The name

From the first day, Agirregabiria, told me that I should find a unique name for the blog and the trip. It´s true that probably with a unique name I could be found easier, but at the beginning I was not that convinced. I really liked, and still like, north by southwest. The only problem is that is really not original. Google finds millions of pages related to this name, that´s what got me thinking of other names.

I want something easy to remember, a mixture of words maybe, and short. My name, Hodei, means cloud in basque, so I´ve been thinking something related to this. So far I´ve got only one name that it´s not found in Google and I like.

So probably I´ll will be moving to another page soon with the new name
If you think any cool names, I´m open to suggestions.

Cycling again

Today the weather was much nicer so I went for a ride, but the way was not as good as I thought. It was really icy. So I went slow. Sometimes I have the feeling that it´s more slippery if you go slow, but at least I can always jump.

This is a picture of me and the bike I´m using.

As I said yesterday today I put the panniers on the bike. It wasn´t hard at all. Afterward I thought of filling them just to see if I have enough space, but then I realize that probably I should do a list with the things I will be carrying.

This is the bike with the panniers.

Snow in Norway

It was snowing again here. Surprise! Anyway, the roads seem much better now, so tomorrow I will start cycling again.

Here you can see two pictures of the bikeroads right now. When I get north I expect to get something similar, just with many more hours of sun.

Tomorrow, as I don´t work on Wednesdays, I will pack my bike (well, not really mine) with the panniers (actually the only equipment I own right now), and see how they work, and how much I can pack in them.

Back in Norway

A couple days back I came back to Norway after the Christmas break. I haven´t been writing much since, or cycling, as I´ve been sick, but as soon as I get better I will continue doing both. I hope by that time the ice from the street melts, or at least snows some more to be covered, it looks quite hard to cycle right now.

I already ordered the map from Amazon, I hope it gets here soon. I can´t wait to keep planning.

The story of the blog

In my second post I said why I was going to write a blog and how I decided to do it, but here is the whole story.

As I don´t know much, if anything, about blogs, in the new year´s eve party I did with my friends, I asked one of them if he could explain how exactly they worked. He was really interested, and started giving me lots of ideas. The main thing I got from this chat was that I could, and probably should, do something not only for my close friends but for anyone interested.

A couple days later I went to this friend´s house to meet his father. If I thought my friend knew a lot about blogs, it´s nothing compared to his father. He is the president of a local association of bloggers (Getxoblog), and from the first minute he was giving me lots of great ideas, but mainly he explained how the first thing I had to do was to let people know about the blog. He also explained how a blog should be written to attract readers.

One of this ideas is to create accounts in the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. I also don´t know anything about them. I always tried to be apart of this, not to get distracted while studying with computer. But at the end of the month I will start using them.

Another idea is to include lots of pictures and videos of the places I cross, as many as possible. This is a really interesting idea. Till then I was thinking to take just my cellphone, it takes quite good pictures, and for me to remember the places it´s good enough. But know I´m planning on getting a good compact camera, one that would allow me to show better the places and the people I meet. But I will talk about this in another post, when I start analyzing the equipment.

The third thing, and probably the most important of all, is how often I will write posts. Of course the best thing is to write everyday, which I´m planning on doing. The problem is the internet connection. It would be perfect if I could get a USB device or a good cellphone to get internet access anywhere, but it´s way to expensive for my budget. I could barely afford it in one country, so internationally is out of the question. Luckily through Europe is quite easy to get internet (eg, libraries, cafes, …), so I hope to be able to post every couple of days what I write everyday.

So I´ve decided to change a bit the way of traveling. Now I intend to stop in more places and learn interesting things and people. I know it will be a much bigger effort, but I think it will make the trip much more interesting as well as the blog.

My trip

I think the title expresses quite well which is the main thing of this trip, but I´m so happy with the idea of doing it that I will say it again: I will cycle from Nordkapp (the North Cape), in Norway, the northernmost place you can get by road in Europe, to Tarifa, in Spain, the southernmost!!

Another characteristic of this trip is that I will do it only cycling, without crossing any seas. That will take me through Russia and many eastern countries of the EU, with a total of 2000km more (more or less), than taking the straight way, taking ferries.

This adventure will start in mid-April, when I´ll be done with my scholarship. The exact date is not decided, I have to see how I´m getting to the north of Norway, due to my lack of funds, it will probably be on the cheapest day possible.

The route is also not completely decided yet, there are many thing that I have to check before doing so, and probably it will change a bit along the way. The countries I´m planning to cross are: Norway, Sweden (if inner Finland is too cold in April), Finland, Russia (I´m having difficulties with the visa, if anybody can help, it will be much appreciated), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, France, Monaco (?), and Spain.

Ver mapa más grande

I will sleep in my tent, most of the trip, but I hope that the friends I made over the years, thanks to different international scholarships, host me when I go though their towns (if you are one of those, don´t worry, I will contact before getting there).

Well, that´s basically the trip I´m planning. At the beginning I thought I could do it in between 1 and a half and 2 months, but now I decided I won´t hurry at all. So I can write more about the places I go through :)

There are some European cycling routes, Euro Velo, which cross Europe, through many places. For now I´m planning on following them. The map costs only five euros with transport, so it will be one of the first things I will get.

If you have any suggestions about the trip (which are really welcome), or you want to ask something (even do I don´t know much yet), you can write comments.

A little bit about me

A couple days ago when I started writing the blog, I did a really small presentation about me and the trip I´m planning, but as I´m hoping to reach as many people as possible, I will write a bit more, so people who doesn´t know me and haven´t heard from me what I´m going to do get a better picture of the whole thing.

I´m 24, right now, 25 soon. Now I live in Norway where I´m a language assistant in a high school, trying to teach Spanish. But I´m from Getxo, in Biscay, in the Basque Country.

I always liked sports. From my childhood till I went to the university I was a swimmer, combining this activity with water-polo, football, judo, tennis, and as many sports I had time to do. Slowly I got tired of doing so many things, and I quit doing most of them so I could focus on my studies. But I could not stay without moving so I decided to start jogging. And as I said before, if I do something I take it to the extreme, so last year I run 3 marathons and 3 half marathons, as well as many city races, mainly in Bilbao and the surroundings.

That´s why I think I´m fit to do this trip. It´s true that I never cycled for more than 5 days straight traveling, but now I cycle to work every day (even when it´s snowing), and I know that once I have an idea I can´t take it out of my head, so I´m confident I will be able to achieve this challenge.

I also like traveling and learning languages. So for two months (more or less) I will be doing two of the things I like the most.