Moving on

Have now spent a couple of days doing little besides the obligatory writing jobs that I had been avoiding until the very last moment. After much huffing and puffing, sighing and hand-wringing, both articles have now been sent and I am free to carry on with the journey. In the morning, I will be getting back in the saddle to commence the trip towards Düsseldorf.


To prepare for the journey, today I visited a wonderful bookstore in downtown Hamburg. My pretext was that I needed new maps, but I ended up spending 3 hours browsing through not only the incredibly well-stocked travel section (they even had a full department for bicycle touring), but marvelling also at the contemporary history, biography and art sections...not to mention the fiction, self-help and psychology departments! What a treasure trove, and what a joy to be able to enjoy the variety! (I have been pleasantly surprised by the ease with which I can read German, as it is a very long time since I last used it.) I only left when they closed the store, and made a mental note to visit their branches in other cities too.

Am hoping to get to Düsseldorf by Friday night, as I already bought a 'milonga package', a set of tickets for 3 consecutive nights. Will be sending updates along the way, but probably no pics before getting to Düsseldorf.

Me and Max posing for the camera.

P.S. Oh, I did go to one more milonga in Hamburg. This one was an afternoon one, and I only got there less than an hour before it ended. Still, I got to dance a tanda of milongas and another of tango. Even if I had to cycle in the pouring rain to get there, it was still worth it!

Comments

  1. Anonymous01/06/2010, 13:39

    Hei Mari! Olen taasen jatkolukenut seikkailutaivaltasi. Olet kokenut paljon mukavia asioita. Ken uskaltaa, se saavuttaa. Tango aiheena siivittää ihanasti kaupungin iltojasi. Hienoja fotoja! Zempiä ja turvallista jatkomatkaa!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mari05/06/2010, 22:33

    Moi Anne (sinahan se kai olet?)
    joo, totesin taas kerran tanaan, miten hienoa on kun on tango iltoja siivittamassa. Eipa tarvitse lahtea kaupungin yohon etsimaan muuta viihdyketta, ja samalla valttyy isolta rahanmenolta ja monilta tylsilta baareilta ja typeralta small talkilta! :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Respekt...! (Cheb, Czech Republic)

Image
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...
Read more

Getting into the swing of it (Pärnu)

Well, after two days of cycling I have both good and bad news. The good news is that very little seems to have changed for me in terms of travelling this way. Yesterday, although getting out of Tallinn was as stressful as leaving a strange city on a fully-loaded touring bike always is, I quickly noticed that indeed, I had not forgotten how to do this. Nor did the little over 100 km I covered both yesterday and today seem impossible to do, although the last 20 km certainly took some willpower. One thing that has greatly eased my settling into the right mindset is the fact that my Dad is accompanying me for a few days in his camper van. This means that not only do I have a soft mattress to sleep on and someone to pay my meals (;-), most importantly, there is someone to encourage me on (in his case, this means trying to get me to put the bike on the van and driving with him instead of cycling, something that I obviously wont do :-). All this works in my favour, as does being able to get...
Read more

Tango Music Challenge Day 3

(Share one of your favorite Argentine Tango Songs (tango, milonga,or vals) and promote someone else to do the same 3 Day Challenge) Although I don't generally care for most of the challenges that circulate the web, I must say that I have enjoyed this one tremendously: It has sharpened my focus on what touches and motivates me in tango, how the music influences me and what I am looking for when dancing to it. The third and final orchestra is for me as obvious as the fact that night follows day, winter is forever chasing the summer and all living things must die. No matter how beautiful, powerful or touching other orchestras' interpretations may be, there is no-one quite like Osvaldo Pugliese. While there are times when I seem to drift further away from him, the re-encounter is every time more satisfying, as if I was finally back home from wandering lost, cold and lonely in a strange and inhospitable land. However, Pugliese's is no easy-listening music. To continue w...
Read more