A Continent
(1999)
There is not much behind
Värnesborg.
Maiden Mellerud, Fucking Åmål, Screwing Säffle, Kicking
Carlstad. And the Taiga.
Four centuries ago, the Taiga was populated by Svedjefinnar. They were the only people desperate enough to take over the wilderness, subject to the threaten of Norwegian assault. Their reward for the 1000-km relocation was a temporary tax relief - and an abundant piece of the Wilderness. After all, maybe the Norwegians were not that much worse than the Russians...
Carlstad. Time to hit South. Back to Africa.
Scandinavia first.
I am happy to find a sterile source of water. My first water pond is preserved by a huge block of ice. However, any cup of water I collect nearby the ice cube turns into frog soup. Life is adapted for this sub-arctic region.
Getting down from the
wilderness takes the traveler to prior Norwegian territory. The
1658 Roskildepeace treaty pushed the border up to Svinesund,
allowing Göteborg to breath more freely.Blekinge and Skåne were
also joined to Sweden 1658, Halland already 1645.
Today, the language of both Halland and Blekinge is fully
understandable. Crossing Hallandsåsen from the North or Gualöv
from the East starts a smooth transition from Swedish towards
German.
Regardless of the season, I cannot stop enjoying beech forest. I set up my tent in one, in Northern outskirts of Copenhagen. Plain and wide open in her leafless winter dress.
Hansenstadt Rostock does not differ too much from Åbo or Stockholm. Güstrov, Pritzwalk, Havelberg, Rathenow, Brandenburg. Modern, busy cities, like Oslo or New York. Poor villages, like Utica or Pyhäntä. Die Deutschen Vereinigung was only 10 years ago. Assortments in village stores in Mecklenburg have been multiplied, but that is still not much. Rural areas tend to decline. Starting from nothing, it is still more difficult to catch up.
Everything changes suddenly when crossing the border into Czechia. Gloom, dark Spruce forest takes over, instead of sunny German villages and crop fields. Böhmische Sudetengebirge.
The Czechs take pride of their technical skill. In the first town, Rumburk, a three-man repair team reconstructs my bike.
Gomés has stayed in Czechia for three years. One year for language studies, then three for professional studies. Finally, five years of practice. After nine years, back to Cuba. Before Czechia, he made a four-year military service in Angola. How much does a man remember from his country after 13 years? Well, maybe the country does not change that much. The President still has the same beard...
Close to Svitavy, six officers and 170 men, of Nieder- und Oberösterreich, lost their lives in 1866.This was obviously within the year’s war against Prussia, settling the question of the German hegemony for the benefit of the latter.
On the Eastern side of Brno,
there is another statue. April 23,1945, 234 Soviet tanks joined
the battle of Starovicky. German troops were defeated, which led
to the liberation of Brno. The statue text does not tell how many
hours or days Brno remained free.
I stop by and think how lucky I am. Tampere was never liberated.
The massive 1944 assault getting jammed for several weeks at Tali
and Ihantala, the Bolshevik management realized that Finland
after all is just a piece of Taiga. And full of bastards. Better
to run for Brno, Budapest, and Berlin.
There is a difference between Czechia and Slovakia. In Czechia, you find most things as they were in Finland 25 years ago. In Slovakia, you find mostly bars, full of noisy men. Signs of civilization reappear when traveling East and South. Stopping on the street and listening carefully, I recognize these people speaking Hungarian.
Arpad rode to Pannonia 895. For a century, the Magyars gave a hard time for the surrounding Christian communities, until falling for the same trick themselves. That did not prohibit the creation of an empire. Then, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, Hungary carried the greatest burden of the moslimic aggression towards Europe. 1918, Europe thanked her defenders by parceling out a major part of Hungarian territory, for Slovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and partly Austria.
Crossing the Donau takes me into another world. The first. Good roads, nice buildings. Excellent service in fluent German. The nation has taken a huge step forward. Good luck. See you within the Community.
In Romania, I get robbed twice before passing through the immigration. First, I change money. The government-run exchange post gives me about half of the value of my Hungarian Forints. Then, I pay 43 DM for a four-day transit visa. The same line of services continues throughout the country. Pricing is completely unpredictable.It does get better when crossing the Donau again, into Bulgaria.
For me, it is easy. I just pass the huge line of trucks queuing for the little ferry between Calafat and Vidin.Most of the transportation which used to pass through Yugoslavia is now in this line. The ferry is not dimensioned for such an amount of traffic. Businesses depending on truck transportation suffer from significant delays.
Finnish Guards made a visit in this range 1877-1878. Kauan on kärsitty vilua ja nälkää. About the same 1999: heavy rain, flat tires, running out of rice, never enough chocolate. Friendly Bulgarians are happy to pay back some of the help they got against the Turks 12 decades ago.
Back to the Community.
In the first village of Macedonia, consumer prices take me by
surprise. Even though I realize that the prices are still below
the Scandinavian level, they seem very high after Bulgaria. On
the other hand, incredibly luxurious products are available, even
ice-cream!
Just 700 km to Athens. It takes two days of it for me to realize that even though Greece in many respects belongs the West, there are differences. On the basis my passport, the receptionist of a tiny hotel is unable to figure out my nationality, until I show him the Cyrillic text printed on the second page. In shops, the attendant may nick affirmatively, even if they would not have the product I am looking for. They nick in order to show that they have understood my question. On the other hand, the negative answer, given orally, is not always very clear. A few times, I end up waiting several minutes for products which are not available in the store.
At Thermohpilis, my old friend
Leonidas is standing on the road side. He will not back off.
31 days through Europe. A game for children. It takes its time,
it takes its rice. However, getting to Africa is easy. Getting
through Africa is an other piece of cake.
Why didn’t explorers, looking for the origin of the Nile,
just follow the river upstream?