My Cycling for Libraries Puzzle, part 6
Monday, May 30th
Bosei Sports Academy, Prästö
5.05 am. A horrible thought cut my sleep. Two bikes are missing. Leena and Susanna will join the cyclists in Rostock and their bikes were taken aboard already in Turku. Where are the bikes? I ended in conclusion that they were left in Copenhagen, at Black Diamond. When I was getting new bike to Yulia, the others had unpacked the trailer and put the bikes among the 10000000000 other bikes by the library. Great. No use trying to get any sleep again.
Rest of the morning was pleasant, the friendly hosts of ours gave us a chance to use the pool before breakfast (sauna was also heated because they had heard there were more than 20 Finns staying overnight…) so splashes and fascinated yells were heard soon after 7.30. Some of us reached more than 500 meters by swimming so it was a nice change for cycling.
A diverse breakfast with luxury dishes was welcomed, especially for our kitchen crew, who still got a chance to give their nerves and hands a little rest. The atmosphere of the academy was remarkable in many ways, though it was almost summer and there weren’t many students, the ones we saw were like sculptures from ancient greek athletes.
We had the ordinary meeting after breakfast and I told everybody about the two missing bikes. Because I was the most worried one I suggested we’d buy new bikes as replace, but Jukka calmed me down and decided we’d get the bikes from Copenhagen. Urpo and Antti would drive Stara and have the honour to find the bikes. Otherwise meeting was relaxed, cause we started to see that things were quite okay.
A former, now retired teacher of the academy kindly but in means of military commands, leaded participants to next passage, a library in Prästö. Urpo wasn’t so happy to drive back to CPH while Antti took it easy. I gave them the keys and descriptions. Tossu, Pasi and I took the course to the lunch spot.
First we take Mön, then we take Berlin.
Once again, Denmark showed us its’ sweet side, being the villages well care taken and the views beautiful with fields, cattle, flowers and sea. We crossed teh old Mön bridge to get to the lunch spot, and the view was, again, breathtaking. The lunch spot was planned to locate in a small camping site, so when I saw a contact sign of the host, I called him. Again, we were pleasantly welcomed and the host promised to open the ice cream stand for us after lunch. Kitchen crew and I took a peek at the beautiful pier (no vehicles were allowed there, which is really understandable) and then we grabbed pots, pans and gas heaters.
Chef is trying to do some groceries... crabs, perhaps?
The moment I nearly fell asleep after work done, Jukka called me and asked for help, Yulia and Rasmus had crashed together, and Yulia needed escort to the lunch spot. At first I was scared how badly she was injured, but after some 8 kilometer drive I saw that the situation wasn't that bad. Anyway, after such a shock Yulia, her bike and I drove back to Mön.
When Yulia was escorted to have some rest in a shade, my phone rang again. It was Jukka -again- telling that a bee had struck Jonas in the eye... Now I got really scared because Jonas was our paramedic and what happens if paramedic is out of the game. Poor thing. So as an deja-vu I did the rescue trip with van and trailer again -reversing and circling on a narrow road of Danish countryside. Jonas's eye looked really bad and it hurt a lot. We didn't have eyedrops neither, but after some rest for the body and the sight he began to feel a bit better.
After having these accidents somehow solved I ran to the end of the Mön bridge to be guiding the cyclists to the lunch spot. It was a bit dangerous place because they were supposed to cross the road right at the end of the bridge and the motor traffic had quite reasonable speed there -and it was downhill too. It went well anyway at the end while Jukka, Bruce and Mace helped me to stop the traffic.
We had most enjoyable time while having lunch and ice cream in the sun or/and shade.
The accommodation for the two following nights was again something completely else. Mace had booked all the cottagess from Nyköbing Falster City Camping to us. Pasi, Tossu and I found the camping site and were pleased that groceries could be made near as well (vegetables, milk, meat, bread, etc.).
A wonderful reunion! Urpo and Antti had found the bikes from Copenhagen(despite of the descriptions as Urpo said...)! Guys from the meeting/congress/circus/accommodation tent firm had also found their way to camping site and we helped them a bit to get the massive tent erected. And the same procedure continued, kitchengear and dinner preparations. I also learned to know the host of the camping site, he was a nice fellow (what else did you expect?). Once we got clear the regulations of the area I told how overwhelmed I was about everything happened so far during our trip. He seemed (yes yes...) to be very interested.
When the bus had left the cyclists (yes, bus, because there was no accommodation available any nearer a reasonable day passage, so it was a must to do it like this and the cyclists will be transporte back to bikes on the following morning) I had a one-man-show telling them how to make themselves at home.
At Nyköbing we were also accompanied by Jan, being this his hometown. He made a big effort hosting us as a professional-wide eyes-librarian. He is also one of the first ones behind this whole cyc4lib idea.
When the dinner was served it was already dark, but most of us were eager to attend the discussion of the theme of the day in the tent. Amazing how inspiring it was! The theme was about the visibility of the library and the staff ("Escape from the echo chamber") and spontaneously there was six of us (I found myself there as well) sharing experiences about us standing on the line of private and public webperson.
The talk continued nearly to midnight.
