Arto's Blog

My trip has advanced until Liepaja, Latvia. After Tartu I continued towards south-west, spent one night in Sangaste castle and crossed the border in Valga. There were some very nice places and very bad gravel roads in the Gauja national park on my way to Riga. Mostly the roads were perfectly okay, though.

In Riga airport I met my old cycling friends Mikko and Sami and we've been riding together since then. We spent the midsummer in a camping area in Mersrags. It was actually quite similar to the Finnish midsummer, with a big bonfire built of old boats. Then we continued along the coast to cape Kolka.

The best part was the beach to the south from Kolka. We spent one whole sunny day riding on the beach, occasionally stopping for a picnic or swimming. It was actually much easier than the road would have been, and the scenery certainly beat the roadside 10-0.

We also had our first stays with Hospitality Club members in Jurmala and Ventspils. Greetings and thanks to valmundos and walx! Currently we are in Liepaja, Latvia, and will continue towards Klaipeda in Lithuania, the Curonian Spit and Kaliningrad.

The possibility to leave comments in the blog has been at least temporarily disabled due to excessive comment spam. I'll try to find a better solution later, but meanwhile you're welcome to send feedback simply by email to ajt@iki.fi.

I'm in Tartu now, and being kindly hosted by Lauri Anton from EENet means that finding an Internet connection is not a problem. :) Actually it should be pretty easy in Estonia in general, there are plenty of wireless access points, libraries and some Internet cafes have computers and the places to get connected are conveniently marked on maps.

The oddest sight during the ride from Tallinn was a truck pouring small grained light brown sand on a lenghty section of a normal paved road. The result was naturally a big cloud of dust every time a car drove by. They weren't just as big as the dust clouds on the dry unpaved roads, but almost!

Other than the dust I had a very nice ride to Tartu, sunshine all the way and not too much traffic. My friends asked if I had noticed how Estonian motorists drive dangerously and ignore cyclists - no, didn't have any problems. It would have been even nicer in three or four days with more detours, this time I squeezed it in two days.

Tomorrow I have time for sightseeing in Tartu, today's short sigthseeing time was spent on a special tour in the EENet office with Lauri and Mihkel. It included the usual visit to the server room, but also an evaluation of the roof terrace with appropriate beverages. Later in the evening I also met Lauri's wife and daughter, and had a dinner and a sauna in their nice new house.

My last day at work was Friday 9th of June and then I needed to get my flat empty by the morning of Monday 12th. And it actually took until the morning, didn't have much sleep last weekend. But now all that is done, tomorrow I'll take care of the last things I still need to do before departure and board a ship to Tallinn early Friday morning.

My great colleagues at CSC had put together a cool farewell gift which you can see in the picture. I'll try to report later what I ended up buying with those notes. :) They also gave me a solar panel charger but after considering the extra weight including the 12V chargers for my phone and camera I decided to trade it for a small water filter.

My employer was not the only organization where I needed to plan for leaving. In 2005 I was the chairman of Finnish Linux User Group and board member & webmaster of Japania ry, a Finnish-Japanese friendship organization. When all the work is done by volunteers it can be non-trivial to find someone to take over. In retrospect, getting rid of the non-paid activies was at least as difficult as finishing work. However, I feel that all of them are doing okay and I can start my trip without too many worries. Reserving enough time was the key for that.

Hi, I'm coming to Helsinki for a couple of days, could you host me?. Since last September I've received such emails about once a month. Hospitality Club and other hospitality exchange networks make it perfectly acceptable social behaviour to ask questions like that from people you've never met. While that might sound strange at first, it's great fun for both the hosts and the guests. So the right answer to the question is yes. ;)

In a way, it's like bringing an ancient tradition to Internet age. People didn't use to lock their doors and offered food and shelter for strangers who happened to pass by. The development of transport and accommodation services has made it easier than ever to travel, but at the same time has in the worst case reduced contacts with local inhabitants to transactions in a souvenir shop. It's no surprise that people are forming communities where these barriers are broken again. The Internet makes it easier than ever.

As the networks grow, also larger meetings are organized. Last week from Thursday to Sunday there was a Hospitality Club event in Helsinki with more than 130 participants. I met again some truly wonderful people and had good time. Everyone else seemed to do as well, so the event was a success. You can take a peek at the event website if you like.

However, no matter the size of the club, the real core of it is still small encounters between just a few people. That will be one of the new elements during my upcoming trip. I will be visiting some friends I've hosted in Helsinki, and others whom I will meet the first time when arriving at their front door. I'm looking forward to that.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

— Robert Frost, part of The Road Not Taken

In August 2005 I made a decision to travel. The trip will begin in June 2006. I have traveled before, I've even lived abroad, but this time will be different. I won't have any obligations to work or study, nor a permanent address. The tour will start in Eastern Europe and continue in Asia, and perhaps include other continents too. Details are still open, but it doesn't matter — I'll have time to figure them out on the road.

At least in the beginning, I'll travel by bicycle. If at some point I feel I've had enough of cycling, then I'll switch to more traditional backpacking. I initially plan to travel for about one year, but I don't want to commit to any specific time or route too much in advance. I have more detailed plans for the first month or two, more about that later.

This blog will be used to post my travel news and other random thoughts.