Mari Travels with Tango

Having promised myself to get at least a glimpse of what the cities I visit have to offer besides tango, this morning I postponed my departure from Copenhagen to visit the Danish State Gallery of Art. I could choose between that and an exhibition at the National Museum, titled Who Are the Danes, both being extremely accessible by bike and the free admission. After some contemplation I decided that I was more in the mood for art. I am happy that I did, as although I am no great art expert, it gave me some food for thought. The museum itself was an easy 10 min bike ride from my hostel (indeed, almost everything in Copenhagen seems to be!), so I decided to visit it the last thing before heading out of the city. I am quite a short-tempered art-viewer though; if a painting does not attract my attention, I will walk past it without a second glimpse, and this time too, ended up walking past lots of canvases. However, there were also pieces that really moved me, and I...

The Saturday night ball was also a masquearade with the theme 'Movie Star' As the heading implies, I am fast getting into the philosophical mood that often invades me when I travel. The monotonous hours and days of cycling, intercepted with the sudden rushes of adrenaline, endorphine and oxytocin (my favourite hormone, as its effects are so soothing) caused by tango, seems the perfect recipe for moving into philosophical waters. Úsually, reaching this mode takes about 2 weeks, and the rule seems to apply this time as well. What I understood already in my very first months of dancing tango was that despite the 'passion and drama' that it is often associated with, what really attracts me to it is its role as a magnifying glass of human relations. For me, the challenge of being intimate without becoming clingy, being independent without seeming cold, being strong without appearing hard, expressing my (admittedly strong) personality without coming accross as bossy, are a...

After a wonderful 4 days at Tango Camp Sweden, I am now ready to move on. It was a lovely, fulfilling, exhausting and rewarding immersion into tango, and my understanding of it gained lots of new insight. However, I feel it will be beneficial to let it 'sink in' a little before I tell you about it more in detail. For now, I just wanted to say that the experiences, emotions and thoughts I have experienced during this past weekend have greatly enriched my life, and indeed I feel very content right now. True, my feet are aching, but my head is almost giddy with the sense of happiness that has washed over me like an ocean wave. I am just about to leave Tylösand, am heading towards Copenhagen where there will be an outdoor milonga tomorrow evening. The distance should not be too much to cover, and since I am now almost back to normal in terms of the cold ( my voice still quite husky though!), and the headwind has died down, it should be quite a relaxed couple of days to my next ...

Well, I did make it to Tango Camp in time. It was not the easiest couple of days of my life, as most if not all of the imaginable hardships presented themselves at the same time. Or what do you think of this: the constant, strong headwind that seemed to turn as my course did, the incredibly moody weather (really, the only thing I have not had during the past couple of days is snow or hail), the surpisingly hilly terrain (then again, I had learned the hard way on previous year's trip that Southern Swedern is far from flat)...and finally, the flu that turned into more than a casual cold. As a matter of fact, for the best part of these two days I think I have had so much fever that my memories are a bit of a blur. If it hadn't been for the wonderful Finnrexin flu medicin I had had the foresight to bring along, I don't know where I would be now. Probably somewhere in a ditch, having simply given up. To top it all up, and I know you are going to laugh at this, I got so saddle-...

The heading says it all: despite my hopes for easier conditions, today's ride managed to squeeze out every single drop of energy. Before the trip, I remember somebody asking me which was worse: a strong headwind or big,persistent uphills. I replied 'both at the same time'. Today was just that kind of a combination: big,rolling hills that never ended, plus just as strong headwind as yesterday. Add to that the fact that my body is clearly starting to realise, and resist, that it is expected to perform at over average effort levels day in,day out...plus the sorry fact that (and I have difficulties admitting this even to myself) I am once again down with a flu...well,you get the picture. It was a long, long day. They do say that a flu will follow its course, whatever you do. Must say I never tried cycling 100 for a cure, and based on today the effect does not seem very beneficial. Am writing this in a hostel bed a little outside of Jönköping city centre. Must say am...

If the two previous days had seemed effortless like a stroll in the park, today was anything but. Perhaps due to the relaxed morning in Zlata's garden, I was very slow to get going. In fact, I think it may have been well past noon when I finally rolled out of Norrköping. The morning in Zlata's garden. Actually, rolling was pretty far from it, as I had the most persistent, heavy headwind the whole day to stop me from enjoying even the steepest downhill. I had to use all my tested tricks to keem myself from getting angry at the frustratingly slow progress: singing out aloud (especially handy when going through scary bits like steep,bumpy downhills or narrow-laned highways with lots of overtaking traffic), listening to my favourite tangos by Sexteto Mayor and Adriana Varela (although i've listened to it a thousand times, I still cannot help crying when I hear her singing 'Volver'), even, as a last resort, thinking about sex that usually keeps me entertained in monoto...

My room in Björnalunda Vandrarhem. Cosy, don't you think? It was a day full of rain and deserted roads, but not without its rewards. Had a reasonably early start as I wanted to make sure I would not miss the milonga in Norrköping. Judging by the map that only displays distances between bigger towns, it would be a little over 100km to where I wanted to go -not impossible but certainly no piece of cake either, at this stage. I ended up spending the whole day, with only one proper break, in the saddle. It was just as well, as the rain that had been just a drizzle in the morning steadily accelerated into a true downpour by the time I got close to my destination. Luckily, though, I had the wind in my favour, so even the uphills seemed easy. In addition, I had some pleasant surprises such as finding an amazing abundance of wild strawberries by the roadside. Riding into Norrköping just before 5 in the afternoon I had just enough time to find the milonga. Fortunately, the Work Muse...

It was amazingly easy, it almost felt as if I'd never left the road at all. The cycling felt effortless and even the slow pace seemed ok, despite the little exercise I've been doing in the past months. As soon as I rode out of the inner city, I was back in my element. With David My departure from Stockholm was an unhurried one, as I first had a leisurely breakfast with David at a lovely streetside café in Södermalm. Sitting there on the terrace, enjoying the fantastic food and the gentle morning sunshine, I was beginning to question the use of leaving Stockholm in the first place. Really, why bother, when this city was so full of tango and street café's, good music and beautiful people? At that moment, the thought of getting to Paris seemed about as realistic as getting to be 20 again. Riding out of Södermalm, the first meters of my trip. However, my qualms evaporated the moment I got into the saddle. David escorted we out of Södermalm and showed me the direction...

True to myself, I spent most of yesterday either sleeping or wandering aimlessly around Stockholm. True, the weather was not most encouraging either, having returned to what can be considered normal in this part of the world: wind, occasional showers and the refreshingly (?) brisk temperatures of around 14 degrees. I did manage, although only just, to take care of the few preparations that I had planned. On my two previous trips to Stockholm I had wanted, but somehow never got around to, visiting the Dance Museum that houses dance related artefacts from around the world. This time I actually did it, and despite the initial disappointment that so much of the display concentrated on costumes (really, what had that got to do with dance?) and scene replicas from different productions had a lovely time there. Additionally, there was very little material related to other European dance traditions besides ballet (which as some of you know, is not among my favourite forms of entertainment). ...

As was to be expected, my packing ended up taking most of the night, and still I have only a vague idea of what I have actually taken along. At some point during the night, in the middle of lists of unfinished business, I had the seemingly bright idea of baking some croissants in order to have something fresh to munch on during the train ride. This is an easy-enough task that I regularly manage quite adequately at the café (or so I like to think), but this time something did not go as planned (see below). (To those of my readers who are familiar with the Finnish TV offer, one might even add that 'it did not quite go as in Strömsö...') Well, I did not really want croissants anyway. Perhaps partly due to finishing one more bottle of sparkling wine that had been left over from the birthday party earlier this week, nothing seemed to be getting much readier despite all tmy efforts. In the end, I got something like 1,5 hours of sleep before getting up at the god-forsaken hour ...

Here we go again. It is my usual routine, the one that most of you know only too well: it is well past midnight, I am due to leave on my next bike adventure in less than six hours' time, I have not really even started packing... and instead, I am doing all the other things that I have left to the last moment. Encouraged by last year's amazing tour, I will be cycling down the Tango Road again. This time too, I will be heading towards the South, however choosing a more westerly route: first the ferry to Stockholm, then cycling towards the West Coast of Sweden for a Tango Camp in Tylösand. From there on, I have a vague route plan that mostly consists of avoiding the places I went to last year (not because I did not like them, because I did, but because I am an addict to constant changes in scenery, setting and atmosphere). This will quite probably take me down a route following loosely the Atlantic coast all the way from Danemark to Holland, maybe even France. If and how I get t...