Mini-Trip

We went for a mini-trip this weekend up the coast of Denmark from Copenhagen to Helsingor and back the next day, as a test-run to see if we needed any other supplies and see exactly we were about to get ourselves into.

View copenhagen to helsingor in a larger map
This is what we learned:
The bike routes in Denmark are amazing. They have specific bike lanes next to every road, even in the cities, so that there is no worries that a car is going to run you over. It is wise however, to know the biker's code-can be picked up at any kiosk selling dark Danish rye and pate. I've gotten yelled at for not properly signaling when I planned to turn. Oh, and you must have front and back lights. The cute little bike bells are widely used here and they're super handy when you get stuck behind a beautiful Danish couple who are riding along the streets of Copenhagen holding hands. So adorable! Yet impossible to get around unless you ´brrriingg´. We took route 9 all the way up the coast and it was wonderful! It went through the forest for a bit which reminded me a lot of the Appalachian Trail through the Blue Ridge Mountains, and then along the coast.

I always think of northern seas as being dark and murky, whereas southern seas are warm and clear. But the water off of Copenhagen is super clear and blue. Yesterday we stopped on the way back in to town and had an ice cream and sat on the long stone wall by the sea. It was perfectly windy and there were at least 50 sail boats out of the water. Oh! And there was a pirate ship out in the distance. Gorgeous!

On the way up the coast we stopped at a town called Niva to camp. We almost shit a brick. It's mandatory to have a 'camping license' to camp anywhere around Scandanavia, which costs 90 kroner. Then we got the bill. Freaking 235dkk, which roughly translates to $45 for one night of sleeping on a 28 sq foot plot of grass. After we looked really pitiful as we handed over our credit card, we were informed by the really sweet older couple that they were one of the cheaper facilities. However, maybe we should consider Sweden for the remainder of our trip because they don't have very good facilities and you can in fact, simply pitch a tent anywhere and that's completely fine by law. The lady instructed us to be very careful if we did that and to 'take care of your skin'. Hahaha. ? If we insisted upon staying in Denmark then we could most certainly ask for work in any camp site in exchange for a square of grass for the night. Bottom line: Denmark, notoriously expensive. Head to Sweden.

As far as the actual biking. Kat and I bike around Austin all the time. However, on a good day, we average around just an hour a day. Haha, so basically we're a little unprepared the biking that lays ahead of us. We biked for about 6 hours yesterday and today, phew, um, how do you say?...totally dying? Get a girl seat! They are amazing. Poor Kat has seen the beauty of a girl seat and after intense discomfort, despite her padded bike shorts that make her waddle when she walks, has decided to convert. Oh, maybe not exactly glamorous, but don't mess with your girlie bits before embarking on a biking trip. No shaving, no waxing, no pruning of any sort.

Just chant, 'I am woman, hear me roar!
In numbers too big to ignore'
-Helen Reddy-

My girlie bits are fine this morning but the back of my arms just from supporting myself, are super sore, as is my butt and my calves. We've been doing yoga every morning and that helps, but really, I can't remember the last time I felt so physically tired. When I lay down at night, if it's on a bed or on my grass, it's the best feeling ever, just to be horizontal and I sleep so deeply. Ahhh.

So, all in all, I think that this Thursday we're just going to high tail it to Sweden, see Hamlet's castle, and I think we'll be fine. We got this.

Jet Lag

Kat and I on train into Copenhagen last night. Oh dear, she let me sleep from 10pm last night till 2pm this afternoon. My body is stiff and sore as hell and my head feels slightly like cotton balls.

We`ve Reunited

Oh my good lord. I finally have arrived in Copenhagen after three days of travel. Three days of the same socks. Three days of arrival gates. Three days of trying to sleep on industrial carpet.
Kat picked me up at the airport, which is undergoing renovation and getting all new wooden floors. I tried to put my bike back together, but surviving on very little sleep I forgot how to put the chain back on. I got everything else just fine but the chain is hanging on by a bungee chord and it`ll just have to wait till tomorrow.

Kat`s couch surfing with these two European stoner dudes (video games, reggae, lots of indoor plants) who are really nice. Kat commented on how she thinks it`s hard to be funny in a different language but that one of them (Toren) is rather successful at it. I have to agree with her on that point because American humor seems to mainly be derived from sarcasm and play on words. In order to be USA style funny you must have a good grasp of if you want to know the difference between an X and a Y chromosome you must pull their genes down (hahaha...their jeans!).

I finally got the lowdown on how Kat's been doing since she got to Copenhagen and it seems like we were both in the same shitty boat of luck. Got pick-pocketed on her way from the airport to downtown. They figured out a way to change her pin code and bought a shit load of stuff. Costs so much to call her CC customer service line in order to get it all worked out. No money in a seriously expensive town sucks. Sucks.

When traveling alone and shitty things happen is an awful feeling. That's when the panic sets in. But when traveling with a friend, it all seems way easier to handle. Strength in numbers and all. So both of us are terribly glad that we finally met up. Kat has the day off of her internship with Anne Black tomorrow and then Monday is a holiday, so we're going to take off on a long weekend-dry-run of our trip to the west coast of Denmark. Hopefully after some sleep I'll remember about my chain.

Things Are Now Calm In The State Of Denmark

It's amazing how little of life I can cope with on no sleep. After finally getting some rest on the plane to London and speaking with my momma who helped situate me with a new ticket to Copenhagen instead of trying to navigate seeing my sister in Spain, I feel much better and am ready to get this show on the road. Kat will meet me at the airport, we'll put my bike back together, and then we're going to bike around Copenhagen at night.

While I was standing in line in Atlanta trying to catch another plane to London, a family from Alabama were talking behind me. The mom was livid about missing their connections to Africa and she said something mean about the Delta staff but then countered with, "Oh I'm sorry, I'm just bein nasty". It was oddly comforting at the time because it's totally something my step-mother would do. And now, I preface this by saying, "sorry, I'm bein nasty"...

Oh, the British. On the way back from London the last time I was sitting next to this older man who was going to the US with his family for the first time. I was reading a book about student resistance during the Vietnam war and was highlighting and writing in the margins a lot. Towards the end of the flight he leaned over and said, "We were taught to never draw in our books." Hahaha, god he was sooo British! But damn, they do have a fabulous awkward humor (Extras, Shaun of the Dead, etc).

I Hate Delta

Oh my good lord! My flight into Atlanta was needlessly delayed because of weather. So I missed my connecting flight to London and thus missed my flight to Spain to see my sister. On the up side, I wasn't the only one shit out of luck and at least I wasn't trying to go on safari in Africa like my neighbors in line. They put me on another flight leaving at 5 this evening and thus, I spent the night in the airport. There is nothing more shittier than trying to sleep on the floor in an airport. However, I did make friends with the night cleaning crew--so there's always that. Total mess. Hopefully this is just getting both Kat and my bad luck out of the way so we can have an awesome trip. Oh! Yeah, Kat's wallet got stolen in Copenhagen. Oh traveling...

I'm Off!

I'm finally all packed. This is what I am taking for 2 1/2 months of good backpacker's style travel. I'll leave on Tuesday morning to fly to London and then on down to see my sister for a week in a little town above Barcelona, Spain. I'll be couch surfing for one night before I finally get to my sister and I've been informed the evening I arrive, we will be going to see the big soccer game between Barcelona and Manchester United. Haha, I kind of look forward to that.

Yesterday morning I called around to several bike stores around town to see how much it would cost to box my bike up for the airplane and if they could do it. Granted, it was Memorial Day but most of the places I called charged $40 and required scheduling a boxing a week prior to the pick-up day. I was like, "wha, wha, wha? It's a bike in a box!" Not to be confused with a dick in a box, which are two very different items requiring varying box sizes. Eventually Conner and I decided to box the bike up ourselves. University Cycles were awesome and just gave us a big box for free. Conner showed me how to take my bike all apart and then made me put it back together. Excellent idea.

I'll arrive in London tomorrow morning and then head on down to meet my sister in Spain for a week before meeting Kat in Copenhagen. While I'm in Spain I will put my bike in storage at the airport. Molly lives at the bottom of an extinct volcano in Olot (in between Barcelona and France and near the Pyrenees) and although Kat and I will be biking all over Europe this summer, I flaked out on some mountain cycling.

Biking: Not Always A Cheap Ride

The original reason we decided to bike around Europe was to save money. We figured the main costs would be plane tickets, food, and entertainment which would all be minimal. We planned to camp and couch surf along the way to reduce housing costs. Both of us have tried out couch surfing in the States, having had several people stay on our couches for a couple nights at a time, and while you are technically letting total strangers stay in your house, there is a lot of opportunity to check them out before they arrive in order for you to get a "good feeling" about them or not. Essentially, we were trying to Frugal Traveler it up.


However, let me just say now, loud and clear, the upfront cost is sooo not that cheap. There is all the travel gear to purchase:

Tent, compactable sleeping bag, sleeping pad, bike, saddlebags, headlight

backlight, travel towel, bike shorts (big old diaper), etc, etc

Luckily Kat's brother-in-law and my friend , Jen, have let us borrow most of the camping/biking gear, so we didn't have to dole out a ton.

Then there's the problem of transporting the bike overseas. From all the bike blogs that we read, it seemed that between shipping it and taking it with you on the plane, the plane option was the best. Apparently lots of people have had issues with the bikes taking three months to get to their destination, or showing up all battered, and also being rather expensive to ship. So, to the plane it is. We found that it was $80 per leg of your journey to stow a bike below (haha! rhyming!). Although when Kat went to the airport Delta had instated a flat bike fee of $300. Seriously. Kill me now.

Plus, since we've become overly ambitious in our travels, there is still the additional stowing fee per each flight we're going on...hahaha, our frugal planning frame of mind got whacked out somewhere along the way.

So, in conclusion, I'm still totally stoked about our trip, and I welcome the physical exhaustion we will inevitably experience in the coming months. However, I wouldn't recommend choosing to bike around solely based on trying to save money.

Oh! The bikes we're taking...

This is mine. Conner and his brother built it for me! We got a mountain bike frame from the pawn shop and then turned it into a hybrid (thinner tires, lowered handlebars). I don't know if it shows up that well, but I have a girl seat. It's amazing! There's a hole in the center of the bike seat so all the pressure is on your bones and is sooo much more comfortable for riding.

This is the type of bike, a Cross Check, that Kat has. Apparently they are the best touring bikes out there.

Origins Of Travel

Kat and I are embarking on our grand European summer vacation! We will be cycling around Europe for the next 2.5 months, camping along the way, and generally trying not to re-enact any National Lampoon saga. Originally we planned to meet up in Trieste, Italy (dying place of my literary hero, James Joyce) and biking along the Mediterranean all the way to Greece. I envisioned stopping several times a day to cool off in the blue sea, lounging in olive groves, and discovering what Albanian 'indie' music sounded like. It sounded amazing! They don't even carry any travel books on Montenegro, Albania, or Bosnia at the local bookstore. Kat and I were going to go and discover what the region was like after the Kosovo War.

However, after a bit more research Kat found that while there is no real issue with hard crime, theft is a large problem in the area. And the hills, oh the hills.

While Kat and I are relatively in shape, we're not in shape for 2.5 months of mountain peddling. We're also not super skilled in the art of Taiwanese ass-kicking should that need arise. It was decided that we should scrap our previous travel plans and start over, preferably in a flatter area.

This is the route we finally decided upon.

I will fly to northern Spain for a week to visit my sister who has been studying there for the last year--then up to Copenhagen to meet Kat who will be finishing an internship with Anne Black--we'll bike Denmark, southern Sweden, down through Amsterdam, and end up in Frankfurt, Germany--mail our bikes home and catch a flight to Croatia--then Kat will fly up to Berlin and I'll go to Athens to meet up with my boyfriend, Conner, and we'll go island hopping in the Cyclades.

View Bicycle Trip 2009 in a larger map
While researching our cycling trip we found that there just aren't that many girl bike blogs. There are plenty bike dude and dude with girlfriend bike blogs, but very, very few chick bike blogs. To remedy this situation we'll keep this blog updated as regularly as possible and hopefully do some podcasts along the way. Once I get that up and running I will post the link.

Yay! I can't wait!

Kat

This is Kat. She's originally from Austin and is a total bad-ass ceramicist--see Finery for evidence. She just got into Alfred University to study ceramic engineering of which I'm totally proud of her for. She's really goofy--hahaha, the first time we hung out we went to a strip club...another story, another time...but hey, how can you not be friends after a first like that? She also loves to read a great deal; last time I heard, she was on a Michael Chabon kick.
photo by Christina Schaffell

Rachel

This is me. I'm originally from North Carolina and moved to Austin about 3 years ago. I sew clothing and occasionally style photo shoots.