Finally home!

My ferry from Helsinki ended in Travemünde, Germany, which is in the northwest corner of Germany, near Lübeck. The ferry didn't dock until 9:30pm, which meant it was starting to get dark. So now my super bright lights were not just a good idea, they were a necessity!

As I was waiting by my bike for the cars to start pulling off, I noticed one guy seriously looking at the bike and he asked me how much it weighed. We struck up a conversation about how he is from Finland and a cyclist. I asked what kind of bike he had, figuring he must have it at home. But then he says, "here, I'll show you!" and opens the back door of his giant VW panel van to show me the Cervelo S3 road bike. He also had an air mattress and a set of rollers. (This is a device that you put your bike on and it allows you to pedal in place, kind of like a treadmill.) I could tell this guy was serious about cycling.

He was driving down to Italy to go do some training for a week or so, because "we have no mountains in Finland." And he was going to start driving immediately and drive all through the night. I hope he made it OK.

After the 10 min ride to my hotel in the dark, I was quickly in bed so I could be up for a fast breakfast before my train.

I had about a 2 hour stopover in Hamburg. When I originally booked my ticket, I gave myself extra time so I could go out and do some sightseeing. This was an excellent idea, but I used the additional time to go to the train travel desk.

I needed to buy a ticket for taking my bike on the train the next day, but I also wanted to resolve my ticketing issue. I had booked my tickets online and had used the credit card that was in my passport bag and was now gone. The ticket lists the last four of the card used, and the conductor is supposed to use that as verification of the ticket holder's identity. (It specifically says that passports cannot be used, which seems very bizarre.)

At the desk, I explained that my wallet was stolen on my trip and asked if the lady could reprint me the tickets. After consulting with her supervisors, the ruling was that I should "hope the conductors are nice and don't require it." Oh, boy. If they weren't nice, I would get a fine that was the value of the ticket plus a percentage. This trip required many connections, so that meant many conductors to explain the situation to. I was not feeling confident.

With my bicycle ticket purchased, I ventured out to find lunch that was not from the train station. The Rathaus was only a few minute walk, so I headed that direction.

I found some lunch and then headed back to catch my train to Frankfurt. There were a lot of bikes on that train (10+), but the car actually had a bike rack in it and every bike was assigned a place.

Once in Frankfurt, I was able to avoid the impending rainstorm and took the underground to Tim's apartment where I was staying for the evening. Since I was returning his pannier bags, I had mailed myself a backpack to carry all my stuff home in. Now the bike was nice and light, but I was lugging around a heavy pack.

When I look at the route I took on the train today, it was a very good thing that the bike was light, because there were a bunch of stairs to go up and down. Instead of running around and trying to find an elevator, I just walked up/down them. But my final train was the most harrowing of all:

Those are the stairs leading into the car and they are really, really steep. This is also the car where you are supposed to take strollers, as well as wheelchairs. It seemed like a cruel joke.  I helped a few of the stroller users - it was impossible for them to move in or out singlehandedly. 

Thankfully, all of the conductors took pity on me and were OK with just seeing my passport. So, no fines!

Finally, after lots of travel, I was back at my train station, and I walked my bike home. It's only a 10 minute walk, plus trying to ride with the very heavy pack and another bag seemed like recipe for disaster. It would be my luck to ride over 1000 miles with no problems and then crash in the last mile. 

I was expecting my internet to not be working, since we had a huge electrical storm while I was gone. But I walked in and found everything to be working fine. And the consulate e-mailed me, stating that someone had turned in my passport and credit card. She didn't have any information about the circumstances, but that is reassuring that they are not still out there.

So I guess that's the end of the adventure! I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, because this was an amazing experience to both see the area, as well as to learn things about myself. I had never done anything remotely like this before, so I was way out of my comfort zone and very naive about what to expect. But using my mantra of "just keep moving forward," I was able to go out every day and accomplish the task that needed to be done. Sometimes all you can do to move forward is walk your bike because you wound up in the sand pit. And sometimes it is a downhill, smooth road, with a tailwind. There will be both, but just keep moving forward.