Hello world. We, Pim and Paul, have been on a few roadtrips ever since we’ve had a car available to us. These trips have brought us across the United Stated in an epic 2010 Road Trip NY to LA, but also to the Islands West of us in a fun-filled 2013 Road Trip UK and IE. It’s been a while, but this year we shall be going North until there is no more road … to the Northern Cape. Something something Sweden to, and Norway fro, or the other way around. Because planning is not our strong suite. We are totally going to wing it all the way there and back. It will be a blast.
Our trip today This will mark the end of our fantastic voyage from Zurich (Switzerland) through Almere (the Netherlands), then northbound through Germany, Denmark and Sweden, all the way to Honningsvåg and the Real North Cape (also the commercial one), and then meandering down south through Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and finally, the return dest which is Wien Austria. But before I get ahead of myself, let me tell you about this last day of our roadtrip.Read more...
Our trip today A short night’s sleep. We got in at 2am yesterday after our caprioles with Brno and hotels, and midnight charging. What we found when we got back to our hotel room yesterday night (err, this morning) is that the room ended up being a double after all. This is an ironic touch to the hectic day, because the first hotel (the one with a walk-in) actually had a double room available with a king-sized bed, but we skipped because spooning ain’t our thing.Read more...
Our trip today Our plan for the day was to visit beautiful Praha, the capital of the Czech Republic, and then make our way down south to Brno, its second largest city. As we woke up and saw the daylight of Lovosice, our day started easy-going. Breakfast and coffee were good in our lodging, the Hotel Lev with spa and swimming pool and sauna, none of which we’ve made use of.Read more...
Our trip today Yesterday’s post will show a map of us at midnight in the middle of Kattegat, the water between Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The ship relentlessly kept its course and navigated us into the Kiel harbor this morning. The boarding pass said that we had a breakfast table at 07:00, whoops, so let’s set the alarm at 06:55 and wing it. Breakfast buffet was pretty elaborate, but we don’t eat much.Read more...
Our trip today Just as most other moving-days, we did not manage to do much, but we will manage to write a whole page of storyline on the not much we’ve done. The church bells start chiming at 07:00 this lovely Sunday morning. I didn’t know Oslo was so .. Christian. But one nice touch is that it’s not just ringing of the bells, but a relatively hip song they’re playing out there.Read more...
Our trip today Paul told me that during EuroBSD Conference in 2019 there was the ‘main’ hotel Scandic Lillehammer, which was also the conference venue, and then there was a secondary hotel for those on a somewhat lower budget, a few hundred meters due North, called Birkebeineren. Although the room here is pretty good, we did notice that there’s a few highschool and/or sporting clubs who dropped their kids in this hotel.Read more...
Our trip today It is an easy drive today for us. We decide to visit Lillehammer which is a little bit east of here, but also affords us an easy route to Oslo tomorrow, well in time to get the ferry to Kiel. The city Lillehammer is known to Paul, as he has helped organize a EuroBSD Conference here in 2019. It’s less known to me, other than from the Netflix series Lilyhammer which I found a very nice show to watch.Read more...
Our trip today I was excited yesterday and put my alarm at 07:00, however completely unexpectedly, I woke up at 06:30 already and could no longer sleep, despite the bed being reasonably comfy. I beckoned Paul who was (obvioulsy) already awake, and he booted up his morning ritual program. At 07:15 we were downstairs making breakfast, boiled eggs (to perfection, if I might say!), the usual bread, salami, smoked salmon, and to mix it up a little Italienisk Salat rather than my usual Sommarsalat.Read more...
Our trip today Today was another driving day. We’re trying to make our way to the area of Tessanden, to take a good look at the beautiful Jotunheimen, where Loki reigns. We start with a more-than average breakfast in the Scandic of Trondheim. I had booked this hotel yesterday using a saved coupon “for special occasions” and we believe this was warranted. In the end we paid only a handful of Euros which afforded us a so-so room but a holy-smokes breakfast.Read more...
Our trip today Today we were doing something referred to in Dutch as kilometervreten, perhaps best translated to English as gobbling up miles, as we spent that extra day up here to hike to the Svartisen glacier, we have to make up for time a little bit. Our boat from Oslo to Kiel is on September 11th at 14:00, and while we do have some time between now and then, we also have a lot of things to do.Read more...
Our trip today We arrived at Mo i Rana yesterday night and we checked in to a cheap hotel called Svartisen Hotel, it’s unmanned which means we had to go get our room key down the street in the Ole Tobias hotel (a Best Western). Because we had a particular hike in mind, we kind of knew that we weren’t going to be able to make it and leave on the same day, so we do some math and decide that we can afford to stay an extra night in Mo i Rana.Read more...
But first, this! After we had finished most of the blog-transfer-work yesterday evening, we were hanging out on the couch. Paul had just decided to turn in for the night, when Franciska (our German housemate) walked into the livingroom, asking if we had seen the Northern light. I was surprised by this, as I wasn’t sure if she was asking if we had ever seen them, or if we had seen them now… Color me surprised in many hues of green when it turns out she means now, we open the backdoor to the patio and I am speechless.Read more...
The Plan Yesterday night we went to bed not too late, because we knew we had a big day today. I didn’t sleep all too well, the matrass is a bit lumpy and I was on the top bed of the bunk. I tossed and turned a bit before falling asleep, and I woke up with a little bit of a lower back ache. I’m getting old! Although I put the alarm at 08:00, I was up before that, but it was way too late apparently, because all of our housemates had already left for the day.Read more...
Breakfast Honestly today we didn’t doo too much. We got up at our usual 7am (ish) and did the morning ritual. In the restaurant, folks were already having the, now rather common, break-feast. There were soft boiled eggs, so I had a few. Otherwise, there was this really nice freshly baked bread with a nice crumb and crunchy crust. It goes great with salmon and salami and a nice drink of orange juice.Read more...
Breakfast This morning we got up at our usual time, 07:00, although every time I get up at our usual time, Paul is already nose-deep in his phone doing some reading. I think he gets up at a .. let’s say, somewhat earlier time than I do :-) We went to the lobby and through to the restaurant where we had dinner yesterday and there were folks chattering away and eating/drinking their breakfast feast.Read more...
About those hiking boots… As Pim reported yesterday, there was this slight inconvenience with my boots during the hike, so we should remedy that first. Pim was already threatening to hike the Besseggen trail without me, if I didn’t have shoes (I do have shoes .. but my driving shoes should really only be used for driving, the sole is pretty worn out, and I have a pair of ‘decent’ shoes, not something to hike on).Read more...
The Hike to Dest We woke up at 07:00 and were at the breakfast table at 07:45. There was a nice spread of things available and lots of folks in the hotel were already nomming on their first meal of the day. We had some scrambled eggs with toast, smoked salmon, juice, coffee, and bread rolls. That was all fine.
Then, we got our stuff from the hotel (mostly I had emptied my backpack of the usual cruft, so that I could walk the day lean and mean), and made our way to the car which was parked at Scandic Bryggen and fully charged by now.Read more...
Part 1: Freud explains Pim’s WEiRD dream Paul slept not too great this last night, the bed was too small in all dimensions he said (too short, too thin and not very wide). I myself, slept like a baby on steroids, although I did have the most wonderful dream. I think Freud would say that I was coping or processing the day’s events from before, which I believe is healthy. My dream had me in a sort of a Luna park but with my bicycle, where we had to run down with a hundred or so folks with really expensive race bikes, but after a while we all had to dismount in sort of a triathlon except it was in the luna park itself, where we had to do mixemup and dodge’em and I totally sucked at it.Read more...
Original Plan When we last wrote, what feels like an eternity ago, we were in lovely Sweden in a town called Skellefteå, which we know now is pronounced a little bit like She-left-tayo, and that is kind of how we feel today too - lady luck has left us in the lurch. It all started just fine in our hotel, we woke up and did our usual grooming, put on clothes, got some great breakfast at the hotel, and then made our way downstairs to -3 to put the things in the car and start our day.Read more...
Waking Up This morning we got up not too early, I think it must’ve been 07:20 that my watch gently poked me, and 08:00 when my iPhone less than subtly made a god damn racket, serves me right for not getting up the first time. Our hotel in Gävle was full of bikers (the motor cycle type), and they were bustling around in the hotel dining area, where we found some pretty good breakfast.Read more...
This morning, we left pretty early from our hotel in Copenhagen. First order of business was to get some groceries, so we went to SPAR first. A couple of rolls, some toppings and ingredients for a nice salad later, we left CPH for Sweden. That was a surprisingly smooth experience: we turned onto the E20, and mere minutes later, we were in the tunnel and onto the bridge to Malmö.Read more...
Missing Alien Have you seen this Alien? His name is Uhi, and he was last spotted in Almere, the Netherlands. He is 25cm (12 inches) tall, pink skin with magenta legs, arms, top of ears and antenna stubs. He weighs about 220g (8 oz) and speaks Dutch, English, Klingon and Alinsk. Very friendly and approachable, I’m pretty sure he would like to be reunited with his family in Brüttisellen, Switzerland.Read more...
It started with a few eggs (but no bread!) at 07:30, Henrieke was going to take off for work at 07:45 and so were we. Car was reasonably charged, enough to get us to Drachten at least, and we trailed Henrieke in her car until Emmeloord after which we said our virtual goodbyes. Then, we took off a little bit but only after sticking a stapel and iconic mascot to our windshield: A smurf!Read more...
Since our original plans in 2019 have changed, here’s a bonus-starter-post for you all. Originally, Paul would fly down to Zurich and our trip would start from my place. However, that’s no longer happening, as I have to be in Munich for work, so my roadtrip starts a bit earlier than his. This is not day one for me, although as computer programmers might start counting from 0, let me give you a little prelude on the leadup.Read more...
