Morning came quickly and I rode past Ales stenar (Ale’s Stones) a 1000+ year old kind of stonehenge. The massive rocks sit on a grassy cliff overlooking the sea. Together the boulders form the outline of a ship. How, 1000 years ago, did they manage to get each of these 1 tonne boulders up here in the first place? More amazing is the fact that the stones are exactly aligned with the sun. At the winter and summer Solstices, the sun slices exactly down the middle of the ship (boulders S15 and N14). What kind of unhuman patience made it possible for these ancient Swedish builders to set up this site with such precision – without machines, GPS or even a scrap of paper.
A few days later, Sweden’s medieval past pulled me to the Glimmingehus, built in 1499. This was the Ritz Carlton of the day, a stone house with a real fireplaces. Swarming the castle were kids, grandparents, tattooed and slightly overweight parents all with blond or dark-died hair. Their clean and fancy cars stretched far down the country road. In the castle courtyard, visitors squeezed sausages into their mouths and washed it down with beer.
I guess all of us have singular moments in our lives which take on a greater significance in our minds. Turning points. Milestones. My life changed at 71°10′21″.
For some unexplainable reason I had been fascinated for a number of years with the idea of cycling from Berlin to the northern most point of Europe, just a mass of rocks overlooking the Barents Sea, really. I’d never been on a bike ride this far. Previously, I’d done maybe 300 kilometers over a long weekend trip. To go to Nordkapp would stretch me well over 2000 km. It was a physical challenge, which I’ve always loved. It was also a kind of saying goodbye.
Early one Berlin morning, in June 2013, I rode away. I didn’t think I’d ever see Berlin again and wasn’t sure I even wanted to. I had first moved to Berlin in the summer of 1999. During a 14 years span, I earned 2 additional degrees, drank rivers of Berliner beer, danced in abandoned basements, worked in the German Bundestag, saw old buildings restored and experienced the evolution of the city.
Why was I going north?
(June 2013)
OXLAEY