Last day at ABQ

So today was my last full day at Albuquerque area and tomorrow I'll be flying home. Morning started with a Egg McMuffin breakfast. Gotta admit, the bun didn't really make me it's fan, but it was edible.

After that we continued on to Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. They exhibit Native American history in the US and how they have been treated within the tribes and in the mainstream society. There were also exhibits displaying the clothes and pottery used in diferent pueblos. At the end of the exhibit they had a Native American dance group doing a buffalo dance, which would have been nice if we hadn't been sitting behind a bad behaving young boy who should have been able to concentrate to the show. Very eye opening exhibition to someone that isn't too familiar with Native American culture or history.

Whatever floats your boat

From the museum we drove to the Albuquerque's old town where we had dinner in a diner which was good and cheap. We walked little around the the old town plaza waiting for mariachi band to start playing. The started about an hour later than we were told. So we had time to listen to only about three songs. Well mariachi is nice but maybe not my favourite msic.

From the old town we headed out to our final sight, the National Hispanic Cultural Center. The museum has three exhibits of which one is permanent. There was both painting art and sculptures. One of the temporary exhibitions displayed clay sculptures. Even though the museum is not the biggest out there, there was plenty to see and all of it quite interesting. For 3 dollars, it was definitely bang for the buck.

For dinner we ate at Chili's where the food was really good and price wasn't that bad.

Balloons and hospitals

Early balloons

This update didn't turn out as I expected. Yesterday's sight was the Albuquerque Balloon Museum. The museum has a large collection of items telling the history of hot air balloons both globally and locally. Lot of the history narrative was written in humorous way or included quirky details. The exhibit covered also military (blimps and barrage balloons) and scientific use of balloons. Since Albuquerque hosts the world's biggest annual balloon event, The Balloon Fiesta, it was exhibited prominently too. Hands down the most interesting museum I've seen so far.

For dinner it was my first American buffet experience at Golden Corral. It was in the news on the other day that an average tourist to the US puts on 3 kilos weight during their holiday. After eating at the GC I have no doubt. I mean the food wasn't spectacular (apart from the fresh prepared steak and the desserts but it was worth the money for variety.

During yesterday I started feeling irritation to my right eye and it worsened through the night. In the morning I had to make a decision and called my insurance company to verify that I can indeed go to a doctor and be covered. So after getting approved we headed out to the indicated medical facility that turned out to be a urgent care unit in a local hospital. After finally getting registered (by settling billing issues) and triaged I went to the waiting area. Maybe after 30-45 minutes I was directed to another waiting room. About 5 minutes later a doctor checked my eye and diagnosed conjunctivitis. I've never had one before and I really don't want another. After I was done it was time to go pick up the eye drop prescription. Which went quite smoothly. As did applying the drops.

Then I called my insurance company to let them handle the billing issue I got faced with. Which is hopefully now taken care of.n the evening we had another KFC dinner. It was again very delicious.

Bore trail

Tinkertown welcomes with music

Again at early morning we headed out to drive through the Turqoise Trail that is a national scenic byway running from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Our first stop was an attraction near Sandia Crest, called Tinkertown where all the diplays have been built by one man. It mostly consists of wooden animated miniature scenes. Tinkertown is a really cool little attraction. At the entrance they have a world map where you place a pin where you're from. I was suprised by the amount of pins pinned on Finland. I also got my character evaluated and prediction made by the mechanical and a bit scary Grandmother Esmeralda. I have to admit she was spot on what comes to my character.

After Tinkertown we continued on the Turqoise Trail but there wasn't really anything to see except for the scenery itself. We arrived the only bigger town on the way, Madrid, and looked at some jewlery shops and then had a lunch at the local cafe, where food was good but a bit on the expensive side. Then we headed on to the next town in the road signs, Cerrillos. It turned out to be a tiny town, only few houses and a mining museum.

Rest of the trail didn't really have anything else but beautiful scenery. So the big hype of the trail, except for Tinkertown, is unfounded, If you only have a few days in the area, don't waste it for the Bore Trail, just go see Tinkertown and turn back.

In the evening we had home made spaghetti for dinner which was a welcome change for all the dinners outside lately,

Destination Santa Fe

Dinner yesterday was hamburger meal at Carl's Jr. which identifies itself as a chain that will prepare the meal only after the order has been made and that they have chargrilled hamburgers. No complaints here, very nice burger. Otherwise we just relaxed and did some shopping.

Early this morning we headed out to Santa Fe, some 120 kilometers away. Found ample parking space right near the center plaza. Even though Santa Fe is much higer from sea level than Albuquerque area, the weather wasn't that much coooler, the sun was as relentless as it has been during the whole trip.

First at the plaza we checked out the handicrafts (mainly brass/copper jewlery and accessories) made by the local native Americans. After that we went in to an art shop/gallery that had some fantastic paintings and sculptures for premium prices (pretty much starting from 1400 dollars and going up to around 40000 dollars).

Our next destination was Georgia O'Keeffe Museum that contrary to the name had a lot of works of other artists as well. Mostly modern art of some US artists,
For lunch we did french toast (really a sub) and quiche. My French toast was so big I only ate half of it and saved the rest for dinner. After lunch we walked past the St. Francis Cathedral and went to see the Miraculous Staircase at the Loretto Chapel. Interesting contraption.

Typical Santa Fe buildings

Then it was time for Starbucks' Frappuchinos and souvenir shopping after which we headed home, just in nick of time since it started raining soon after.

Hard to say how I found Santa Fe. It felt mostly like a tourist attraction rather than real, actual city. Most of the buildings in the center had been built in the same architectural manner. Also the city center is quite tiny for a state capital.

What a morning!

This morning at 5 am our set alarms went off and as we hadn't gotten a phone call to tell us otherwise, we headed out a meeting point at a parking lot 15 minute drive away. There we met up with the staff and followed their truck to the park where it all would start.

Once we got there they wasted no time but started unloading and unpacking in which we were asked to help by handling some strings and holding on the tarp while they started to fan air and fill the big balloon that would be our ride. After few minutes the balloon had enough air that the could start filling it with hot air by using the fire shooting jets. Holding on to the tarp while they used the giant flame thrower was bit scary but soon enough the balloon was standing upright. So wasting no time, we climbed in to the tiny basket (not a top gymnastic performance from me) that could hold 3 people just comfortably enough.

Ballooning is best served at sunrise or sunset

I am not a big fan of heights but the ascent was really smooth so I was only mildly nervous. Up up and away we went. After a while I was relaxed enough to look around a bit more. It was awesome and so surreal. All the houses looked like miniature model houses. Then the sun started to rise from behind the mountains, which was a fantastic view. Oh my.

After that we did a mock up landing to get a feel what to expect at the final landing. We the rose up again and crossed some major freeway not too high up from the cars and continued towards Rio Grande where we flew only maybe a half a meter from the river surface, which was scary but absolutely fun as well.

The rest of the journey we flew quite high up and you could see for kilometers all around. Then we very smoothly landed at near to a church parking lot and got to climb off the basket (again, no athletic masterpiece). Also we needed to help pack up the balloon again which was a bit of hard work. Then we were driven back to the launch site and had some champagne and cinnamnon rolls. We also received our flight certificates and other freebies.

As everthing was over at 8:30, we headed out for breakfast at what must be the best local breakfast restaurant, Weck's. I had cinnamon raisin french toast which was huge portion served with butter and maple syrup. And beverages got free refills all the time. If I ever leave my current profession, I am gonna open somethig like Weck's in Finland. A brilliant concept with super delicious food.

Sandia Peak, Petroglyphs and ... eating

Yesterday was concluded by having a dinner at Applebee's. Having seen a lot of American talk show hosts giving a flack to that place I really didn't know what to expect. The menu looked good and I ordered a platter of riblets. The food turned out to be very nice. Only complaints I have is that the waitress wasn't equipped with the best memory and so we had to ask for our cutlery and stuff like that. Other gripe was the music: they had live karaoke. Not something I want to listen to while eating out, especially some kids were quite awful.

Today we headed out to lunch at good 'ol Subway. Even thought the sub options are a bit different, it's the same as everywhere else.

Tramway going down

From Subway we headed to the world longest tramway (=cable car) of about 4 km long going to Sandia Peak at bit over 3 km from sea level (the lower terminal is at 2 km). The ride had one or two "dips" that were a bit scary but otherwise it was really beautiful scenery going up. At the top the scenery was astonishing. I really liked the whole experience.

After Sandia Peak we went to hunt for the famous petroglyphs (rock paintings of ancient humans) but the weather had gotten very hot, must have been over 40 degrees celsius. We did the "easy trail" where you have a handful of them but don't have to hike but for just few minutes, which was enough in that heat. After that we took a scenic route back home and relaxed.

For dinner I had my very first KFC, something I've wanted to do years and I have had some close calls in Europe to go but I am glad I got to do it in the US. It was every bit as good as I expected. Yeah, their menu is confusing as hell but after you get your stuff, that doesn't matter.

It's early bedtime this night since if weather gods are willing, we're about to do something very cool in the morning. More on that (hopefully) in the next update.

Safely arrived

So I left home to airport about 11 am Finnish time. At two pm my plane departed on schedule for Chicago. After 9,5 hours of uneventful flying I touched down on O'Hare International and cleared customs. After customs I learned that my plane to Dallas was 1h 20mins late so I would miss my next connection. I franticly ran to American Airlines rebooking center phone and the guy told me to go gate 11 to see if I could be bumped to an earlier flight, about to board in about 10-15 minutes. I got to the gate and the shift supervisor booked me to that filght, which means some poor soul was bumped to the already long standby list. But within minutes I was heading to Dallas confident I can make my connection.

Arriving Dallas I had about 20 minutes to get to my Albuquerque connection. I have to say the airport signage is quite poor and I wasted some precious minutes by figuring out first the correct gate and then trying to find the Skylink train. But eventually I made it.
At 22:40 Albuquerque time I touched down on schedule. My hostess was there at the airport waiting for me as agreed. She had been unsure if I turn up as she had been tracking the flights and knew that my original change in Chicago had gone bust.
Only thing that didn't go smoothly was that my luggage wasn't on the same plane as I was. However I was promised it would be delivered to me the next day.

That evening I had been up around 24 hours when I finally got to bed and dozed off right away. Flying from Europe to USA is in that sense really good, you usually arrive so that you can go to sleep right away. The other direction is much harder, you usually fly so that you land in the morning and get any little sleep on the plane and then have to face full day jet lagged.

After sleeping about 9 hours like a baby I woke up and soon after American Airlines called me and let me knew that my luggage would be soon delivered to me. And after about 3 hours later I was happily reunited with my luggage. I have to give American Airlines a big thanks for the outstanding service I received.

So after I had my luggage we headed out to do some shopping. See, I have this thing with IZOD brand shirts that I can't get from Finland. Every time I've been to USA I've bought at least one IZOD shirt to bring back. So we headed to JC Penney's and found out they have IZODs on sale. So I paid USD 50 for three shirts that would have costed 150 dollars regularly. So basically I got three shirts for the price of one. Not a bad deal at all. After buying the shirts we had luch at some Italian fast food place at the mall.

Then we did some grocery and household item shopping at Walmart and Target. I just love the American service attitude. Cashiers actually talk to customers here, in Finland a small talking and service oriented cashier is a rarity. I mean, yeah small talk is not in our culture but sometimes you don't even get hellos or good byes either.

The Sandia hills in Albuquerque are just gorgeous even from distance. They are breathtaking. Can't wait to see them closer up.

What is breathtaking as well is the heat, it must have been close to 40 degress Celsius today. And the desert wind is a not cooling wind, it's like a blow dryer adding to the heat. I immediately buried the idea of two day trip to Grand Canyon, there's no way we could do that even with aircon in the car.

United States await

So the next trip covered in this blog will be around New Mexico's Albuquerque in United States. First blog post can be expected around 23th. Stay tuned!

I officially hate you Denmark!

After leaving Kiel to head back to Denmark, my last stop (I'd fly back home, The Driver would drive alone to Finland through Sweden) the weather was the most beautiful it has been on this trip. We stopped at the Kiel Canal for some photos and mentally prepared how would Denmark rob us this time. And we would not be disappointed.

If we got shitty expensive accommodation for expensive price on our way to Germany in Copenhagen, we definitely got assfucked on our way back in Copenhagen. We chose the Danhostel that was the cheapest available place to stay in Copenhagen. Booking.com said the price is 60 euros. After being forced to buy the linens, towels and a “Fuck you-tourist-card” that you have to have if you're not part of the Danish “Fuck-you-tourist-club” at check-in my card was charged 96 euros with “free” parking. The shitty Cabinn Metro was about 99 with parking. But the hostel room is much hotter, stinkier and more cramped (with bigger toilet though, but no soap in the toilet) and hasn't got even a television let alone radio. I mean how much does a bar of cheapest soap cost?! Cheez. Internet is in the lobby and would cost 2 euros per 30 mins. Oh and we needed to check in before 5pm and have to leave before 10 am.

The city doesn't accept credit cards even in bigger grocery stores or expensive restaurants and everything costs an arm and leg. For example the 24 hour public transport ticket you have to buy all the 8 zones, when in most cases you'd only need a card to cover 2 zones, the entrance only to Tivoli was like 15 euros, and the Little Mermaid is little as the name indicates. Food costs a lot, basic bad tasting pizza at a restaurant that doesn't accept credit cards can fetch near 15 euros easily. I am sure that the bridge toll money between Sweden and Denmark, all the money goes to the Danes.

A Finnish javelin throwing athletic hero, Seppo Räty once said famously “Germany is a shit land”, I am pretty sure he never visited Denmark or then his comment was so vulgar it was never publicized. I do officially feel like I was robbed today at check in. I've never seen anybody charge me more and more like that with a straight face. I call that state organized con.

If I ever get children I will never ever take them to see the Legoland or Tivoli. We won't honeymoon in Denmark for sure. Also if I can choose I will perosnally never ever visit Denmark again, business nor leisure. I will choose flights that won't have transfer in Copenhagen. I will never ever give this country another cent of my hard earned money. Also I will beat you up if you claim that Copenhagen is a cool city to visit.

I will not post any pictures for today, I am way too pissed off.

Auf nie immersehen Denmark, and fuck you.

PS. Stay Tuned for a new trip in this blog, I'll be heading to New Mexico, USA in few days.

The days are counted

After an ok sleep at Hotel Windsor (otherwise perfect but the mattress was very hard) we slowly started to head to northermost parts of Germany, nautical city of Kiel, with a routine 360 km drive. A light rain shower at autobahn was really the only annoyance during the drive. If you don't count the roadside gasoline station complex hell with restaurant where I decided to eat lunch. I think it took me an honest 20 minutes to get bratwurst and fries order. Chaotic kitchen which was making 7 different generic foods at the same time along the orders. Because you know in Germany bratwurst is a special order, lol.
During the drive I booked us room from Kiel, at a Best Western which boasts fours stars but in Finland would only get three. No air con in the room and shitty free WLAN as ever. And the area isn't the best looking in central Kiel, I am sure.

Good street band at Kiel

So arriving at Kiel with only one real wrong turn thanks to Cleese we got to the hotel and checked in. Then we did some walking around thr city center, and I have say Kiel is a nice city what comes to center although a bit like any other German city we've seen during this trip. But overall a positive image.

This is our last actual full day in Germany. Tomorrow we will cross the border back to the dreaded and expensive Denmark, probably staying overnight at Copenhagen again.

It's a monster!

After sleeping a bit later in the morning, we woke up and noticed the weather looking omnious. Dark clouds were in the sky as we set out to the autobahn towards north. When we started driving, we still were checking accomodations in two towns near to each other: Osnabrück and Münster. I really wasn't impressed for the options in former in the 60-80 euro price range so I thought Münster might be better option. So we decided to head out there.

Rainy autobahn

Soon the rain was over us and we were driving in moderate to heavy rain. However the traffic flow was quite good until about 25 kilometers from Münster when we hit the worst stau yet. It was basically four lanes merging into one due to construction work. We crawled maybe half an hour for to proceed few hundred meters. Then we did the unthinkable and changed to right lane that was pretty much empty. It was the lane for other motorway to merge into ours. However by doing that we probably saved good half an hour of crawling and it seemed we didn't upset too many fellow drivers by doing that.

When arriving Münster outskirts the weather had mostly cleared up. We ate a Burger King in some Münster suburb and then drove in to city center and sat down by the cathedral. There we finally decided that we will reserve a room at Hotel Windsor some 3 kilometers from the city center, as it was in our price range (and offered free wlan) and had got decent reviews. Few moments later we arrived and frankly at the reception I thought that we have made a big mistake reserving this one as the reception space looked shabby and smelled musty. However the room itself turned out to be quite big, clean and nicely furnished (bath tub in bathroom). The owner at the reception seemed a very nice person and made us feel welcome. It definitely seems that we got a good deal concerning this room. For 75 euros and internet included we could have done much worse.

After resting in the room for a while we headed out to Münster city center by taking a local bus. We walked aroud in the center for some time and then sat down at a restaurant terrace near the main cathedral. Had couple of beers (especially Berliner Weisse which actaully is some sort of nice tasting fruit flavored beer). We also ate a light butter roll sausage which was really good and cheap. After around 9 pm we decided to head back to hotel. The city had already gone to night bus mode and we couldn't get the correct bus totally figured out, so we took taxi which cost us not too bad 7,40 euros.

Tomorrow we'll be heading back up north again, we're aiming at Kiel or some other nearby city.

A few words on John Cleese

Our GPS directions are shout out by Mr. John Cleese (of The Monty Python Flying Circus). Overall John has done a fabulous job, routing us safely to our destinations. There have been times however when John has lost track on us and told us to do an U-turn even if hasn't been necessary or would have caused an imminent death or at least serious injury.
Also at timed John has thought we're driving on the grass next to the actual road and thus has given us commands to get on the road by turning left.
One time John has told us turn left 150 meters too late, and other times he has sometimes been very unclear about the correct maneuvere to negotiate a complex intersection.
These all are minor annoyances however to the fact that John's bastard Napoleon joke gets very old very fast. Also the announcement that he won't help us carry our bags is after several times getting tired. I wish if John insists being our GPS guy, he should broaden his repertoire.
But in the end, we love John and hope he gets us back safely.

Wine country and heading north

The night at the B&B wasn't perfect. The room was very cold and drafty, also there was a lot of noises outside at night: dogs kept barking, drunk people roamed the village street, cats meowed and finally at seven the village church bells started toil, not just one time but enought to wake up any God fearing people. What little did make up for it was the over the top breakfast the owner couple had set up. For only us two they had prepared food for at least four people.

Near Kröv

We bid our Wiedersehens and headed towards the town of Kröv in the Mosel wine country. We were looking for a Winehof called Gassen along the Mosel wine road, and wouldn't you believe it, it was right in the middle of the town. We stopped and after few knocks and shouts we were greeted by the Frau of the house who didn't speak English, she then summoned her son who spoke quite good English. I was offered a taste of their riesling and while I was tasting it (The Driver of course didn't taste) they summoned the Herr of the house who then took over the tasting and offered Rivaner wine for comparison. After I had tasted that, it was time to talk business. As The Car is limited in it's carrying capacity, we had to compromise for 4 bottles, two bottles of both riesling and torrin. The winehof people were very funny, relaxed family and were proud of their wines.

After trying to decide what to do next, we finally came to the conclusion of starting to head north and thought Köln would be a suitable distance away so we headed that way. We picked few cheap sleep options to try and were able to secure the first option - a double room at B&B Hotel Köln Porz (airport) for just 50 eur. Seems to be a clean, very basic, mostly self-service hotel. Only drawback is that there's only one electronic outlet in the room so I am writing this from the lobby.

The drive to Köln was nothing to write about, some on autobahn and some on small local roads. One smallish stau due to what looked like a broken down car. Ate at McD's.

After arriving to Köln, we went to the city and it was like any other big European city, same architecture, same shops and just too many people. Especially bachelor and hen parties as it is after all Saturday. Yes, the Köln Cathedral is impressive but that's about it. Maybe it's just road fatigue but the city seemed like a bore. And it rained. Again. Ate bratwurst hotdog on the shopping street.
For tomorrow we have no plans whatsoever. I think very little driving, just enough to get us to a new loaction to stay overnight.

Nürburgring and countryside

Started driving in the morning from Hildesheim towards a little village, Nachtsheim, in which we had booked our next room in a small B&B type gasthaus. After driving multiple autobahns and many winding local serpent roads, we finally reached the village a bit over 400-450 km from our starting point. The house where we should have checked in was empty when we arrived about 1-2pm so we headed out to find lunch (the local restaurant was also on the same lunch siesta and thus closed). We ended up choosing a city called Mayen as it looked like a bigger one on the map.

Indeed we arrived to a mid sized town with some cafes and restaurants. We ate at a kebab/pizza place as it was one of the cheaper restaurants not having a German siesta at the time. The spaghetti bolognese I took was pretty good and plentiful. This is the very first time I've encounterd this German lunch time siesta thing. I don't know if it's regional or customary to older towns but it makes life irritating. Restaurant owners are having their ĺunch when you would like to have lunch - how annoying is that?!

Another thing I've encountered this trip is the very bad credit card acceptance rate everywhere. Many gas stations only take Mastercard, if that and most even mid size town cafes and restaurants won't accept but cash. I've only been to big cities before this trip and in those credit cards are very well accpeted. But seems they don't lie about the issue in travel guides.

Anyway after lunch in Mayen we set our direction to Nürburgring formula 1 track as on Fridays they open the track to public for few hours so everyone willing can take their car (they also rent race cars) or motorcycle to real race track for a lap (abt. 15 euros for one lap). Well The Driver wanted to see how his car perfoms (loaded with our luggage and stuff). The atmosphere at the track was interesting, like everybody was there to race even in ther station wagons. You could feel the tension, adrenaline and gas in the air. Vey relaxed masculine, even though many German men had forced their wifes / girlfriends as passengers. I only watched as The Driver set out to the track, I think it was all in all a special occasion for The Driver and his car so I didn't want to ruin it for him by being scared shitless in the passenger seat. The Driver apparently had a very nice lap ad after we let the car cool down, we headed to Nachtsheim to see our room in the B&B exsisted.

I'd race in that

We were greeted by the house owners, nice German couple and two of their nice dogs. Our room was waiting and we brought our luggage in. We headed out for dinner to the earlier closed local restaurant had a cheap and ok dinner. The restaurant boasts and interesting collection of camera and videocameras from different decades. Also the restaurant staff were nice relaxed people. The restaurant also acts as a small hotel and based on the brouchure their rooms would have been nice too.

The room we have in this B&B is spacious and clean but a bit cold. Also the bathroom smells of gasoline. I wonder if the owner does some engine repairs in the house that cause the smell there. Otherwise ok for the 60 eur price since we have a good wireless internet and breakfast is included.

For tomorrow we don't have exact plans yet but most likely towards Luxenburg border in the Mosel wine area.

Hildesheim and Autostadt calling

Yesterday I didn't have proper access to internet so two days worth of updates in this post. So we left Copenhagen early Wednesday morning and headed towards Germany. The Big Belt bridge was very quickly crossed so I don't personally think it is anything that special while you're driving it. Because it was raining and my travel companion, The Driver, had gotten enough of Denmark as a land.
 We drove with minimal stops until outskirts of Hamburg, where we had very filling lunch in nice restaurant. After watching some blindfolded horses grazing grass at a pasture, we headed on until we reached our destination (around 680 kilometers away) at a nice little city called Hildesheim.

My experience of the German autobahn as a passenger was a bit confusing. I've always heard about the people driving speeds like 180-200 km/h in normal driving conditions. We were able to accelerate to 200 km/h only maybe two times, mostly traffic flow on the fast lane was going at speeds of 130-140 km/h, depending on the road condition. The middle lane (where existed) however had no "standard speed" you could easily determine, the slow lane was always, well slow. Few times there were some maniacs doing tailgating at about 160 km/h speeds and there are no such thing as speed safety gaps here, people drive always too close. Even at rainy conditions.

At Hildesheim we went as a first thing to buy a mobile internet which didn't due to operator problem start working until a day later. Otherwise we just chilled at the city at a cafe hiding from the rain. Our hotel Novotel boasts four stars at the lobby but I feel three stars would be more suitable as there was no air con or safety deposit box in the room. Of course this is a big step from the Copenhagen tiny bunk bed room but still at this price (90 EUR for double) I would have expected better.
We, as usual on my trips, ended up having a large family with ADHD children as our room neighbours so personally I didn't sleep too well as the little bastards started racketing at about 7 or 8 morning. I though we were lucky that the checked out, but it seems a similar big family has occupied the room on the other side. I frightfully await for the wake up at 7 am.

Autostadt did have some cool cars

As for today we made a day trip to Autostadt in Wolfsburg. We drove using tiny backroads and saw cool little towns on the way. The pavement condition in every village varied greatly and in some places we had really rough ride. In my opinion Autostadt has way too much fluff and way too few cars. Having seen both the Mercedes and Porsche museums in Stuttgart earlier, I feel Autostadt has nothing on them. It's nice but but not that nice. We ate late lunch at some bistro in Wolfsburg which served huge currywurst portion with fries for only 5,50 eur.

When we headed back to Hildesheim we got our first experience of the dreaded stau at autobahn, we crawled 10 km/h speed for several dozen kilometers. Boy it wasn't fun. They are to be avoided at all costs.

At the evening we went to indoor karting track. I drove about 20 minutes, while The Driver did 30 mins. I liked it a lot but I suck at that sport too. I lapped times about 10 seconds slower than others and got bumped three times by other kart cars. Fun but exhausting.

Tomorrow's direction is towards Mainz and Adenau.

Copenhagen day

Today was the second and luckily the last day in Copenhagen. Don't get me wrong, this is a city with great architecture. What kills the joy of seeing the city though is the high price level for a Finnish tourist. One feels like the whole city is one big money vacuum. Admission to Tivoli Gardens amusement park area alone was around 14 euros, which by any standard is really high. This would have been okay if Tivoli would have been a spectacular place, but it ranks about the same with any Nordic amusement parks. Maybe more of restaurants, less rides than any rival park I've been to.
Eating at the Hard Rock Cafe was not as expensive as I had feared though. But the experience wasn't very good, first a 20 minute wait for a table (even though the place didn't look that occupied) and the food took forever to come to the table. Food tasted good though.
Then we went to see the Little Mermaid statue. I was very dissapointed with the statue, not much to look at. I had much grander mental image about the statue. I don't know how many other tourists feel the same let down as I did.

Tomorrow we'll be leaving Denmark for Germany. Originally we were meant to take a ferry over but it seems it's crazy expensive for such a short ferry ride that we opted to do the driving via the bridges and Danish continent. Should make for an interesting scenery hopefully.

At Copenhagen

I am taking you along at this stage of the trip, we've been on the road fro two days now.
Well, on the road is not accurate description as we spend the first day taking a ferry to Sweden from Finland, which was our starting point for this trip. Yesterday we drove through the very monotonous Swedish motorway landscape from Stockholm to Copenhagen via the Belt bridge.
At the evening we went to the beautiful Copenhagen city center and had an expensive but good dinner.

Swedish roadside entertainment

Talking of expensive, we're staying at Cabinn Metro hotel near the airport. Double room per night for two people costs around 75 euros. What you get is a very tiny room with bunk bed. The bathroom is the tiniest I've ever seen and gets all wet if shower is dared to be used. The room has a free wifi and is clean, which is maybe the only positives about the hotel. One negative suprise was that the top bunk hadn't been made and had some extra pillows and blankets stored on it. It was quite job to make the bed as one would assume a hotel room would be ready for sleeping.