It's Friday ... It's Fiona

Friday July 3rd, Campings

Camping is good in Norway. Very clean, today the shower was even cleaner than at home. Whose home? Not mine at the moment. Very nice anyway for such a neurotic person about cleanliness as I am. After arriving at the camping, around 4-5 PM, we pitch our tent and immediately take a shower. Even Willem :-). At that hour, the showers are deserted, lovely.
Nearly every camping has a kitchen, where Willem cooks the most lovely meals. I tell you about that later, but it's soooo good. There are a lot of caravans and campers unfortunately, but when you take the secondary roads, you'll loose them, last but not least. The campings are quite a distance apart and for a bicyclist it's sometimes very far. But, it's not a holiday isn't it :-).

Friday July 10th, Steenpuisten

Steenpuisten is in dutch, what in english are boils. I'll tell you this: it's on your bum, the thing you are sitting on all day long and they are big, inflammated, red, hot and painful. No matter how you sit, lift your bum from the saddle, or just try to ignore it, it hurts a lot, so much that it takes your breath away. I was breathless for days and still am.

Friday July 17th, Nature

At the North Cape, there's nothing. Bare rocks, but no trees, no people, no roads ... yes, one road the E6. No animals, only wind. When you go down nature changes. You see little fishing boats, little fishing houses. Few people, few of everything.
Now that we approach Trondheim, nature becomes more voluptuous. Rolling valleys, with meadows and cows, in between mountain tops covered with trees. More of everything. You see foxes, hear the birds and smell the cows. Life seems easy, but it is not for a long distance cycler. But we enjoy.

Friday July 24th, Physiotherapy

Norway seems an interesting country for physiotherapists. Just along the road I saw good, simple and innovative types of walking aid's. One of them was what I would call a kind of autoped (or step ?). It looked like two autopeds, app. half a meter apart, only attached at the front with a handlebar. In a way, just like a rollator.
The space between the two autopeds is wide enough to allow the person to walk. At the same time, the walking aid can be used as a step. In that case you can either use the left or the right leg as standing, supporting one. For walking distances you can use it as a rollator, but as a step, you can go further, for example for some neighbourhood shopping.
Your balance doesn't need to be perfect, because the autoped itself is stable. You must have reasonable hand-function though, because you must be able to steer and take support on your hands. The indication could be a stroke patient, but I think also other type of patients could benefit from it.

And now for something completely different: Last night I dreamt about one whole week of real holiday :-).

Friday July 31st, the Top Ten of Norway

Leaving Norway and looking back at six weeks of cycling through it, I made a top ten of what I found the most striking of this country.

Tissue paper
Honesty
Nei = no = nee = nei = nei = always nei
Blomster, flowers everywhere
Friday evening booz time
Food is not important
Perfectionism, an eye for the important things in life and small is beautiful
Sunday quietness, still recovering from (5)
Nationalistic
It's soooo big, that it hurts

Friday Auguts 7th, The wind

We are in Denmark now and I never realised how strong the wind can be. It blows me right of my saddle, it blows my head from my trunk, it blows my bicycle into the gutter, it blows Willem away from me, or me from Willem. It blows the tent into the air, it blows the clouds across the sky. It blows the birds so they can float instead of fly. It blows, blows, blows ... and if it doesn't blow, it rains ......

Friday August 14th, Resting days

Reading my bible I know that every person needs one resting day a week. Well, that's the maximum Willem and I are getting. It is never the Sunday, because that day it is quiet on the roads and easy to bicycle. Most often it's on a Monday and that is one of the reasons why it is not a real resting day. Yes ... washing our clothes is one of the million things we have to do. Repairing our bicycles and tent, writing letters, updating the web-site, etc., etc. So many things to do.
Actually things get better. After eight weeks of cycling we learned that it's better to have a rest far away from whichever shop. In that way it's just impossible to do any shopping and that is the beginning of the chance to be lazy. Today is resting day in Germany. At the camping you can order "weißen brötchen" and buy chocopasta. Together with coffee it's a good start of the day. Beer is always available in this country. So "Zum Wohl" on this real resting, no cycling day.
PS. My boils are not so boiling anymore.

Friday August 21st, No comment

Freedom is Love.

Friday August 28th, Arriving in France, a Hai-koe

Cows nibbling
at Willem's underwear
The Lorraine

Friday September 11th, Grapes de Cahors

Friday September 18th, Bread

For me, bread is an important source of energy. In Norway, it was either made of wheat or rye, but it was always very dark and very heavy. In addition it often contained other niceties like sesame seeds. In Denmark, bakers are very good in making pastries. The bread was still nice, but not as good as I had it in Norway. German wholemeal bread is very plain, nothing special. They also have the sour-dough bread, which is very nice. France is still very traditional. The only thing you can easily get is a white "baguette". Only with great difficulty and luck you can get a "pain complet", which still is very grayish instead of dark brown. Also there is a lot of crust, so hard that you break your teeth on it. The Spanish bread, surprisingly, is very good. Every backer has his own type of wholemeal bread, called "pan integral". And finally, for what the Portuguese bread will have to offer me, I will have to wait a little longer.

Friday September 25th, Sporting Spain

People in Spain are active. All day long, it can be early in the morning or during the afternoon heat, you see them walking, jogging or bicycling. It's not only the young people, but also the more elderly. They really try to keep fit. For us, long distance bikers, that is nice, because people are enthusiastic about what we do.

Friday October 9th, The first rest

The first rest of the day is the most important one. Early in the morning we drink tea and coffee. But we do not have the time or hunger to take a real breakfast. We like to have done app. 20 km before we take our first rest, but we can never be sure because it depends on a lot of things. First of all, how difficult are the 20 km. Is it steady going uphill, or is the road following a river downstream. If the cycling is tough, the first rest comes sooner, but never much. It can be raining and then we just go one, or we try to find a covered resting place, these are mostly bus-stops. Norway had nice one's made of wood. In France they had nice ones made of glass, but in Germany they were very dirty, with a lot of broken glass. In Portugal and Spain they are clean and when they are out of the village, they can give you a lovely view on a valley. If the weather is good, we look for a bench to have our rest. On a village square, near a church or at a parking place. The latter are not the most romantic ones, but they often have a pick-nick table, which is quite nice because we have many things we eat and need during this first stop. Bread, peanutbutter, chocopasta, cheese, mayonnaise, coffee, milk, sausages, etc, etc. I think we are quite a sight because people look at us a lot. In Norway they looked but didn't say anything, in France they wished us "Bon Apetit" and in Spain and Portugal people smile when they see our enormous breakfasts and appetite. The first rest of the day takes about 30-45 minutes, the other rests, which come after that first one, never take more than 20 minutes, so you can see it is a rest we really enjoy.

Friday October 16th, CampingGaz: "The Power to be Free"

Before we started our "Fra Kapp A Cabo" journey, we had a lot of discussions about what kind of cooking gear we would take along. In the past, when camping, we always took a petrol-stove with us. But petrol-stoves need pre-heating with spirit to get the pressure up. Which would mean two bottles of fuel to carry, one with petrol, the other one with spirit. Also when the weather gets cold, it's not easy to get the stove started and it needs even more pre-heating.

So, I thought I would go for the easy way out: "CampingGaz, the power to be free !". CampingGaz uses this slogan in Portugal to promote their product. Well, I can tell you now that early in the morning there is not much power in CampingGaz. The gastank itself is then really cold and it needs to be warmed up before any serious flames will appear. We started with holding it in our hands before starting to boil our tea and coffee water. But that was not much of a help. Then, Willem discovered that putting the tank with the bottom in warm water, was giving it some more push, so that speeded up the cooking time. Still, things were not easy. When the wind is blowing hard, the heat goes everywhere instead of to your kettle. Again, you have to use your hands to preserve the heat.
The advantage of gas is that is easy and light to carry along. Most of the times you can buy it without any problems at the camping, supermarket or, like in Norway, at the petrol station. Only in Germany it was often hard to get. After 7000 km, I can say the CampingGaz was a good choice, although the real "power to be free" is ..... "love", as I already wrote you about.