Dan's Life

The 4 weeks running up to our summer vacation were super busy at work so I didn't really have time to blog, not that I have much time now either really, I'm actually writing from a computer in the hotel lobby where we are staying in Rome. We're just killing time before our train to Paris leaves in about 2.5 hours. I'm sure I'll get some pictures here in a few more weeks after our trip ends.

 

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day & the end of your summer is going well.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't itching to buy a motorcycle every spring since arriving to Finland but this year, I finally pulled the trigger.

 

I won't talk about costs because everything in Finland is more expensive and, well, it's embarassing to say how much it cost, but some weeks ago I ordered a new Triumph Speedmaster and picked it up last Friday from Turku. This is the city where Liisa attended University so I'd been there quite a few times before, its' just about 2 hours drive from Helsinki. Of course they have a Triumph dealer also in Helsinki but I went around & around with a salesman there and the deal we made ended up falling through.

 

The train ride to Turku was filled with anticipation as I couldn't wait to get there, get the bike & start riding back to Helsinki. Everything went as well as expected and I snapped a picture of the bike before rolling it out of the showroom.

 

 

This is the first new bike I've ever owned, and before I took it away the odometer read between 00000.4 & 00000.5 km, I guess it had been pushed around a bit. I haven't taken any proper photos of it yet but I snapped one with my phone of the odometer when I filled up in Turku and a few more along the road on the ride back.

 

         

 

After almost a week it's now got about 300km on it and I'll be putting almost 700km more on it this weekend when Liisa & I take it to the summer cottage for the midsummer holiday, 3-day weekend. We'll be leaving tonight, returning on Sunday evening, praying the whole time that it doesn't rain (too much).

 

Oh yeah, and the unexpected side-effect is that at least 4 other co-workers I've talked to since buying it have now started expressing interest in getting their motorcycle license so they can get a bike too.

The same weekend Jusu & I were travelling through Estonia & Riga, a group of co-workers were doing the same thing on proper motorcycles. They were on the same boat returning to Helsinki Sunday evening as we were, and probably accomplished a lot more of everything (except time spent sitting) than we did, but surely we had more fun. Anyway, these co-workers met a couple in Tallinn on Sunday who are from Australia, and travelling around the world. They're currently one year into their two and a half year planned journey and were invited to come by the office last week to see what we do.

 

Their car was parked outside the office on Tuesday and caught a lot of attention.

 

 

I had the fortunate opportunity to meet them and spent some time talking as well. They left from Australia with their car on a cargo ship headed to Japan a year ago, and have been driving ever since. Their journey has taken them through just about everywhere including Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Siberia, and now Scandinavia. Their plans eventually take them across Canada to Vancouver, then down the west coast of the US through Seattle, San Francisco and ends a year and a half from now on the southern tip of South America.

 

More than anything it was really cool to talk to them because they are super nice people and have such great stories to tell. If you're interested in seeing a bit more about them they have a website here on MySpace. There's a bit more of their story there including pictures of their car being built from the ground up.

 

If you're interested in showing them some hospitality or meeting them (they love meeting and talking to people, it's the reason they are having this journey) then let me know & I can get you in touch with them. I've already spoken with a few people at Microsoft as they said they'd love to see the campus, but please let me know if you'd also like to show them around or meet them or something.

 

They sure put our measily ride to Riga & back into perspective.

What was the coolest thing you saw?

Jusu: This one is a close call, but I’ll have to go for the stork we saw during the first day at sunset. I had never seen one live and that just totally surprised me. A really good runner up was the seeing the church bell being installed in a small village in Latvia.

Dan: Opposite for me. Church bell first, runner up the stork.

 

What was the funnest thing you did?

Jusu: I definitely did laugh most on the Pärnu hotel balcony when we had a chat after a few shots of salmiakki kossu.

Dan: Yeah, definitely the first night in Pärnu but not limited to the balcony, just the whole evening between checking into the hotel and falling asleep.

 

What was your favorite part of the trip (or was it the same as one of the above)?

Jusu: Favorite part was the small road between Estonia and Latvia. Really nice road to drive with nice views to the sea.

Dan: The whole thing in a way I guess. Just being relatively far from home, having "guy time", experiencing so many new things and not being at work.

 

What was your least favorite part of the trip?

Jusu: Must have been Riga, horrible traffic and the scooter started acting up.

Dan: Definitely Riga. Losing my glasses, death defying traffic and just wanting to be out of there.

 

What one food place would you recommend to someone else?

Jusu: I don’t think we ate at any place that would really stick out.

Dan: Definitely the steak join in Riga. It was, for this trip, Riga's only redeeming value.

 

Biggest disappointment?

Jusu: Riga was a bit of a let down, but I would not call it a big disappointment anyway.

Dan: Scooter troubles

 

What would you do differently?

Jusu: Not much, possibly tweak the scooter to do 55 km/h to match the traffic a bit better and check that everything is attached after the bumpy roads of Riga, but that’s pretty much it.
Dan: Buy a luggage box for the back of the scooter, take a sleeping bag, take headphones that I forgot for the iPod.