The Longest Road

I continued to live after the haunted forest. However, there is one more thing I need to survive before going back home. This is my final quest in the conquest of Central Europe during Erasmus. It will include cities such as Karlsruhe, Constance, Munich, Prague and Berlin. Megalomaniac? Yes. The travel begins today on Thursday night towards the first destiny. This is the longest road that will finally precede my homecoming.

Pray for my existence. And you are very welcomed to join in!

Karlsruhe das Fest

So the first strike target was Karlsruhe and visiting my friend Michaela in her hometown. The same person that used to greet me at the Frankfurt airport in the very beginning of all this. It is crazy to think how all the time between these two meetings has gone by so quickly and unexpectedly! A feeling of certain nostalgia was definitely present.

I took a Flixbus to Karlsruhe not from Göttingen but Kassel. Part of the reason I did this, was because it was a little cheaper (again, the transportation with a regional train is free for all the students in Niedersachsen) and partly because this way it was a lot more exciting! I simply loved walking the ambient streets of Kassel in a warm summer evening, feeling as free and happy as a man can be!

Michaela helped me to get better acquainted with the city of Karlsruhe. We went to a huge festival together called Das Fest, which is one of the largest open-air festivals in Germany. I'm usually not too much in to festivities like these, but this was certainly an enjoyable experience and compensated a lot for my loss of the Ilosaarirock, the big annual music festival that takes place in my hometown Joensuu...

Das Fest, Main stage.

The human hill. A festival that originally started as a small family thing has now grown up into one of the biggest open-air music events in Germany.

Mando Diao from Sweden!

The night was lit!

Lake Constance

The second travel spot was at the beautiful Lake Constance (ger. Bodensee), south of Germany at the very border of Switzerland and Austria. There I met my another German friend Lennart, whom I knew as well back from the days he was doing an Erasmus study at my university in Finland over a year ago. He had a 3 month long internship going on at the lake since May and like me, was already at the very end of it. This was of course the perfect opportunity for me to go and visit him and also explore the biggest lake in Germany that might have otherwise left totally unknown to me.

The travel from Karlsruhe to Lake Constance went pretty much without a hitch, except an incident in Karlsruhe where I had to jump across the steep trail track once, since I noticed I was standing on the wrong side of the platform! (hurt my right toe and strained my back a little. Ouch!) Nevertheless I arrived at the Konstanz Döbbeleplatz safe and sound in the end and started waiting for my friend Lennart to pick me up in a nearby bar.

Soon we found each other and started a small sightseeing tour around the city, before moving on to his dormitory in a small town called Möggingen. At first however, we were both invited for a little vegetarian BBQ with Lennart and two of his internship friends. The evening by the grill fire was quite peaceful and relaxed. Just what I needed after so much craziness and traveling during the whole Erasmus experience in Germany.

A very "typical" bus stop design in Konstanz, Germany.

Lake Constance, Konstanz, Constance, Bodensee, what's the difference? Lake Constance and Bodensee are the same name for the lake in English and German. Konstanz is a university city at Lake Constance also known as Constance. Confusing? I think not.

The vegetarian BBQ. Where's the meat, though?

Tomorrow again all four of us went to a place called Lake Dwelling Museum located at Konstanz, Bodman-Ludwigshaven that was a recreation of a stone age village, constructed at the shore of the lake. I didn't absorb too much information about the history and all, but it was definitely cool and interesting and I was able to take some nice pictures of it.

A stone age village recreated during the 1930's or so.

Taking care of the stone age baby child.

It was a lot of hard labor in the past.

The weather was most of the time cloudy and rainy, but it never spoiled the mood; quite the opposite  actually. The rains were suitably timed, so that they only occurred during the night or when I was on the bus traveling. Also the cloudy sky saved us from getting exposed to sunburn and/or sunstroke. In addition to that, the cloudiness gave us a nice peaceful atmosphere at the lake of Mindelsee, where we went swimming at a public spot with Lennart that on a hot summer day would've otherwise been most likely swarming with people.

A view at the Mindelsee, where I finally threw a way my winter fur (it's a Finnish saying that means you swim in a lake for the first time after a winter).

If Karlsruhe Das Fest was a compensation for the loss of the Ilosaarirock in my hometown, then the visit at Konstanz Bodensee was definitely a compensation for the loss of the lakes and biting mosquitos in my homeland Finland. All in all the experience at the lake was astounding. Only the Alps were left unseen, because of the misty clouds, but maybe there will be another time for that.

The finnish boys in Munich

After Lake Constance, another Flixbus headed next towards Munich. There were three ground reasons for me to explore Munich next:

First of all, I was going there to meet my good ol' pal Mikko from Finland, who is younger than me but studied in Germany and helped me a lot during my early procedures before the start of my Erasmus semester. Neither of us had been to Munich before, so we thought this would be the great opportunity for both of us to explore the city we boys liked to call in Finnish as "Munkki" (a monk, also a donut in Finnish).

Second ground reason was Bavaria. In my ambition to conquer the whole southern Germany, Bavaria and it's capital Munich was yet untouched. Besides, I have already visitited all other Germany's six largest cities except Munich and Berlin. So Munich was about to go down first, before taking over the capital in the battle of Berlin (okay, sorry maybe I'm making a little too much war references now; but I only mean conquering them with love and passion, nothing else!).

Final third ground reason was probably the most important one. In my bible studies in Gottingen I met an American-German guy called Gabriel. He lives and works in Munich so he pretty much helped us to find an accomodation in Munich for the two nights we stayed in. First night we were priviledged to sleep at his parent's house where he also resided. They were super receptive and hospitable towards us and gave us a good place to sleep, nice breakfast and the dad who works as a traveling free-church pastor bestowed us even with a mere 2,500 page Bible commentary! Sure as a student of theology I was happy as a man can be, regardless of the fact that this mighty boulder might bring me some logistic issues while trying to carry it home to Finland with me.

The second night we slept in another place, close to Munich centre. I must say that without Gabriel this would have not worked out as well as it did now. I'm forever thankful for his and his family's courtesy towards us. This is exactly how gracefully Christians and other people alike should treat each other and their quests.

Karlstor.

Allianz Arena. A magnificent sight during the night.

BMW Welt and Museum. Went to see some cars again in Munich. Not as impressed as I was of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

Best photo. Is there any better way to end an Erasmus semester in Germany than with 1 Liter beer in your hands and some good traditional bavarian food? I would say no.

Gabriel and me. The house where Mikko and I stayed for the second night.

Crossing the border to Prague

There is the saying that everything happens in threes ("ei kahta ilman kolmatta") and so was the case with my crossing of borders. The first two, Germany and Denmark would now be followed up by the gracious Czech Republic and the architectural city of Prague!

Vlatava. The longest river in Czech Republic. Almost written as the Finnish word "valtava" which means "huge".

I traveled from Munich to Prague with the train Alex. This also marked start of the longest travel I would make completely alone, from Munich to Prague, Prague to Berlin and then finally back to Göttingen. It's hard to describe the feeling I had when I first stepped out of the train in Prague. It was something truly special and liberating!

First, I had to find a place to stay the night in so I googled. I found this hostel called Dizzy Daisy Hostel in Prague 2, quite near the river Vlatava. I printed out a 1000 Czech bill from the machine and headed out for the hostel. After an hour of walk, I found the place, went to the receptionist and stated that I need a room for one night. She told me that it would cost 11€ plus the Republican tax, which in total would make 307 CK. I paid with the 1000 CK without any hesitation.

Something went wrong at this point, however. She returned me only 193 CK out of 693 CK! I didn't realize this until I went upstairs and counted my money. I felt like I was cheated, so I went back down and demanded the rest of my money back. The receptionist immediately apologized, which actually made me convinced that she knew what she was doing. Even more, she went bizarrely weird after this, counting numbers out loud in Czech with her calculator that didn't make any sense in relation to the situation.

After all, I got the correct amount of money back and started hunting for some food. I went to a bar called Blackdog Cantina. I ordered a small beer and a cheeseburger. Then a few minutes after a guy sits right next to me and orders exactly the same except a larger beer. I'm already very hungry and I feel like the wait is way too long. Then finally my burger arrives, but to my absolute dismay, it gets served to the guy right next to me. First with the money exchange and now with this: "Seriously Prague? Is this how you really wanna treat me now?".

Luckily the waiter realizes his mistake and apologizes. Meanwhile they are making me another burger, I begin talking with this guy who turns out to be a really nice and funny guy from Spain! He apologized for the inconvenience as well and we were able to make some jokes about it. Eventually, the situation for me turned out to be brilliant: I made a good friend with the Spanish dude, we hugged goodbyes, and I did not even have to pay for the whole burger!

Such a nice time in Prague...

The night in Prague.

The beautiful Czech Republican countryside captured from a bus window on my way to Berlin.

Berlin beyond belief

The longest road was heading towards its final highlight: Berlin, the capital of Germany! I had no idea what was waiting for me there and the thing that happened to me basically right at the entrance totally baffled me. It was something completely inexplicable and unbelievable.

I had made a reservation with my name for the City Hostel Berlin. However, no money was yet involved since I was supposed to pay by cash at the check-in. So I went inside, told I had a reservation and saw the receptionist looking at the screen without finding anything. He asked my last name again and then he finally found something. He gives me the key and the towel for my room, but he didn't ask for any payment. I was surprised but of course didn't say any. Maybe it happens later?

Well, this was only the beginning of the story. I got into my room and I see that it has four beds, even though I had made a reservation for a dorm of ten beds (since it would be the cheapest). Also in my reservation I had selected only one night but in my card it showed I stay for two nights (which in the end was better because I decided to stay for two nights after all). Something was peculiar in this situation.

But trust me, it gets even more odd. There is a guy sitting at the back of my room. We greet each other and then he asks me where I'm from. I state Finland and he takes a look at me and gives his name, "Keijo". From that point on we started talking in Finnish since I recognize from his name that he is from Finland too! What a crazy coincidence and we had some laughs about it.

However, that was not it...

We continued talking a little more and I asked where from Finland does he exactly come from. And you would not believe what he answered: he was from my hometown Joensuu, too! Things started getting a little more hysteric from this point on. It was one the most unbelievable coincidences I had ever stumbled across in my whole life!

But horror was still not over...

We went on talking and searching more common factors of each other almost to the point of relief that okay, were not that ridiculously same after all. Little did we know, however... We went on to Facebook to check if we had any common friends. That's when the total shock was revealed. Try to guess his last name? Yup, it was also Riikonen! The exact same as mine! Both of our jaws dropped on the floor immediately and we had to collect them back up later that evening.

I've always felt that God has a certain sense of humor in our lives. This was certainly one of those moments I felt like God was having a little bit of fun with me. As a matter of fact, this whole half year in Germany has been filled with all sorts of incredible coincidences and the most bizarre chains of events. And this story in the City Hostel Berlin was just the thick cream on top of the cake.

I also "peed" Germany in the very eye with this miraculous fortune. I never paid anything for the hostel. It was absolutely free. The Notorious Finn traveler strikes one more time. Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland! You will never catch me alive!

Brandenburger Tor. The first monument I checked out nearby after my arrival in Berlin. 

The City Hostel Berlin I stayed the two nights in. I still can't believe I was able to do it without paying. The hostel system must have somehow confused the two Riikonen's as one and the same person. Nevertheless, I didn't complain. Suck it Germany!

Berliner Dom. The left left tower was under renovation so couldn't take good pictures of it as a whole.

I also went inside the Dom during the day. It was breathtaking.

I also had a mission to check out some street ball opportunities in Berlin. Typical street art near the Monbijou Park.

Monbijou Park. I joined here to play one game later in the evening. I played quite well actually and even managed to make the winning basket, even though the guys were really tough! Shout out to my man Philip, for giving me the idea and sharing me this location!