Mari Travels with Tango

After a month of steadily worsening moods and feelings of not belonging, I am once again travelling with tango. This time, however, it is only a short hop over the Finnish Gulf to Stockholm where there will be a tango festival during this week. The event, Tango 59 Degrees, comprises of no less than 5 day-time and night-time milongas each (the first of which begins in 15 minutes' time!), workshops, seminars and live performances. People I know who have been to it before were very enthusiastic about it, and personally I am just happy to be able to dance every day for the rest of the week. You see, settling into my 'normal life' back home has been as hard as ever this time around, although the lovely summer weather and the general holiday feeling that prevails in Finland in July should have worked in its favour. At first, things did not look that bad, as I was full of positive energy, confidence and inner harmony, but quite predictably the considerable slowing down, as well ...

Back in Helsinki, at the Vuosaari Harbour. Although fully aware of how preposterous the heading sounds, after much contemplation I have decided it is the most appropriate for what I will attempt to discuss in this entry that will mark the end of this journey with tango. In effect, the big questions that I have been trying to answer during the past weeks, indeed, during the trip too, remain the same: what is it that tango means to me, why does it occupy such a special, central stage in my life, and what is it that I am trying to achieve with it? Before getting into that, I suppose it would be good to tell you something about the final stage of this 'Travels with Tango Tour'. The two-night, one day sea journey from Rostock was very pleasant, with lovely sunny weather, beautiful views over the calm waters of the Baltic Sea, and long, winding conversations with Meeri, a Finnish lady who I was sharing the cabin with. Before I knew it, the trip was over and the ferry arrived in th...

Well my Friends, here I am, in Rostock once again. Just like for last year's trip, the final leg of the journey will be covered by boat that leaves from this harbour city some time in the early morning hours. This time, however, I made the journey both ways under my own steam, not relying on the train to get me back from wherever I had managed to get during the previous weeks. It was the right decision, as this way I feel more content, having really covered the ground myself. The campsite in Röbel. Today's journey was exhausting, though. The temperature that had not been that cool during the past week, was forecasted to soar up to 36 degrees, and it certainly made the going quite hard. Expecting this, for once I managed to do the sensible thing and got up early, setting out from the campsite already at 8. This meant that I had a few hours of relatively pleasant temperatures before it got really hot. Additionally, I was lucky to have the loveliest, gentle but firm tail wind t...

 I woke up with thoughts of tango, as most mornings on this trip. It seems that although I may not be actively thinking about it all the time, my mind is busy processing all the elements related to movement, balance and interaction between the dancing couple. As I am still so new to tango, each milonga presents me with new discoveries, or unresolved puzzles, that will then be examined by my subconscious during sleep. Often, I wake up with a sudden realisation on how a certain move is produced, and would then want to try it immediately. In this case, I had to settle for memorising the outcome. Yesterday I had not managed to get very far from the city due to a late start, an oppressive heat, the very winding route and, believe it or not, catching a free-running horse in the middle of the bike path somewhere in the suburbs of Berlin. This meant that today I really had to cover some ground if I wanted to make it to my ferry on Sat night, and I did what I could. However, the soaring ...

Dancers at Clärchens Ballhaus. After 4 nights of milongas, a minimal amount of sight-seeing (consisting mainly of riding my bike past well-known sites, not even stopping), a lot of worrying about the bike and very volatile moods am now getting ready to move on. In the end, I had to replace both the tube and the outer tyre to fix the bike, as the old ones had become totally destroyed in the process of pushing it through the suburbs. Luckily however, the wheel itself was not damaged, and despite my initial fright when I did not seem to be able to fit the rear wheel with its new tyre in its place, in the end all was well. The time spent in uncertainty  was certainly a very much needed reminder of how easily my tour can be brought to an abrupt end: all that is needed is a technical problem that makes riding the bike impossible, and all of a sudden I feel like a bird without wings. Unfortunately, my time in Berlin was also marked by a disappointment on the personal front which left m...

Camping in Alexandra's parents' garden. Yesterday was for me the most difficult day of the whole journey, although in term of terrain, distance and moods everything should have been going smoothly. However, in my years of travelling I have come to see that every trip needs to have one such day when things really go wrong, nothing seems to work and I feel I am being somehow tested. As a matter of fact, just a short while ago I had found mylsef wondering whether this trip would not present such a test at all as so far there had not been any major problems. It started auspiciously enough, as after a meal and a long sleep in Alexandra's garden in Klein Köris I had breakfast with her grandparents as the rest of the family was still asleep. In the house, there were 4 generations of the family present, the youngest one being the 4-month old son of Alexandra's brother. It was a lovely morning, the sun still gentle at 9 am, the birds chirping in the surrounding garden, a blue...

Had a wonderful day cycling mostly through landscapes devoid of car, cyclists or indeed any other people. As a result of a slight misjudgement in the morning, I ended up on a more Northerly route that I had intended. This meant crossing former mining areas, full of man-made land formations, artificial lakes and riding along old mining roads for most of the day. Despite the lovely peace and quiet, I could not helping sensing the desperation that the rapid closing down of mines had brought to this area and its inhabitants. Indeed, chatting to a fellow customer in a cafe in Großräschen, a sleepy little town in the heart of the mining district, my hunch was confirmed. According to this very outspoken lady, the abrupt closure of the mines had left almost everybody unemployed, bitter and hopeless, as prospects of finding any kind of a job are so poor. There must be tens of thousands in the same situation, with very few hopes of ever getting employed again. Even the pensioners are having a ...

My departure from Dresden was an unhurried one, not the least because I had come to like the city so much after my two night stay. It just seems to have all the right elements: beautiful buildings and impressive scenery, a lively, youthful atmosphere and a manageable size. As a matter of fact, the only negative thing about it I discovered were the many cobbled streets that make cycling, especially on a fully laden touring bike, a nerve-racking experience! As always, finding my way out of the city was far from easy. One would think that following a signposted bike route (in this case the Elberadweg) is a foolproof exercise, but I managed to lose the track several times before even getting out of the suburbs. However, I am getting so used to it that it does not worry me too much. I know that at some point I will always find it again, even if by accident! Is it any wonder if I sometimes miss the route signs, when they are camouflaged like this one? My route today took me across mostly...

Bicycle tourers on the way from Prague. After the less than ideal experiences in Czech Republik, I had a very nice comeback to Germany. The final day of approaching Dresden was passed in lovely scenery, on the banks of the river Elbe, that despite the strong headwind and meandering route made the kilometres just flow by. I was once again in good moods, and knowing that there would be a milonga on Wed night in Dresden helped me push those extra kms to get there. Following the river Elbe towards the German border. Arrived in Dresden at around 7 pm, traversing the green, lush parks and shaded alleys before getting to the city centre and over one of the many bridges to the Northern side of the river. The hostel at Louisenstrasse was nice, clean, new and friendly, and I had just enough time for a shower, a quick meal before getting back ont he bike (!) to ride to the milonga. Getting to the place involved such a long ride though, that I was beginning to wonder if thismade any sense. I ...

Just out of Prague, the bike road still all smooth and pretty. As much as I would have wanted to wake up feeling full of positive energy and eagerness to be getting on the road once again, the reality of today was not quite as rosy. After 4 nights in one place, one seems to have already grown some sort of roots in the local soil, and tearing them loose, distaching oneself from whatever has been the most powerful tie, in order to travel again, is always hard. So, although my time in Prague had been marked by mixed feelings, loneliness and lack of self-confidence, I was leaving the city with more than a little reluctance. On the other hand, I could clearly see that there was no reason for me to stay either, so off I went, after packing everything up, once again. My dark moods had not disappeared either, and for a large part of today I was literally oozing negative energy, getting irritated by the slightest mishaps and problems. This kind of mood does not happen to me often, but when...

Well. It was supposed to happen at some point of this trip, as it always does. One morning, I just wake up and realise that the honeymoon is over, that travelling with all its associated hassles is starting to get on my nerves. That despite the sense of immediate purpose that sorting out those ever-present issues of food, lodging, route, companionship etc gives me, in the end, the big questions remain. What am I doing here? What is my role in the society? Where do I belong? On all of my journeys, this point has been reached, but perhaps this time, with tango to keep me motivated, I had assumed I could avoid it. As it turns out, even tango isn't a strong enough deterrent for the bite of reality. This time around, I think what did the trick for me was the 7-day long approach to Prague, the exhausting days of pedalling from dawn till dusk, and lastly, the frights I had in traffic on that final day. All of a sudden, my moods changed and I am having to fight for a positive outlook on...

Despite the funny smell and the flimsy doors of the pension, I slept like a log, and was still feeling pretty exhausted by the time the alarm went off at 8.30. One reason for my reluctance to get up was the sound of rain that I had somehow made out even through my sleep. The thought of a day of cycling in pouring rain did not seem very tempting, but what could I do? Prague was calling me, and there were milongas to go to. In the end, the rain was the least of my worries, as it only really poured down on a couple of occasions, while mostly it was quite a good cycling temperature with a tail wind and overcast but rainless skies. However, in terms of terrain things were not half as rosy, as the road towards Plzen seemed to be crossing every single hillside in this corner of the country (and there were many!). I had been expecting this though, so although the slow going was frustrating, it did not start to bug me until much later in the day. The scenery can be described with just one w...

The lovely campsite in Lichtenfels, just on the banks of the river Main. I still don't know how I did it, but somehow I did manage to get to this side of the Czech border...although only just. Am now in the town of Cheb (Eger in German), barely 10 km into this land that I have never visited before. It was another day of amazing physical achievements, breathtaking (both literally and figuratively speaking!) scenery and good moods. In the morning, waking up at the lovely, tree/shaded campsite by the peacefully flowing Main river, I felt more than a little bit reluctant to pack up and head out into another day of endless cycling. The wind, that seemed to have picked up velocity and fierceness, remained from the East, that is, exactly from where I was going. It did not bother me too much in terms of irritation (to be fair, I have had very good luck with wind until now!), but it did slow down the progress considerably. This was most evident on the flat, open stretches (that there wer...