Hello to all at zonegroup office. I trust the visit by the Elite agency model was a thrill to all.
Heres a cycling update from Wroclaw, Poland, where internet access is cheap (1ukp/hour)
Cycling update:
We left Goteborg, Sweden and headed for Malmo in the south of Sweden. Sweden proved to be exceptionally boring, dull rolling landscape and not a lot else going on, so we quit Sweden at Helsingborg, taking the ferry (for a mere 2ukp) to Helsingor in Denmark. Earlier in the day that we took the ferry to Denmark, Paul and I managed to lose each other. Paul decided, in his infinite wisdom, to take a cycle path through a village. As we exited the village I glanced behind and noticed that Paul wasn't behind. He's usually only slow up hills, so I figured maybe he'd got a puncture or something. I back tracked 2 kilometers to that last place I'd seen him but he was nowhere to be found. Seeing as Paul carries half the tent, losing him overnight would be a slight problem. By now I'd figured that he'd somehow got in front of me, so I cycled to the next town, Angelholm, expecting to see him after every corner. Eventually I saw him waiting on a roundabout, seconds away from heading to our final destination and waiting for me there. I had decided to wait for Paul in Angleholm however, so a couple more minutes would have meant not meeting up for a couple of days. Still, losing each other only once in 1,700kms wasn't too bad.
We got off the boat in Helsingor, Denmark at about 10pm at night. We cycled to a camp site whose reception had closed for the night and put our tent up. By the time that we had packed up the tent and our stuff the next day, it was 11am and the reception had closed for the morning. So we hastily rode past the office without paying. We feared the police all that day. We reached Copenhagen, a fine city if ever there was one, where we had a floor to sleep on courtesy of Peter, a friend of a friend of Pauls. Peter liked to smoke dope. Big style.And to talk about it a lot. In Copenhagen there is an area called Christiania when the police tolerate the open sale of cannabis resin. We strolled down 'Pusher Street' (as its called, though given the situtation, these people are selling it rather than actaully 'pushing' it?) past stalls with seriously large quantities of gear. As Peter liked to tell us, you can pick up the hash and smell it to decided if it's the stuff for you. A bit like the french choosing a cheese at a market. We met a Dutch guy who was really impressed by this tolerance, saying it was much more open than Amsterdam.
We left Copenhagen after a couple of drunken days hanging out with Pauls mate Katja. We took a river tour and sat in coffee houses and touristy things, and were greatly impressed by the amount of cycles we saw. In Copenhagen, cycling is a valied mode of transport. The town has wide cycle paths everywhere the roads are, and in places without roads. It was the first place I've ever been in a cycle jam, and been waiting at traffic lights with 20 other cyclists. Cars give way to cyclists when turning right, and will wait ages for you to pass - a totally refreshing situation compared to London. I feel sorry for the Dannish cyclists who try cycling in London. Expect certain death. Denmark wins the golden award for cycle lane provision. In the 171 miles we covered in Denmark, 99% of them were completed on cycle paths.
From Denmark we took the ferry to Rostock in Germany (the former GDR) for 40kr (4ukp). East Germany felt strange, slightly deserted and sinister. Nobody spoke English, a real shock after Scanadinavia, and there were no camp sites, so we had to resort to illegal wild camping. We wanted to pay money for camping, but couldn't find anywhere! In Berlin we did our usual trick of turning up in a town when some big event is going off. Berlin was in Love Parade fever. We everntually got a hostel, more expensive than we wanted, as all the spaces were taken by dance music fanaticists.
The Love Parade is Europes premier techno festival (apparantly), but it did start properly until our second night in berlin. For our first day we headed to the Berlin German-Russian museum in the hope of discovering how the old GDR actually worked. The museum was a strange mix of history from Berlin, under Nazi government and under the Soviet system. Unfortuately it was all written in russian and german, so we could read too much. The place was run by a mad old women who rushed us around and warned us that the place closed in 50 minutes. At 6pm the place was locked up, and the staff had left before we'd even unlocked our cycles. Maybe a taste of the old east... The hostel was above a club, which that night was having a Love Parade event. It was seriously loud, and from 10pm onwards we sat in the hostel lounge drinking bear and listening to deafening thuds until 7am. I managed to fall asleep around 4am, as the sound became strangely abstract, and began to sound like being abord a ferry, a nice sound.
From berlin we headed to the polish border and into Poland. If nobody speaks english in Germany, then absolutely nobody has even heard of english in Poland. It takes about half an hour to order at a resturant, and even then it's a surprise. We headed more or less straight to Wroclaw, in the south of Poland. It took about 4 days from the German border, and campsites have been few and far between. A couple of nights ago we got caught out cycling at about 10pm with no campsite in sight. So we checked in the biggest poshest hotel we could find, and it still only cost us 10ukp each for bed and breakfast. Poland is about half the price of england generally. This internet cafe costs 1ukp per hour, compared to nearly 6ukp per hour in Sweden. Today in Wroclaw there is a buskers festival, so the town will soon be full of fire eaters, mimeartists and singers. So we shall pass the time drinking beer and watching free entertainment!
Tom Moreton (tom@fatbeehive.com)