My Cycling for Libraries Puzzle, part 7
Tuesday, May 31th
Woke up at 4.30. Not tired at all. Funny.
Since I tried to avoid noise and wanted Jonas, Jukka and Mace to continue their sleep I felt like jogging a little. Morning in Nyköbing was kind, a little misty, calm and quite warm. It was nice to run across the streets of a wakening village, throwing glances to beautiful little gardens and pictoresque houses.
When returning to camping area, I met another early bird, it was Lauri who also had taken the chance to enjoy the sunrise.
Soon after breakfast we packed the kitchen in the van and drove to get groceries for the afternoon coffee etc. The spot for the break was decided to be in a nature center Naturzentrum Halskov Vaenge –or somewhere pretty near.
Navigating was easier day after day so we didn’t drive any extra kilometres when searching the suitable spot. Glittering Baltic Sea, sun, sand, and some shadow from the birches. Excellent place (except the road was pretty narrow so we had to drive the van almost in the woods, and still there wasn’t that much space for drive-by bicycles and occasional cars.
The sun had done it’s mission, people were hot and sweaty when they arrived so I think at least a dozen of cyclists took the opportunity to swim –no swimsuits, well, it was warm- before coffee.
I tried to shepherd everyone from the beach to kitchen van in time, because we had an appointment at Guldborgsund library (which is located in Nyköbing-Falster, I still am confused about these names of municipalities in Denmark). It was also my only chance to ride my bike with the whole group and I wanted to feel the unity and company, which was pretty much the whole idea of this journey.
Cycling was fantastic! Some tiny paths along the coast, landscape, nice hills –not too steep, it was pure pleasure. Too pity that we only had some 20 – 22 kilometres when we arrived the library downtown Nyköbing.
The backyard of the library was nice, perhaps it had been a summer theater or whatsoever, it was built like an greek amfi theater –in a half circle.
In the library we were kindly hosted by Jan Holmquist. We got in to a serious business, thinking and wondering a theme ”how does a perfect library look like in my point of view?”. For an inspiration and a base Jan had matched a Skype call with Buffy J. Hamilton. The main clue in Buffy’s speech was creating the future for libraries in ways of an participatory librarianship (actually, I think that we here in Turku have done quite a bit in that sector).
When a not-so-quiet chat of our lovely group had finally ended we made a little briefing about the night and dinner which were to occur in this very same place, people got some time of their own to go and see the town, change clothes, take a long shower etc. (actually we also asked everyone to stay in the backyard for a while to get some group photos but approx. 50% forgot it in a glance…).
After a refreshing break of few hours we gathered back in the library, and we were served a dinner made by a Michelin-star chef Claus Meyer. What a joyful evening with full of conversation –it seemed to me that everyone picked a table with not-already-familiar company. Nice. Almost all of us also took part in library tour after dessert. I had a concrete memory from the tour as Bo stamped a date on my forehead.
It was raining when we cycled back to camping area, but still a non-formal gathering and conversation inspired a couple of dozens in the tent. Rasmus leaded a music library improvement talk, while a handwrestling competition took place in the other end of the table. If I got it right, the result was Sweden 1 – Finland 0.
