Bremen

Getting ready to ride into the tunnel that runs under the Elbe river.

After an incredibly slow morning that saw me get out of the hostel at the very late hour of 10.30, my orientation proved once again to be my weakest point. Despite a powerful tail wind and the new cycling map, it took me seemingly forever to even get out of Hamburg. Then I spent a good while going round in circles in Harburg, the town just across the Elbe, and finally managed to waste over an hour at a strech that really should have been a half an hour's easy ride. My mind just refused to cooperate, flying off on a tangent 2 seconds after I had decided to be extra vigilant for a particular road sign, crossing or land mark. Indeed, I think it could be called the total opposite of concentration!

After a late lunch in a bakery shop barely out of Harburg, I somehow managed to pull myself together and more than m ade up for the time wasted by covering about 100km in the afternoon and evening hours. In this, I was greatly helped by the marvellous wind, flat terrain, and the last chapters of the Fantastic audio book by Diana Athill ('Somewhere towards the end") I had started a long time ago while still in Sweden. It just hooked me, and I was astonished to discover that she not only liked the same books and held the same views on some of the most important issues in life, but had also gone through experiences almost uncannily resembling my own. No wonder I had been drawn to it without ever hearing one sentence from it!

Am spending the night at a campsite just outside of the city centre,tomorrow will take a look at it before carrying on towards Münster.

Comments

  1. Anu02/06/2010, 11:08

    Moi Mari,
    unfortunately in this time of the year I don´t have so much time to read the blogs, nor yours or the others´but the photos are nice and reading other comments I get some idea. I send you this youtube-link I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r_TX_rDS8o&feature=related

    It´s nice to compare the tangos and find similarities, maybe we should be more proud of our finnish tango? It´s nice to read the comments in Youtube as well (=

    Disfruta, un abrazo Anu

    ReplyDelete

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