Epilogue

Ok, so a lot of people have been saying that I shouldn't end the blog on such a negative note. Which makes sense. And, even though I was going to do this post anyways, I just thought I'd mention it so that you guys can feel like you convinced me to do it. See? It's the blog that just keeps on giving...

A change in colour denotes a new day of riding. In case you were wondering why it's so colourful...

So, here you go, a wrap up of the entire trip:

Days: 37

Days on Motorcycle: 25

Days of Rain: 3

Distance Traveled on Motorcycle: 7938 km

Longest Day: 623 km

Shortest Day: 79.9 km

Highest Altitude: 2423m

Lowest Altitude: -182m (although that's probably a mistake by the GPS)

Countries visited: 13

Airplanes: 3

Ferrys: 2

Trains: 3

Women I took my picture with: 5

Women I took my picture with that I didn't already know before the trip: 2

Mussels Consumed: over 100


p.s. In case you're wondering, I did in fact get my deposit back on Suzy.

The waiting game sucks, let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos

Well, there's a familar sight...

I don't know what's going on this trip. Seriously. The trip here was fine, but ever since I started winging it on the bike, every time I've come up against scheduled transportation I've had to wait 5, 4.5, and 6 hours respectively. That's right, 6 hours at the airport this morning. An unexplained switch from a 10:25 departure to a delayed 1:25 departure now has me questioning what exactly I did to upset the travel gods. The 3 hour delay, combined with the 3 hour pre-flight recommended arrival time, now has me grudgingly paying for jacked up wi-fi and eating 6 dollar bags of candy while watching the battery drain away on my laptop, and with it any hope of being able to watch the movies that I brought along for the plane. If and when it finally decides to show up. And yes, I'm aware that they play movies on the plane, but you'll forgive me if I'm less than ecstatic about another viewing of 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'...

Also of note, had I known about the delay, I could have easily returned Suzy to the rental place this morning, and avoided the pleasant phone call to which I had the pleasure of being part of just a few moments ago. For, as feared, the rental place was indeed closed for the holiday when I went yesterday, so with no other options, I chained the bike to a large metal workbench right outside of their back loading docks, where it would easily be seen when they got in this morning, attached the keys via a combination lock, and emailed them the combination and explanation. Then I called this morning to confirm that it all went down smoothly, expecting a simple confirmation, and maybe even a few accolades in regard to my ingenuity. Unfortunately the gent that I spoke to didn't see eye-to-eye with me on the matter. For, rather than checking his email, he hastily sawed off the lock and berated me for being lucky that the bike wasn't stolen during the night. Because apparently, even secured with a heavy chain to a 400 pound workbench isn't enough to keep a bike from being stolen when your business is in the middle of the fucking ghetto. I may be meek, most of the time, but his tone and accusations combined with my having just seen the 3 hour delay pop up on the screen, created a rather unpleasant Travis who eventually got tired of his shit and told him I'd call back on Thursday, when the gentleman that I had dealt with in booking and picking up the bike was in next. Well, maybe not in so many words. God, I hope I get my deposit back...

One last misadventure... hopefully

Ok, so maybe I have a little blog-fodder left for you guys after all. But only because I'm an idiot. Before you run screaming to the comments section to defend my honour, observe:

My 'planned' trip is over. Now all that's left is for me to make my way back to London for my Sept 1st flight. It's a morning flight, so really I have to be back on the 31st so that I can return Suzy home before the rental agency closes at 6. I have been hoping to avoid travelling on the same routes twice, so I didn't really want to chunnel it back, which left me with the Saint Malo Ferry system to consider. At first I was going to happily go back to the channel tunnel, as my first quotes were coming up at 90 Euros for travel times of 8 to 10 hours.

Then we (Anna, Steph and I) stumbled across an evening ferry that would only take 4 hours and cost far less. So we booked it. This now created two situations for me: one, I would be getting into the UK at midnight, and would therefore have to find a hostel or hotel that would allow me a late check in, and two, I would now have an extra day, the 30th to travel - the chunnel would have required all my time, but the ferry would allow a less rushed journey back.

Oh, beautiful England, I don't know why I wasn't looking
forward to seeing you again.

I didn't really want to go back to London any earlier than I had to. It's a lovely city, but it's very expensive and I'd already seen everything that I wanted to. I had known this back in Amsterdam and mentioned it to Dennis, who, after spending one last night in London, had requisitioned a suggestion for me from his London friends: a little city called Bath, about 200km West of London. It was also only an hour and a bit ride from the Ferry, and upon finding a hostel that could check me in at 1am, that became my new plan.

And then I became mildly retarded.

Clicking through the booking site, as I had many times before (this was a Hostel International place, which was my preference during the majority of the trip), I booked myself the date at which I got off the Ferry - August 30th, and happily clicked accept. But you see, I didn't actually want the night of the 30th. Because my Ferry got in at midnight, yes, I would be arriving on the 30th, but really, I wanted the evening of the 29th. Do you know how hard it is to find another hostel at 1 in the morning?

Well, neither do I. For fate it would seem, was on my side. Perhaps karma was rewarding me for not subjecting the nice women of Europe to the Russ Challenge, but either way, the heavens were smiling on me this day. Normally I would just book a room, write down my confirmation number, and be on my way. But this time, I had altered my usual routine to include an actual email to the hostel to make certain they could check me in at such a late hour. I received an email back, confirming that they could. So, I left the internet terminal and was on my way.

Luckily, I didn't have much to do this particular day. My ferry wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:25pm, and I had already parted ways with Steph and Anna the night before. So I had an entire day to kill, and not much to do besides lay on the beach and eat baguette. Not that I was complaining, but one man can only eat so much baguette and lie on the beach for so long.

There's also only so much mugging that a man can do too...

As boredom overtook me, I returned again to the internet terminal, seeing if for some reason I would have a stack of new emails, despite the fact that it was 3am back home. But I did. The brilliant, wonderful, glorious man at the hostel had double checked my booking and noticed my error. I quickly replied back to him to see if there was any way I could change the booking.

Have you ever sat at your computer, hitting refresh over and over, waiting for an important email? Well, 10 agonizing minutes and a few thousand refresh clicks later, a new message finally appeared. And, in typical 'if they made this a movie, you wouldn't believe it' fashion, they had exactly one bed in the entire hostel still available for the night, and he could change the reservation for me.

So, I just thought I would share that little nugget with you guys, despite how stupid (but lucky) it made me look...


But wait. What's that, you say? There's more...

Apparently Karma realized that it didn't owe me anything. So, seeing that I was again taking a Ferry, it stepped in to re-balance the universe. I only had to wait 4 and a half hours this time, with an additional 5 on the boat. However, unlike the Germany to Denmark crossing, this time it was completely out of my hands. The ferry itself was 2 hours late, rather than me just being unable to get an earlier booking. But this still meant that with the delays and ride to Bath, I didn't arrive at the hostel until 4:30am. Which, since there's an hour time difference between the UK and the rest of Europe, was really 5:30 according to my body.

Only 2 hours behind schedule, plus they recommend you get
there early, so another 4.5 hour wait at the docks. But it
made for a much nicer picture, I suppose.

Luckily the hostel held true to it's 24 hour check-in policy, and I was able to catch 5 hours sleep before hitting the road back to London. Of course, seeing that bad things come in threes, I have just been made aware that it's a Holiday Monday in the UK tomorrow, so now I'm not even sure if the rental agency will be open to take back Suzy. Of course, they're closed on Sundays too, so I can't take her back today and their voice mail doesn't say one way or the other, so I guess I'll just have to stick to the plan and hope for the best. I might even keep you guys posted...

The Home Stretch

I know Colin personally. Well, I know a Colin personally...

Yes, I'm aware that as of late I haven't been as vigilant with the blog as some of you would like. And, I suppose that's better than hearing you guys tell me that maybe I shouldn't be doing such frequent posting. But the reality of it is that the trip is winding down, and blog-fodder is becoming less and less common.

And it pains me to say that.

Not the blog part - the trip winding down part. I mean, I am at the point where I'm ready to come home, as 5 weeks has indeed been a very long time. That said, as I lay on the beach today, eating fresh baguette smeared in cheese the likes of which one could never find in Canada, drinking wine and soaking in le soleil, it occurred to me that I could probably do this for the rest of my life.

But not the blog part...

So, it is with a heavy heart that I begin to make my way back toward London and inevitability. Suzy (the one that's done every km with me) has to be returned. And an airplane fuelled by heavy doses of reality awaits me at the airport.

Suzy... she may have a little junk in the trunk, but she
was the perfect girl for me.

But first, perhaps a little reminiscing about the trip is in order. The first fifteen days were pretty heavy on getting kilometres on the bike, alone, seeing as many cities and countries as possible, and ultimately being 'productive'. The last 15 days have been spent with friends, relaxing and straight up enjoying life to it's fullest. In some ways it's been two very different trips, but as a whole it's been unforgettable, and I wouldn't change any part of it if given the chance to do it all over again.


And it's all accumulated in a little town called Saint Malo in the Northwest part of France. I knew pretty early on that I would be trying to meet up with Steph during the last week of my trip, but I never really knew where we were meeting up. I had been hoping for the Strasbourg area, and perhaps a tour of the Northeast. So when she said Saint Malo, honestly, I was more than a little disappointed. I felt like I'd already done the Western part of France, and that things would just be redundant.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm not going to say that this was the best part of my trip - because every bit has been wonderful in it's own unique way - but it has been the epitome of my trip. I rode long, hard days to get here, and once I arrived, I was treated to some of the best food and friends that a person could ask for.

Huge thanks to Anna and her wonderful family.

And really, that is what this trip has been in a nutshell. I'd ride hard and meet up with Dennis and Stacey, and we'd have a wonderful time. Then I'd ride hard again, and meet up with Kenni, and we had a wonderful time. Same with Jen. So really, as much as it pains me to leave, at the end of the day, I couldn't have asked for a better send off to a great trip.

Wengers and Currys and Sokolans, oh my

So, after showing me a pretty stellar time in Copenhagen and even taking in a 'football' match, it was time to bid farvel to Kenni and Mette.

It was a bittersweet departure, because obviously on one hand I was enjoying my time with them, but on the other it was time to head to a place where debauchery was it's middle name. Amster Debauchery Dam.


So, after a quick night in Hamburg, it was on to the main event. I finally hit my target time for meeting up with Dennis and Stacey (after being really late in London and Paris and slightly early in Prague), only to find that Dennis had now become sick (Stacey had a pretty rough time in Prague due to illness) so we took it easy the first night. Then we met up with a couple of Stacey's friends and took in the Dutch Resistance Museum before showing up half an hour late to our meeting point with Jen. Ever the trooper, she was still waiting for us, so we dispensed with the formalities and made our way to the red light district.

Seeing that we're obviously pimps, Stacey and I fit right in, in Amsterdam.

After an evening of good Christian values and little debauchery, we got up and fit in a full day of the Catboat (ask Stacey), the Flower Market, the Van Gogh gallery, the Heineken Experience and the Anne Frank House.

The 'experience' is mostly beer. This is not a bad thing.

Unfortunately, at some point we all have to return to Edmonton, so after parting ways with Jen last night, it was now time to bid tot ziens to Dennis and Stacey, whose trip was now a couple train stops from being finished.


As for me, it's back to France, where I shall wind out the last week of my trip.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Sometimes you just know that it's going to be one of those days. You can't put your finger on it, but it's almost like there's something in the air, and you can just feel it.

Today was one of those days.

It started in the morning... well, I guess technically it started the night before, as I checked into my hostel in Berlin. I had reserved a bed online in Prague due to having been turned away from a couple full hostels of late, and I arrived to claim my space. The friendly German man greeted me, handed me a key and fresh linens, and pointed me toward room 121.


For those of you that have never been privy to the hostel experience, as a single traveller, you sleep in a dorm room. You could book a private, but they're often not much cheaper than it would have been to book a hotel, whereas a dorm bed runs about $25 a night - which includes breakfast. So it makes sense. Some dorms sleep 16, some sleep 8. This one slept 4.

So, I headed in the direction in which I had been pointed, pausing for a moment to consider if I had mis-understood as I opened the door to the 'Women's Dorms'. I elected not to be insulted by his insinuation and continued on to room 121. My key worked, so I shrugged and went in.

Now, at this point, things were looking up. None of the bunks had yet to be made up, so I might end up with a private by default, and of course, visions of being the only man in the female side of the hostel already had me thinking: 'Dear Penthouse, I was travelling through Germany in the summer of 2009 when...'

The good news is that I indeed ended up with the room all to myself. The bad news is that I woke up the next morning never once having been hassled in the middle of the night to come next door and judge yet another kissing contest.

And that's when it became one of those days.

For, you see, instead of a floor full of uninhibited 20-somethings, too liberal to bother wearing a towel to and from the showers, I was instead treated to about 15 or 20 giggling tweens. All yammering in high-pitched German, probably about Twilight or Zac Efron... at 6 in the morning.

But that's ok. I wanted to get an early start anyways. For, you see, today was the day I was to meet up with Kenni. And the sooner I left, the sooner we would be sitting on a patio in Copenhagen, drinking pints of Tuborg.

I'm on a boat, motherf@#ker!

Unfortunately, being one of those days, I should have known that by making haste to the ferry terminal in Rostock, I of course, would discover that the next ferry didn't leave until 5pm. So, I waited. 5 hours. Plus 2 more on the ferry.

But, in case you're wondering, it was totally worth it.

Czech Ch Ch Ch Czech Ch Czech it out

Reunited after exactly 2 weeks of travelling solo.

Although I had purposely planned this trip in such a way that I could be flexible in terms of where I stayed on which nights, there were a few things that were determined in advance. One such was my reunion with Dennis and Stacey in Prague on the 16th. So, with that in mind, I set out from Switzerland with 2 days to make the Hostel. A logical half way point was Munich, so my decision to stop there was based purely on scientific reasoning, and not even a little bit on the reputation of Bavarian Beers...

The beer's good, but the desserts are none too shabby either...

Of course, on my way to Munich I would be remiss if I didn't stop at the birthplace of low post dominance. Although, I must say, I was fully expecting at least a statue in the town square or something. What gives, Manny? I thought you were their prodigal son. The pride of Kempten. The great blond hope. Maybe they're just overly modest. Like you.

I assume 'Allgäu' is German for 'Birthplace of Manuel Illner'

Anyways, after that inspiring journey, and a night of sexy Bavarian lagers, it was on to the Czech Republic. But then, as I was plotting my route, I noticed something. My little purple line passed temptingly close to Austria. And, seeing that it was only a few miles further to pad my countries visited stats, I soon found my little purple line extended a little further East. Although, I've gotta say, I've been assuming the delightful aromas I'd been taking in have been fertilizer of the pig variety - but, I don't think I've seen a single pig since arriving in Europe. As such, I'm not entirely sure exactly what animals that they're getting their fertilizer from. Quite frankly, I don't want to know. I just hope they aren't farmers in the North...