Wiebe Wakker
July 29, 2016
Day 136 | Thursday July 28
Today I finally made it to someone who plugged me in. The last time had been in Badderen, Norway and was already 1.162km ago. All those days I had survived by camping and asking people to help me along the way. Which was good for many interesting stories but I also felt a bit isolated and most of all, hungry! In the last 3 days I had one meal a day at most.
So I arrived in Kemi, a city on the Gulf of Bothnia. Jarno plugged me in here, he found me via a friend of Gregor Terrer were I stayed 2 nights in Austria. Jarno was still at work and invited me to come over there. He works for Polar-Automaatioa, a solution provider for industrial electrification and automation. He showed me some of the work they are doing and it was quite impressive. They have this huge 450 meters wide machines and there job is to make this come alive.
Jarno had booked a hotel for me and after 3 days without a shower that was not a bad place to stay. After I showered he picked me up and drove to a restaurant, I could pick anything I wanted and choose a big pile of meat with red-wine sauce. Damn that tasted good.
After dinner we went for some sightseeing around the town. Funny enough Jarno showed me things which are interesting mostly in the winter. First an huge impressive ice-breaker and then the site were a snow castle is build every year when the snow falls. Jarno asked me if I needed any stuff and told him my toothpaste ran out so the nice guy bought me a new one and also hairgel and mosquito spray! Back at hotel Merihovi I finished the night with a big fat hamburger which was provided by them so I’m all good for the coming days :)
Day 137 | Friday July 29
The night in a 2 person hotelroom bed did me well after 4 nights of survival. I had breakfast, did some work and then went back to Jarno’s workplace as he invited me for lunch. He even gave me 200 Russian Ruble (which is about 5 euro) for my trip there in a few weeks. So great!
My next stop was in Oulu, the names here in Finland are pretty funny, especially when I pronounce it with my Dinglish accent. Teemu was the one who plugged me in here, he found me because of an article in Helsingi Sanomat, one of Finland’s biggest newspapers. He lives here with his wife Heli. This was the first time in Finland that I stay at someones home. Teemu works as in IT-specialist and Heli does something with paper, they both couldn’t explain what exactly. They have a sauna in their house, but that’s really common here, every house has one. Teemu offered me to take a ride and show me around but told me that there was nothing to see here, so we didn’t go.
Pictures of today
