Encore Day 022 Suwalki - Gražiškiai

We got up early and my couchsurfing host Pawel showed me the good way towards Lithuania. Without him I might have taken the highway, which is full of crazy truck drivers. Instead we went along some beautiful minor roads through a very nice landscape: hills, lakes (the deepest lake in Europe!), small villages. Even with a bit of rain it was very enjoyable.
When we reached Lithuania Pawel had to turn back and I went on along the former Soviet Union border patrol path. It is kind of crazy: when I was a child this was the heavily guarded border of what was probably the biggest empire in history and now you can just roll into Lithuania and use the border structures for fun - instead the soldiers are patrolling now a few kilometres away, at the border of the small Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The way along the former border path was very beautiful, but it had a lot of ups and downs and the surface was mostly sand - not really goid with a packed travel bike, but it might be fun with a mountain bike (Pawel, you should try this once!).
Once I left the border road I just had to go through one village - on the surrounding fields was a huge flock of storks. I know them only in pairs, so I was very surprised to see maybe 100 at once. After the village I soon arrived at the place of Tadas, todays couchsurfing host. He is currently taking care of his parents big milk cow farm where they live in a big house within a beautiful setting. He showed me around the farm and we had some stories to share - he is also a long distance cyclist. In the evening friends came over and we all had a vegetarian meal and spent the evening talking and playing card games.

Encore Day 021 Borowo - Suwalki

That was a pretty exhausting day. I had to fight against some cold headwind and somehow cycling felt harder than usual today. The route was nice, however. Sleepy villages, storks, forests, beautiful wooden roadside houses for sale, hills and more lakes...
Suwalki is all communist style blocks, feels a lot like home. I am couchsurfing with Pawel, young guy, cycle-crazy. Really crazy. We will go together to Lithuania tomorrow and I am a bit afraid - he is the 200+km per day across the alps cycle-crazy kind of guy :-O That will be fun!

Encore Day 020 Kosewo - Borowo

The night was dry, but in the morning the rain began. While I was waiting for more cyclable weather I got to talk to another Katarzina, an impressive women and certainly a far bigger adventurer than me. As we talked she was nursing Susanna, her fifth child and most likely not the last one. I know that many people consider it strange to have so many children nowadays and many would bring forward arguments of overpopulation etc..., but I really like such big families. All of them seemed to be very happy and the children were very well behaved - ok, the kids stole my cookies, but only to distribute them fairly among themselves. Mmmh, this really looks like a great adventure for when my travelling days are over. But I guess nowadays in Germany it might prove difficult to find a girl whose family ideal doesn't stop at one or two children. When seeing such happy families I start to think if I shouldn't have thought about having own children earlier. Ok, I am in my mid thirties, which nowadays is an acceptable age for not having children yet (at least in Germany). The saddest part about not having had children earlier is that they won't get to know their grandma, as sadly my mom died some years ago. Well, cycling around the world for a year also doesn't exactly help in finding a girl to found a family with. Maybe it is really time for me to get home. You see, I was pondering quite a lot while I was cycling through the wonderful Masurian landscape. Around noon the rain had kind of stopped so I could get going. Not much later another shower drove me into a restaurant, but once this was over I could cycle safely along the beautiful lakes. I ended up at a lakeside campground near Gizycko. From here on I have only 2 days left in Poland, than I will enter Lithuania.

Encore Day 019 Olsztyn - Kosewo

Olsztyn is the place where the magic happens. When travelling for a long time you sometimes get kind of melancholic and contemplative. And then you suddenly come to a place that shows you that there can always be something really beautiful waiting for you just around the next corner. Olsztyn was this kind of place for me - it made me immediately fall in love with the town and its people.
This morning (or rather lunchtime) I was half sad for having to leave and half very happy for having had the chance to meet such nice people. I cycled into Masuria, which is said to be one of the nicest areas in Poland - and it really is. Beautiful forests, beautiful hills, beautiful lakes. I got pretty wet as the weather still was kind of moody. I ended up at wonderful lakeside camp ground where I could pitch my tent right on the beach and have a swim before falling asleep.

Encore Day 017 Klonowo - Olsztyn

I took my time to enjoy the beautiful place in the morning. In the night there was some heavy rain - which was really nice in the tent - in the morning there was still a strong wind, but it stayed dry most of the day. Due to some communication confusion I had agreed to 2 couchsurfing hosts, which had both invited me (yep, they have some new system which allows hosts to invite you based on your travel plans and it works very well, at least in smaller places). First I met up with Kasia, which convinced me very fast to stay one day longer in Olsztyn by promising me a Kayak tour and a lakeside bonfire and guitar evening for tomorrow. She showed me around town and we cycled to one of the wonderful lakes around. In the evening we met Iwona, my host for tonight. Both of them discussed my plan for tomorrow in Polish, but I fully trust them that it was only for my best. At Iwonas place we just ate (delicious!) and talked a lot about travels, travel philosophy, music and much more.

Encore Day 018 Olsztyn

A perfect day. Really really perfect day. I am happy.
In the morning I had to leave my first wonderful couchsurfing host Iwona, who even gave me a gift: 'Sculpting in time' - a book of filmmaker Andrej Tarkovskij - I always wanted to read it, but up to now I only had the German, which obviously is a very bad translation - they didn't even manage to get the German title right. I am very happy to be able to read the English version now.
Even though unfortunately Iwona could not join our activities for the day, she invited a friend of her, Arthur. Me and Arthur soon were joined by Kasia and her friend Oleg. Together we cycled a bit out of Olsztyn where we could rent Kayaks. Before I could really think about it I found myself sitting in a Kayak floating on a beautiful river in a wonderful wonderful setting. I realized that cycling might be great, but it always requires some kind of artificial infrastructure - a road or at least a path - when kayaking however, you are really completely within nature. We floated through wild forests, green meadows, along some farm houses whose owners were the targets of all our combined envy. The weather was pretty unstable. Every once in a while there was some rain - as we couldn't do anything about it, we just decided to enjoy it. And as there were some periods of sunshine inbetween it just added to the athmosphere. All along the river there were many beautiful blue dragonflies, which fluttered more butterfly(Schmetterling!)-like. We also saw swans, cows, dogs,... It was a wonderful trip, something I should do much more often.
During the end a pretty heavy rain started, but we managed to drag the kayaks out of the water and find shelter in the kayak rental mans car.
When we cycled back home: bright sunshine again - crazy weather. Back home Kasia prepared a delicious, huge vegetarian meal. And everybody in the house played guitar and sang. Kasia had told me that she played a bit, but she had completely concealed that she also sings - and very very good! We were joined by Kasias dad, who also performed some songs on his custom-build bluesharp-on-the-guitar-device. He also surprised his own daughter by speaking some English.
In the evening we all met again for a lakeside bonfire, during which me and Arthur realized that despite sharing a Kayak for most of the day, we had missed something important: we share a very distinct musical taste, especially bands like Coil and Current 93. The wonderful day ended in an even more wonderful way. I could not imagine something nicer than having a pretty girl with a heartbreakingly beautiful voice singing my own song to me. In German. With a wonderful accent. At the lakeside bonfire. Under the moon and the stars. Until long after midnight. Hach!

Encore Day 016 Torun - Klonowo

That was a loooong day. My couchsurfing hosts had to go to work early, so I sat on my bike some minutes after 6, something I would never have managed without a bit of outside pressure - I am really not a morning person. But due to the early start I managed to do more than 120km today. In the evening I found yet another very nice, very green spot for rough camping and just rested, watched the birds in the sky and listened to the crickets song.

Encore Day 015 Rozalnowo - Torun

That was a hot day. Not quite Indian-style hot, but still pretty exhausting.
The best parts were the beginning and the end. In the morning I took my time to enjoy the beautiful lakeside rough camping spot - and as I got ready for breakfast I was thankful to my past self which had organized cookies which I had completely forgotten about. As I had run out of battery I cycled without GPS - which isn't so bad anyway, maybe I should just let my mobile turned off more often.
In the afternoon I was again the first time couchsurfing experience for Anita & Artur & their kitten. I like to write couchsurfing requests to people without any references to give them a good start at couchsurfing. They were very nice, I got very tasty vegetarian food and they showed me around the small but very beautiful old town of Torun - which is famous for being the birthplace of Kopernikus (this I knew) and a rather radical catholic radio station/old peoples money gathering business (this I didn't know).