Since I finally got my GPS-Mac problem solved, I was able to upload our track through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to google maps.
Click here to see the track or copy/paste this link:
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zp5UyHz_FFyU.kj8b4JZPOskw
∼ Wolfi
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Berlin - paradise for vegans
Both of us got a warm feeling knowing
we would be soon in Berlin – a sense of belonging, some sort of
home. I had my first visit to Berlin when I was 14yrs old, and Skippy
and me have visited Berlin several times. So we knew the place a
little bit, which shops are where, what to expect, where to go and
especially the fact that there are many vegan restaurants and vegan
shops.
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| Having a break on the way to Poland |
 |
| lap-doggies |
During the past days, my to-do list for
Berlin was just getting bigger and bigger. I had severe problems with
my gadgets and applications on my Mac and we needed a proper internet
connection to do some major uploads. One of the major issues was my
GPS. For some reason, I did not get maps of Berlin installed and I
was forced to navigate based on major streets, tall buildings and the
position of the sun.
I did have the vague recollection the
connection was working at home when I installed my maps on the Mac. I
spend about many days – searching internet, now in Berlin I was
able to visit Touratech, Globetrotter and Saturn in figuring out why
my Mac does not find my GPS.
Thanks to all of you technical guys,
who tried to help me. Even though we eliminated many options what it
was not, none of the proposed solutions really helped me.
The closest we got was to install Windows on my Mac, and then use basecamp to connect to my GPS. The remaining problem was that all my maps were installed on the Mac side. In the end, the real hint what to do came from advrider.com forum. The USB of my old Garmin GPS (USB2.) and my new Mac (USB3.0) do not like each other, and by using a USB-hub (USB2.0) in between, all my troubles vanished. No problem to connect to the GPS.
What a relief!!!
Our hotel was another "dog-unfriendly" hotel. With 5EUR/dog/night - it became quite expensive and IMO a rip-off. The argumentation that "we MUST clean everyday", even though we did not want this service was anyway complete BS. They cleaned only once during our stay and then after we left (I assume). The staff was friendly with expectation of the boss - a female dragon. Anyway, we got room # 14.
OK - after a while, we found our room ... well the door was slightly bigger and I hit my head only a few times.
We eliminated some luggage and thus, we could buy some more luxury items for the trip and now we got us lovely chairs :D This will upgrade our camping life at least manifold.
 |
| Room 14 - reminded me a bit on "Harry Potter - closet under the stairs" |
We eliminated some luggage and thus, we could buy some more luxury items for the trip and now we got us lovely chairs :D This will upgrade our camping life at least manifold.
 |
| The new camping chairs :) |
Skippy ask me later why I bought "alkoholfrei" (alcohol-free) beer and I said, that I did not and she showed me the label. OMG - a clear indication how exhausted I was and how troubled my mind had been with all the issues we had so far.
 |
| "fridge" |
We also visited my aunt, did some other shopping as planned and enjoyed the rich vegan food options in Berlin. Vegan restaurants and vegan shops – what a pleasure! One can just go and order (or buy) without having the usual conversation of ordering a cheese salad without the cheese, or going to an indian place. We ate delicious food and I liked the burger at Vego Foodworld so much, that we went there even twice.
 |
| Vego Foodworld |
 |
| Delicious vegan burger |
We also tested another vegan restaurant "Le Orchid V Noir" in Joachimsthalerstr. (Passagen). The food was mostly vegan, however you need to be extremely clear in the beginning. The owner seemed to only see the business opportunity of the vegan niche market, and does not always take it "110% serious". So better be careful with this one. This menu really looked like duck and tasted like duck. Only when you start to dig and examine the "meat" one sees that the structure is based on veggies.
 |
| Vegan duck (looks like duck, tastes like duck - is no duck) |
Since our dogs are not used to being
free in city, they simple do not know how to behave there with all
the other dogs, bicycles and cars. They would do all sorts of
non-sense from running away to hunting the ducks and swans. In our
last evening, we went to Spinnerbrücke – a place to see and be
seen – had a snack and went to Wannsee so that girls could finally
be free a little bit and play.
 |
| Our bikes at Spinnerbrücke |
Our country-side dog Lyra was barking almost all the time and we were wondering what now. Now she is free and could play on the beach fetching stick, and no – barking barking barking. What a dog!
As it was getting dark, we went back to
the bikes and got ready to go. Now also Hertta was barking towards
the bushes and Skippy had a glimpse. On first sight she thought there
was people (many cars were still at the parking lot) and they were
“busy” and then – Shock ... I think the picture says it all :D
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| What the heck is there in the bush? |
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| It's a wild hog eating |
∼ Wolfi
Friday, May 17, 2013
Poland
Nothing special... Well sorry to say, but those were the first words that came into my mind now when trying to think what to write.
8th of May we left the camping place in Lithuania. Me tiptoeing the first kilometres and Wolfi sweating behind... I wanted to be sure that my day doesn't start with a fall! It was a beautiful hot day (close to +30) and in the Poland side spring/summer was again much further. Berry/fruit trees nicely flowering and lovely sweet smell everywhere and of course plenty of bees! I got already my second stung (first was in Latvia), but luckily I'm not allergic so wasn't bad at all.
This time we didn't take much sand roads, because there was not much meaningful ones (just very very small ones) and we also had a schedule to keep up to.
First night in Poland we stayed in a small cabin in some kind of home/farm camping place. We didn't have internet access in the previous place so couldn't choose a place beforehand. In the first bigger town we started then to search a place to stay. First tried to get some translation help in a shopping mall parking place... Hopeless! Then we just decided to drive on for a moment and luckily saw a sign next to the street! Ok place, but in the end costed twice as much than the ten times better/nicer/cooler place what we had the following nights. This camping place also had plenty of animals there and to my opinion all were maltreated, especially the dogs! Horribly dirty and smelly cages, dogs furs all messy and nails way too long. Next morning when the owner had already gone I had courage to go close to the dogs (previous night they were trying to act scary) and noticed that no-one had left them any water or food and it was a very hot day!!! So I went to get my water bottle and girls dry food and instantly when those poor (huge) dogs saw what I had they were behaving totally nice! I filled their pots through the (prison)bars and got me two new beautiful friends :) Real gentle giants when you treat them nicely!
After the camping place we headed deeper into the Polish countryside towards so far the coolest/nicest accommodation of our trip. It was another hot day, but now with some pressure in the air and a heavy wind! So heavy that I really had to struggle to stay up at some moments! Few kilometres before our hotel it finally started to rain and thunder... and what a thunder it was! We had some difficulties to find the place and at one crossing Wolfi left me for a moment to look for the right street (it was again this nasty drift sand and all tired and wet didn't have energy to do any extra milage) and while he was gone a lightning hit very close by and so hard that the sound wall cracked (or whatever it's called)! That was scary as hell, I had never heard anything like that before! Later on it gave even extra chill when I learned that bike isn't too safe to be at when there's thunder... Well eventually we found the place and for this difficult sand road part we swapped bikes because Wolfi has more power and longer legs to hold my bike up when it starts to wobble.... but he did fell also... not badly though, but at least now I don't have to try to explain anymore how difficult it is!
Gościniec Figlówka - Really cool mansion in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beautiful forest.
Done with great taste everywhere and not expensive at all! (at least off season) Here I would love to go again with more time!
The umbrella turned out to be very practical :)
Lyra was extremely happy to get proper play in the next morning!
Hertta and Ulpu sleeping after a heavy play time :)
There was no kitchen so had to do all the cookings in the bathroom. Luckily(?) no fire alarms anywhere.
Interesting sunset in the last evening. Soon after this started heavy rain and we went downstairs to play pool and that was fun! Way too long time since the last game!
～ Ilta
8th of May we left the camping place in Lithuania. Me tiptoeing the first kilometres and Wolfi sweating behind... I wanted to be sure that my day doesn't start with a fall! It was a beautiful hot day (close to +30) and in the Poland side spring/summer was again much further. Berry/fruit trees nicely flowering and lovely sweet smell everywhere and of course plenty of bees! I got already my second stung (first was in Latvia), but luckily I'm not allergic so wasn't bad at all.
This time we didn't take much sand roads, because there was not much meaningful ones (just very very small ones) and we also had a schedule to keep up to.
First night in Poland we stayed in a small cabin in some kind of home/farm camping place. We didn't have internet access in the previous place so couldn't choose a place beforehand. In the first bigger town we started then to search a place to stay. First tried to get some translation help in a shopping mall parking place... Hopeless! Then we just decided to drive on for a moment and luckily saw a sign next to the street! Ok place, but in the end costed twice as much than the ten times better/nicer/cooler place what we had the following nights. This camping place also had plenty of animals there and to my opinion all were maltreated, especially the dogs! Horribly dirty and smelly cages, dogs furs all messy and nails way too long. Next morning when the owner had already gone I had courage to go close to the dogs (previous night they were trying to act scary) and noticed that no-one had left them any water or food and it was a very hot day!!! So I went to get my water bottle and girls dry food and instantly when those poor (huge) dogs saw what I had they were behaving totally nice! I filled their pots through the (prison)bars and got me two new beautiful friends :) Real gentle giants when you treat them nicely!
 |
| Beautifull and extremely nice big (60-80kg) boy :) His friend hiding somewhere in the behind cage. |
Gościniec Figlówka - Really cool mansion in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beautiful forest.
Done with great taste everywhere and not expensive at all! (at least off season) Here I would love to go again with more time!
The umbrella turned out to be very practical :)
Lyra was extremely happy to get proper play in the next morning!
Hertta and Ulpu sleeping after a heavy play time :)
Saturday 11th of May we had to leave this beautiful place because Berlin was waiting... what a pity! We had again rather easy roads, but still very nice. Lovely countryside with gorgeous big trees around the streets bringing us needed sun. Some small rain showers here and there, but nothing too big. Afternoon we arrived to Lowicz Walecki Motel Park, which first looked rather cool and interesting, but in the end was a quite dump... and a rip off! The owner seemed like a dog lover and heavily offered us his garage and showed his bike project and other collection items... but in the end just took heavy money of all these. Left rather nasty aftertaste :(
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| Weird things around the place. |
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| Lousy lights, so needed my 'otsalamppu' :) |
～ Ilta
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Videos with new URL
Howdy readers,
since there had been problems with both of the videos, I think this link here will work better worldwide.
Farewell Finland
Link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf/2515325289_bD66ffW
Baltic roads
Link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf
Still trying to figure out how to embed the videos here.
∼ Wolfi
since there had been problems with both of the videos, I think this link here will work better worldwide.
Farewell Finland
Link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf/2515325289_bD66ffW
Baltic roads
Link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf
Still trying to figure out how to embed the videos here.
∼ Wolfi
Monday, May 13, 2013
Video of Baltic roads
Here is a short clip to illustrate what kind of roads you might hit in baltic countries :D
Click here to see the video or copy/paste this link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf
For the Baltic countries I used a map with a scale of 1:400000 - the roads marked with white were typically dusty gravel roads and sometimes caused some smaller surprises. The streets marked in yellow and orange typically caused biggest surprises. Their quality ranged from totally horrible i.e. bumpy, holes in the street, borderline asphalt/gravel might have high edges to brand new and smooth.
Generally the streets we rode in Latvia and Lithuania were the worst. The front suspension on my sidecar needed adjustment. The bike/helmet camera quit its services most of the times on those roads and that's why I do not have clips from there.
Most "interesting" are those roads which have asphalt in the centre and gravel left and right. Typically both are in bad condition with the gravel given an opportunity of even bigger potholes compared to the asphalt. As everybody wants to ride the middle part as much as possible, here seems to be some way to "play chicken" with the traffic coming from opposite direction. And even though you think you go fast - maybe we rode at about 90km/h, watch the mirrors for the local heroes :D ...
∼ Wolfi
Click here to see the video or copy/paste this link: http://sauerkrauttofuwurst.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/Pictures-Europe/29433530_KwXtnk/2514350184_MjB2szf
For the Baltic countries I used a map with a scale of 1:400000 - the roads marked with white were typically dusty gravel roads and sometimes caused some smaller surprises. The streets marked in yellow and orange typically caused biggest surprises. Their quality ranged from totally horrible i.e. bumpy, holes in the street, borderline asphalt/gravel might have high edges to brand new and smooth.
Generally the streets we rode in Latvia and Lithuania were the worst. The front suspension on my sidecar needed adjustment. The bike/helmet camera quit its services most of the times on those roads and that's why I do not have clips from there.
Most "interesting" are those roads which have asphalt in the centre and gravel left and right. Typically both are in bad condition with the gravel given an opportunity of even bigger potholes compared to the asphalt. As everybody wants to ride the middle part as much as possible, here seems to be some way to "play chicken" with the traffic coming from opposite direction. And even though you think you go fast - maybe we rode at about 90km/h, watch the mirrors for the local heroes :D ...
∼ Wolfi
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