Mari Travels with Tango

My third morning in Radisson Blue Hotel was to be my last one, as I have now relocated to a perfectly acceptable hostel for 1/15 of the price... I did my best to savour all the delights of a luxury hotel, though, sleeping in as well as having a lazy (and huge!) breakfast before checking out only slightly after the supposed dead-line of noon. I recognise that staying in such premises does have its benefits, but in general I  think the whole thing is somewhat overrated: I mean, for 178 EUR/ night (which is supposedly a discounted price for conference guests), you get a wonderful view, plenty of space and more or less friendly treatment (you should have seen the expression on the receptionist's face last night when I got in, having cycled in the rain for about half an hour!). But, you also get a toilet that has no hooks to hang toiletries, a shower head that does not stay in place, a bathroom floor that is not inclined properly, meaning that the water collects in front of the door.....

Dear Friends, as you may have noticed, I am offering you an opportunity to have your say regarding if I should make this blog open to the public. Do tell me what you think by voting, you will find the question in the upper right hand corner of this page. Looking forward to hearing what you think (and if indeed anybody is still reading me;-) Yours Mari

In my conference outfit, with the other speakers of the final plenary. Well, now I can breathe freely. As I may have mentioned, this conference is about Travel Medicine, a specialised field focusing on all those health problems related to travelling, especially to the more exotic destinations. My own talk had nothing to do on this, though, as the organisers had asked me to give an overview on how the tourism industry is trying to address the issue of climate change. The topic itself is quite familiar to me, but being one of the speakers in the final plenary session, I felt some pressure to give them their money's worth so to speak. As  am writing this, the conference has ended a couple of hours ago and I feel like kicking back and relaxing. My talk and seemed to go down pretty well, the audience was attentive and interested and I felt I could give them my best. Must say I feel relieved now that it is done, despite really enjoying the challenge of talking to an audience sligthly ...

Arrival at downtown Hamburg at 21.40 hrs, the hotel can be seen just to my right behind me. At least it was easy to find, even in the dark! It was certainly the physically hardest day of my life (although climbing the Kilimanjaro would come pretty close!), but I did make it to Hamburg. After 14 hours on the road I parked my bike in front of the ridiculously posh Radisson Blue Hotel that is where the conference takes place. My bags travelling first class to the room. :-) Have just had a shower and some takeaway food that I could find, now totally exhausted in my room, in the 18th floor, with sweeping views of the city. Quite a contrast to the hostel in Copenhagen, wouldn't you say? I am too tired to say anything more right now. The main thing is, I am safe and sound, in one piece and where I wanted to be. Tomorrow will try to find the opportunity to tell you about the trip. The view from my window the next morning.

Looking back towards Copenhagen. It turned out that last night was to remain my only experience of the Danish tango scene, at least for now. However, the practica at M2Tango was a very pleasant experience indeed: the venue beautifully laid out, full of dancers of different ages and skills, the atmosphere extremely easy-going. The evening's last dance was with Henrik. Maybe you can see why I was sorry the evening had to end? ;-) I was lucky to get to dance with a few very musical leaders, which with the lovely music made the evening a real joy. My only 'complaint ' was that it all ended too soon! If this experience is anything to go by,the Danish do indeed have their own interpretation of the tango, and quite different from the Swedes too! My bunk at the City Public Hostel in Copenhagen. Today, I was hit by a sudden, inexplicable ease of cycling, and as a result came to within 15 km of Rødby that had seemed like a distant mirage yesterday. In other words, I traversed th...

 My last memory of Sweden: the excellent dance classes. Here Victor shows me how it's done. After a total of one night's (!) stay in Denmark, I feel it is time to take a look at what my two weeks traversing (and tangoing) Sweden. I must say it was an eye-opening experience, as personally I think I've always regarded Sweden as something too close-by, to similar to things at home to be interesting. In terms of landscape, the time cycling across it did not really change my perception, as I had to keep reminding myself that I was indeed outside of Finland, but in other respects, the country turned out to be a very positive surprise indeed. Funny warnings in Sweden (1) Let me try and list the things that I really liked about our western neighbor, often regarded with more than a little bit of apprehension by us Finns. They include: - general cleanliness, friendliness and accessibility (extending to every single sidewalk edge being slanted at  crossroads to enable wheelchairs,...

Dancing with Boris. Yesterday, I think I almost overdid it with tango. (So soon, you might say!) Probably it was just the lingering remains of the previous days' biking, but the 2 workshops plus the milonga (22-02!) really took all I had to give both in terms of physical energy and as far as learning and enjoying the dance goes. By the time I got back to the hostel (at 2.30 am!) my feet were hurting so much I could hardly walk. And this with tango shoes that fit me perfectly! The venue itself, Tangopalatse, turned out to be a very impressive old building, somehow resembling of old theatres or school halls, with high ceilings and a nice wooden floor. There were a lot of dancers present as it was the closing evening for Tangoakademiet's (a local tango school) spring term. What I really liked about the place was that although it was grandiose in a slightly frayed around the edges kind of a way and the dancers were certainly wearing fancier dresses than for your average milonga,...

The practica at Camarin As you may have guessed, last night was not to be my best tango night ever. It is hardly surprising that after the previous two days' gruelling cycling, my legs, arms (and head!) were all a bit shaky, which obviously is not the best way to approach tango. I did, however, find the venue quite easily (cycling really is SO convenient for getting around this city, where everything seems to be within max 10 min cycling distance from my hostel). A pleasant surprise was that upon walking in, I was greeted by one of the organisers who asked if I was the Finnish girl. How could they tell? (I had not even opened my mouth yet, for the accent would have given me away). As it turned out, it was due to the wonderful website http://www.tangoportalen.com/ , where I had clicked a button saying I was going to attend the practica: as a logged-in member, my details had been passed on to other members, and they were expecting me.What a wonderful way to be introduced to a new ...

The almost empty campsite in Kristianstad this morning. After a poorly slept night, I forced myself out of bed at the God-forsaken (;-) hour of 7. The reason was, of course, nothing less and nothing more than wanting to make absolutely sure that I'd make it to Malmö in time for the milonga... and I did! As I am writing this, am in an internet cafe in downtown Malmö, having checked into a friendly, clean and pleasant hostel, washed my hair and spread my things all around the room (well, not quite, but on my bed anyway). After yesterday's planning catastrophe, today was a lot more organised. (As a funny sidekick to what I had gone through yesterday, this morning I found out that the distance, even along the major roads that I was avoiding, between Karlskrona and Kristianstad is nowhere near the 90 km I had estimated... it is almost 120!! Which obviously means that by meandering all around Swedish countryside for 12 hours, I must have covered closer to 150! No wonder I felt lik...

Considering the amount of time I spend planning other people's trips(and the overwhelmingly positive feedback I have received for them), it really is a disgrace how poorly I plan my own excursions. Often, this contributes to a pleasant element of unexpectedness that I enjoy and that makes life interesting. But at other times, the unplanned chaos leaves me cursing myself and my overly optimistic scetches of plans. This latter was the case today, when I had a full day's work getting even this far(needless to say, the 'plan' had been a lot more optimistic!) What made it mostly enjoyable, though, was the weather. All of a sudden, out of nowhere appeared an amazing sunshine that went on to become the loveliest day I have seen on this trip. Finally! It did not take me long to change into my bicycle shorts, and armed with 30+ sunscreen off I went. Obviously, there was a downside to the sunny weather. Overnight, the wind had changed direction 180 degrees, and was now str...

Tonight, I am so happy. After a reasonably early start (I did manage to ride out of the hostel at 9.35 instead of the planned 9 am, which is still acceptable by my standards), I covered the 80-odd km to Karlskrona in good time and with a wonderful tail wind. Despite my comments about the unreliability of local cycle routes, I followed one such trail (Sverigeleden) for the first couple of hours out of Kalmar. It did do a good deal of twists and turns, but as a bonus I got to see a lot of empty, beautiful country roads with absolutely no other traffic. The weather was not the most promising with plenty of mist and looming rain clouds all around, but miraculously I managed to avoid rain completely. And then, towards the afternoon, the unexpected happened: the sun came out, and for the first time on this trip I was actually warm, even hot. What a lovely feeling! An unexpected physical hardship appeared, though. Until now, my knees (or rather, the muscles just above the knee) have ...

It was a day of remarkably few achievements. I probably should not even tell you this (although most of you know me well enough to not even raise an eyebrow), but I only managed to get out of my wonderfully warm bed at half past ten, which, combined with a lazy breakfast (watching America's Next Supermodel, foor goodness sake!) set the scene for the day. Sadly, I made the discovery that there really isn't any tango in Kalmar apart from occasional milongas and a thursday night practica :-(. I did, however, make some preparations regarding getting the most out of Malmö's tango scene: took my dancing shoes to a shoemaker's, as one heel was starting to show a nail (that it was only one heel probably tells something unpleasant about my technique), did a search and located milongas or practicas for all the 3 nights I intend to spend in Malmö, and...went shopping for a tango dress. I know this is beginning to sound just like my shopping spree on last year's trig in Saraj...

Morning at Oskarshamn campsite. Something about the repetitious nature of bicycle travel got me thinking about the cyclic, almost totally predictable patterns that my life seems to follow. I suppose we all have those of our own, and no matter how much we try to break away from the never-ending reruns of our own life drama, it seems to have little impact on the end result. Today, I was experimenting with taking cycling pic's of myself. Must admit it takes some creativity, and one has to be fast too! Here are some of the results. Now, don't get me wrong: I do enjoy life on the road with all its unexpected twists and turns, but for a long time now, I have been quite aware of the fact that no matter how different the surroundings, my mental landscape and the kind of encounters I have while traversing a country (or life in general) remains the same. With this, I am referring as much to the obvious fact that I remain the same person wherever I go, as to the realisation that same...

Despite the heading, I did not quite walz through today's journey from Västervik. The long sleep, followed by a big breakfast, left me feeling somewhat lazy and lethargic, and I could not quite shake the sleepyness the whole day. Even after yesterday's frustrations, I was still not happy about riding on the infamous E22, but for the first part of the day, there really wasn't a choice. And indeed, after only a couple of km's ride I could see that I had been right; the ceaseless stream of cars, all driving at full speed, along with long streches of being 'fenced in' between two metal fences on a one lane section with virtually no shoulder...all I can say is that there was no way I was going to be riding on this death trap all the 70 or so km to Oskarshamn! So, off I went again, in search of smaller, less frequented roads, which meant making a detour towards the West via Ankarsrum and from there heading due South. I was lucky that this time all the roads were t...