Travel stories, pictures, music, food !!!

There will be 2 shows about my small bicycle trip to India. I will talk a bit about my travels, show pictures, we will play music and there will be a buffet with dishes from my route.
The venue is the wonderful, cosy Helheim, Weißenfelser Str. 32, 04229 Leipzig. The shows will be on:

Saturday, 01.12.2012
Doors 19:00
Start 20:00

&

Sunday, 02.12.2012
Doors 13:00
Start 14:00

Encore Day 042 somewhere on the Baltic Sea - Leipzig

Now my trip is really really really over. Early in the morning our ferry arrived in Rostock. I had to say goodbye to Alex, who had been a wonderful cycling companion. It was her first cycling trip and though she did complain every now and then she always kept going :o). Let's see, it is very well possible that some part of the world will see us cycling again.
I went home by train. First thing at home after unpacking my bike: finally a shave. Now I have only one day left until I am back to normal life - on Monday at 8:30 I will start working again :-O
But it is good that way - I had a extremely, exceptionally, extraordinarily great time, but after more than a year it is good to be back home. Here I can see my family and friends, here I can make music and here I will actually have time to think about all the wonderful experiences of the last year.

Encore Day 041 Floating on the Baltic Sea

The ferry is smaller than expected. Which is a good thing. There is only
one shop, which isn't even open very much. But there is a free sauna and
whirlpool. And a lot of good food. So we spent the day relaxing, eating,
talking, reading and looking at the sea.

Encore Day 040 Helsinki - somewhere on the Baltic Sea

Oh nooo, it's time to day goodbye again. That is goodbye to my dear dear
friends and goodbye to travelling. From now on I only go home. I spent the
morning talking with Yesmith. Once I had checked the location of the ferry
terminal I was shocked: it wasn't one of the terminals near to old town,
but it was way out of town. But there was still enough time to organize
everything and to call Alex back early from her trip to the center. Once we
had to say goodbye, Yesmith, Thomas and Luna promised me to visit Leipzig
next year - so this time it won't be 5 years until we meet again :o) We had
shared an important time in our lives, probably one of the times which
shaped us the most. It is great that even after nearly a decade, meeting up
with them feels as if these times were just yesterday.
The ride to the ferry was long: train to the main station, metro all the
way to the end station and another 3km of walking. But everything no
problem, we made it on time. I hadn't booked a cabin, just reclining seats,
but there is enough space for our camping mattresses in the reclining seats
area. I had however booked full meals, which was definitely a good idea:
very tasty, all-you-can-eat and even for vegetarians many options. Whatever
weight we might have lost on the cycling trip, we will definitely gain
again during the next 2 days!

Encore Day 039 Helsinki

Wellness day! Yesmith and Alex talked the morning away. Than we cycled into
the city to do the most finnish thing of all: Sauna. It was not fancy at
all, just a room with a huge metal oven - but due to the lack of fancyness
the experience felt much more real. Afterwards we were very relaxed and
considerably exhausted. We went to a cute, friendly, colourful cafe nearby
where we met up with Jenny, who had been couchsurfing at my place about 2
years ago. After cycling back I fulfilled my duty as the apprentice of
cooking master Thomas. In the evening a movie showed us the very scary
reality behind the fairytale Santa Claus.

Encore Day 038 Tallinn - Helsinki

We arrived! We took the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki where Yesmith
waited together with Baby Luna for us :o) . She is muy cute! We went home
to have some food and talk and guitar playing. Later Alex and me cycled
into the town center. They have awesome cycling paths here. The city is
quite modern, there are some nice buildings every now and then but overall
it is not as amazing as Tallinn or Riga. In the evening we met up with Cam,
Australian writer who had just arrived in Helsinki where he had found a job
that allowed him to get paid for what he likes to do most. He couldn't
quite believe his luck yet. He was couchsurfing at my place. It was great
to catch up with him after such a long time. Once we had cycled back home
also Thomas had arrived. I know Yesmith and Thomas for 9 years now and I
had beem at their wedding in Mexico 5 years ago - it is wonderful to meet
them again and to say hello to their newborn babygirl.

Encore Day 037 Aespa - Tallinn

I fought the very dangerous tiger Simon most of the night. In the morning we made some plans - our host Railis sister is living in Tallinn, so we could stay there. Raili even decided to join us  (though not on bicycle) and show us around. We cycled the short distance to Tallinn and within the last 10km of your journey we got into some heavy rain. Very spontaneous heavy rain. We were cycling in bright sunshine and 2 minutes later we were completely soaked. Fortunately we had only few kilometers left. We returned Alex's bike at the bus station and met up with Raili again. We went to her sisters place, got into dry clothes and went to Old town to have probably the best pancakes of our lives. We went a bit through the very beautiful old town until it was time to have some ciders in the park - illegaly, as drinking in public spaces is forbidden :-O Somehow we didn't stop at that, so we gathered quite some experiences with the Tallinn bar culture.

Encore Day 036 Paide - Aespa

We hadn't managed to see all of the museum in the rampart tower yesterday, so we went to see the remaining parts. I didn't know that before, but in Paide we had also ended up at the birthplace of mighty mighty Arvo Pärt - on the way back to Kristas place we visited the site of his birthhouse. Around noon it was time to say goodbye to Krista and we started a long ride. About 90 km with mostly forest to the left, forest to the right. We just stopped a few times for food or a roadside coffee - which was the first time I used my cooker since leaving Leipzig. We arrived in the small village of Aespa where our host Raili lives in a small and simple but nice house - together with Simon, a very very dangerous tiger! In the evening we did the only reasonable thing: going to a Metal concert, yeah! Most of the bands were quite good and we even managed to meet some other couchsurfers there.