How did I arrive here

I still have it fresh in my memory, one moment of my life: standing on top of the Kjeragbolten, the most bloody scary thing I’ve ever stood up in my life. A sphere-shaped stone trapped between two 1km high cliffs in-the-middle-of-nowhere-in-Norway. There, kneeling down on that stone, hesitating whether to risk my life jumping on it (a twelve years old Norge girl was making fun of me at that moment, but I eventually did it), I asked myself the question that changed my view forever: “How, on earth, did I arrive here!?”. And in that very moment, I realised it was a question I needed in my life on a common basis. Ever since, I’ve never stopped craving its appearance.

So now back to modern days. The question is, as it comes, how did I arrive here!? Now I’m writing in a foreign blog, in a really fancy building, without any personal computer, revising my memories of what has just happened. The answer, long story short, is that I came here by bike.

Last March, back in my beloved Madrid, I got along with Leon, a guy from Münster I was just hosting through Couchsurfing, and one of those days, walking through the Retiro Park, he presented me a marvellous idea. He had wanted to make a bike trip for a long time: he loves to cycle, and it offers you all the flexibility that a buy-two-months-in-advance flight ticket doesn’t offer which later on, in case you want to stay a little longer, costs a lot of money to change. But he, doubtful, told me he has never found anyone to do so with. I instantly responded how awesome that idea was, but, as everyone else would have said so, no attention was drawn back to, and the theme stayed there to be forgotten… but wait!

Once I found the possibility of moving to Kraków – to teach some of you a bit of Spanish! –, I started dealing with summer plans, and in one long wakeful night it suddenly came to my mind: I ran to the maps, typed Münster-to-Kraków, and realized that little more than a thousand kilometres was nothing I would ever refuse to do. Went to sleep uneasily, woke up at 7am, ran into the city centre, bought a postcard, came back to the nearest post office and wrote to my friend, with maximum excitement, about the existence of a marvellous but not yet stated idea and three questions: When are your holidays? What are your plan for the holidays? And how reckless are you?

A few days later, his answer reached my desk: a bunch of ideas, dates, and a fervent Do tell me what your idea is! But my definite answer arrived to Germany during the Great German Post Strike: three weeks for him to receive it, one more for me to get his response: There is no other option but to say yes. Where are we going to pass through? And at that point I remembered I hadn’t rode a bike since I had been a kid. Plus, things just went out of control. After we finally decided to move on to a quicker internet instead of the overland post route, the discussion regarding the path went like: I have a friend in this city I ought to visit – oh, there is a museum in this city I will like to take a look on – hey, what about this mountain? – I will love to have a swim in the Baltic – we both agree this one is a must and it is not too much of a detour – have you noticed this historical site here… Turned out that, in the end, we were planning more than 3.000 km.

It’s July. 21st: I’m in the flight to Bremen. 23rd: in the bus to Münster, later buying my first and beloved bike (if we would ever manage to find such was a theme that kept Leon thoroughly worried from the beginning), receiving the papers from Krakow the same night. We celebrated with absinthe, our special friend. 26th: striding the pedals.

Wawel

More to come!