, why do the peaks that at first seem insurmountable sometimes turn out to be the easiest to climb? I guess if I did have that roadmap it would all make sense, but at least without one you never get bored, right?

Next week I'll be going to Paris again. It's been more than a year since the last time I set foot in that lovely place, so I'm looking forward to roaming french streets again, with a slightly different mindset this time around. There shall be wine, there shall be flowers and there shall be fun. Hopefully also light, but sometimes when even God asks for that it seems nature is unwilling to comply. Finland has returned to the gloomy grey of late winter over the last week, with temperatures lingering around 5-7 degrees C. A bit too chilly for my liking, but I guess it'll pass.

My mind lingers on Iran. It seems everyone's going there now, except me. Not that I am complaining, I should be more than resourceful enough to get a move on myself, but it'll have to wait. For now. My mind is infected with travel bugs, and the multitude of possible locations is almost making me dizzy. How lovely would it not be to be a travel writer, or just simply unafraid enough to get up and leave? If my roots are not set, why am I so wary of pushing off and floating free? Ah, well, it'll come.

You know the version of Dream A Little Dream Of Me by The Mamas & the Papas (1968)? Well, the song was, of course, not theirs. It was written in '31 by a German called Gus Kahn who also wrote songs like It Had To Be You, My Baby Just Cares For Me and I'll See You In My Dreams. Although I love the wonders of the modern world (well, at least some of them), I cannot shake the romantic notion of an American Colonial porch in New Orleans with an old, scratchy record player transmitting the husky voice of Louis Armstrong. Perhaps we lived other lives in other times and that is why we have such unexplained affinities for certain phenomenon.

"Sweet dreams 'til sunbeams find you.
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you.
But in your dreams, whatever they be,
dream a little dream of me."
Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald - Dream A Little Dream Of Me (1950)

I Want You To Trouble Me

I did a lot of this and that over the last week and a half, shortly summarized it pretty much comes down to music, beer, laughter, travelling, training (and bruising of the brain), working, swimming, sun worshipping, eating, more laughter, friends, love and warm(er) air (than usual).

I have a couple of basic issues to report:
- 30 degrees C in Finland does not mean that the water is warm.
- Peacocks (even Brittish ones) make a hell of a spectacle when they start screaming at night.
- People who work in factories think that the creativeness of Sales&Marketing people is bizarre.
- I'm cancelling my summer holiday trip to South America as there's been a change of plans.
- There are no Shell stations in Romania.

I watched Constantine for the fourth time on Sunday. Although Tilda Swinton's rendition of Gabriel is worth the watch, the movie is _not_ all that good. Anyway, this was the first time I noticed that APC's Passive is on the soundtrack, and it made me a little confused as it doesn't really fit in there. Oh, and Gavin Rossdale plays one of the demons. I've never reflected on that before either. Cute, that one, and I especially like the sleeziness with which he delivers his "finger-licking good".

Matchbox 20 made a brief re-appearance in my life this weekend as I listened to their More Than You Think You Are over a couple of days. I had a massive crush on Unwell back when it came out, and Downfall is also worth a listen. It's a pity Rob Thomas doesn't quite live up to his potential solo.

Fundamental question:
When faced with something scary, do you stay and face it, or do you turn your back and run as fast as you can? Lamb for slaughter or cowardly lion?

Oh, and I can't believe they just _lost_ a plane. How does that happen?

"Be my savior,
and I'll be your downfall."
Matchbox 20 - Downfall (More Than You Think You Are, 2002)