Western Europe

Yesterday the battle exhaustion almost got us. I was in the middle of my third pint - the mood was flegmatic and Vesku and Janne weren't a bit more energetic than me. I had already spoken out the words "I think I'll retire after this one", but by the time I finished the drink, the potion of merryness had once again worked it's magic.

I haven't been too active with the blogs since we left Scotland. The main reason is that there hasn't been much to tell. Compared to Scotland the rest of the Europe we have seen has been pretty dull. But just of the record I'll try to recap briefly our journey since we left the Highlands behind us.

In London we had planned to have a day off. Kristiina had invited some friends over and we had a fun evening. We met our co-host Henrik, Meron from Eritrea/Germany, Kenji from Japan, Maija from Finland, Alex from England and Kristiinas father Max. And Kristiina proved wrong my opinion about the steaks in England - the steaks they served us with their traditional family recipe pepper sauce were delicious.

I retired quite early but Kristiina and Vesku partied through the night. They woke me and Janne around 9 am with a brilliant idea of going out to a picnic. Once again I left the party in the afternoon while the rest partied on until late night.

The next morning we had planned to have an early wake-up and get as close to Wacken as possible - as you can imagine that didn't happen. When we finally got on our bikes, it was already 14:00. Because of changing time zone when coming to the continent we lost another hour. Still, we decided to get out of France at least as no sane person wants to spend any more time there as absolutely necessary. We got a room in a hotel in Belgium, near to the border.

We had some 800 km ahead of us Thursday, so that morning we actually managed to be on our bikes at 07:00 as planned. The morning was cloudy, but the clouds were light and for a time it looked like the sun would come out eventually. It didn't. In the afternoon when we still had more than half of the ride ahead of us it started raining. My enhanced water resistant pants did their work surprisingly well. Also my leather jacket kept the water out for the first few hours, but then slowly started leaking. Before reaching our destination I was soaking. And cold. Had being wet and cold been the worst things at that point, the rest of the drive would have been somewhat bearable, but thanks to the rain the concrete-built autobahn was slippery and the visibility at times less than 100 meters. Imagine yourself driving in those kind of conditions - on a bike - at 130 km / h. I have rarely been more afraid of my life than I was then.

We reached Wacken at around 21:00. Just about the same time the rain ended. (As a matter of fact we have only had sunshine since.) After some searching we finally found the camp of Metal Club Mökä where we set up our tent. At that time the party was already well underway - somewhere further away Overkill was playing and all people were merry. The first beer we got on the festival area was one of the better ones I have had.

I already wrote a bit about Wacken. Looking back, it once again lived up to the expectations - it is the best metal party there is. In addition to the bands I already described, I saw Amorphis, Type O Negative and Immortal. Type O I saw first time live and they did a very enjoyable gig starting with "We hate everyone"! Immortal did a lot better show than in Tuska and I even enjoyed the newer stuff they were playing. The gig ended with "Blashyrkh (Mighty Ravendark)" which they skipped in Tuska.

Considering there are 70000 (according to another source, it's actually over 100000) people partying there, the arrangements are first class (I know Juha you disagree). There's alot different kinds of food there, the prices aren't too bad and you never need to wait more than a couple of minutes to get into the actual festival area, even before the biggest bands. And all the people are so friendly - you could walk to any camp and simply start talking with them and they even offer you a beer. During the four times I have been there I have seen a single fight. And the sun was shining during the whole time.

In the night between Saturday and Sunday Vesku had once again had an allnighter and quit drinking only after coming back to the camp in the morning and learning that we need to get out from the camping area that day. We left around 17:00. We had planned to drive to Hamburg, but as some of us were feeling a bit shaky we took a hotel in Itzehoe, 25 km from Wacken. Apparently we got the last rooms in the city because later I heared about several Wacken-goers and their desperate quest to find a room. Vesku and Janne retired to the hotel and I spent the rest of the evening sitting on a terrace, drinking beer and reading "The lies of Locke Lamora" - an excellent new low-fantasy book. Even though we only spent one night in Germany (Wacken is a dimension on its own), I once again loved everything there - the food, the people, the little villages we drove by.

Next morning we started planning our route back home. As mentioned, we had underestimated the distance between Hamburg and Tallinn, so we decided to ride back through Scandinavia.

There wasn't much to see in the autobahns in Germany, but when we got to Denmark, the scenery got even more boring. As you can see in the attached picture, the country is completely flat. To add some exitement to the ride, the wind was blowing like hell - at times you really had to hold the steering bar with you full force to keep the bike straight.

When we got to Copenhagen we heared there's fashion weeks there so all of the hotels are fully booked. Luckily we arrived at a hotel (CabInn City) just when they were cancelling reservations that hadn't been payed yet so we got two - rather expensive - rooms. After reviving from the apathy of being us, the night was spent in The Irish Rover where Jim Fox - a jolly troubadure - was entertaining the audience. As part of his show he was asking from all the guests there about the country of origin. Upon hearing that we are from Finland, he joked that he thought that that were the members of Lordi sitting there. Curiously after that some Wacked-goers from Italy started taking picures of us. And - as there were the fashion weeks going on - the bar was filled with long-legged models who your eyes really rested on.

Today we have spent in Copenhagen. Even though it's a nice city, one day here was enough to remind me why I don't like city-vacations.

Tomorrow we are heading to Sweden. We have two days to reach our ferry back home leaving from Stockholm, so we can take it easy and cruise along the coast.

-Skoll