Soaking in Berlin

Berlin caters to every taste. Trying to sample all the good places in one night is just impossible. The other option is to find yet another monster-decorated bar, rest your head comfortably to the table and just let the atmosphere fill you up.
Now the trip is coming to an end, we're on a ferry, getting our stories straight & synchronized and wondering how long it will take the swelling to pass.
Let the before and after -pics (maybe coming later) be a warning to you about the satan of the booze (fin: viinanperkele).
Lots of time to do some calculations here. One impressive figure is 60 liters;
3 riding days in Croatia, maybe a total of 15 hours, consuming maybe something shy of a liter of water an hour. Say 12 liters. Multiply by number of Seagulls, you get 60.
That is the amount of sweat absorbed by our boots, leathers & helmets. In Croatia alone.
Now picture all that riding gear stuffed under the beds in our small, unventilated cabin on this ferry.
And maybe you should send a thank to the deity of your choice that you dont have to sleep in that cabin.

most popular pasttime in Berlin Warschauerstrasse

is polishing the white parts of your sneakers with a white pencil eraser. One eraser per 4 guys. You just dont get a pair of 150€ lenkars (fin:lenkkarit) if you dont save by sharing.
Came to Dresden yesterday, an exhausting hi-speed autobahn 500+ km, and to Berlin today.
It is a well known fact to those that know it well, that Berlin is the Döner capital of the world.
Actually it is speculated that the Türkische spezialitet was invented here and then exported to Mediterranean.
(if u're wondering who was the inventor, i can give a small clue that his name begins with Kim)

how to feel like a cosmopolitan -

and a beyond-help alcoholic at the same time.
If while sitting in a taxi you try to peek at the landmarks in hope of getting a clue of what city you are in, you might've been 2 too many cities or had too many Wiki Wacky Woos in the city u've b:n living for the first part of your life at (do something w your life, will ya?).
Me, I just feel like (dancing) going to sleep now.

alpine roads and semi-succesfull fixings

Yesterdays delicate fixing almost succeeded and almost all of us rode today almost hangover-free the transition to Bratislava.
A practical tip for the day after delicate fixing: You know you probably need to sleep 2-3hrs more in the morning if you get dizzy and a vertigo by watching someone jog around the track-and-field running track under your hostel window.
To my very dear friend SR I would like to say that no animals were harmed during our trip. And all events and persons are purely fictional and have no resemblance to any person, living or dead.
This is the story I'm sticking with, all the way to the pearly gates.

Wiki Wacky Woo - dos por uno

in Ljubljana. Arrived yesterday, having ridden only umbes 150km. Saw on the Inter Web that there will be buckets of that wet stuff coming down today all over the alps and here, too (so true, now looking out of a taverna window in a shopping mall). Thus, decided to stay in Ljubljana for two nights.
Yesterday found a bar decorated with skeletons that had a 2-4-the-price-of-1 -offer on all cocktails for all night. They had no dancefloor but the crab-dance needs only that much space. The dance might be refining since this was the 1st time there were two people filming us. All rights reserved. Do not copy or re-distribute. Tumble dry in low heat.
Anyhow, the Wiki Wacky Woo is a cocktail in that Pr'Skelet (or something in that general direction) that has 8-10 different kinds of booze poured with free hand. With a generous free hand. By an extremely efficient barmaid.
If you are one of us (the men from the Booze Hill) you know how valuable that is.
And in that bar you can sleep on the bench if the Wiki Wacky Woos are stronger than you. We have 1st hand information on that.
Today, have been doing rainy day activities like bowling and karting. Along with postponing any looming hangover.

So far, postponing has succeeded way ahead of the schedule.
Kids, dont try this at home. We have the Official Consulate Stamp.

We're not Kims (bow you must to his name) down here. Not even Gods. So our turbines are in a constanst threat from the direction of the pelicans.
The president already has at least some sparrows in his by now...

Honorary Vice Consul of Finland in Split

Forgot to mention, the President (not to be confused w Mr.President) is now also a vice consul of Finland in Croatia. And we have the papers to prove it. With the most official stamp. The prelude to this is that Hese lost the registration papers of his bike, and got the Finnish consul (actually his wife) to stamp a faxed copy of the papers.
The good thing is that now that he has the signed paper, most of it is blank. Tomorrow we probably have a stamped, official paper saying that the President has a legal maximum speed of 276km/h & a permit to smoke any hallucinogenic substances.
This is the hotel in Opatija, by the way.

earning travel money on the way to Split

Succesfull Friday evening activities in Split yesterday. Started gathering respect already on the bus on way to town. Rami took a guitar from an elderly sailor and we entertained the locals by singing Hallmanin Pena & Suljettu Sydän. Earned us 2,5kn. They love us here, and we love them back. See the performance.
In Split scouted a good open-air disco/bar and, as you might've guessed, did the crab dance again. This time with a hint of Greek flavour. The show was a brave one, since we were the 1st ones on the show-off dance floor. Can tell Split is a good place since some people were actually cheering and joined us.
The hot night came into good use drying the clothes when got back to the apartment, since some of the night's dancing for some now very unclear reason, took place in the swimming pool of the disco.
The ride north today, to Opatia, was agony as usual. At start, an unfriendly stone building attacked the Hayabusa's right front blinker. The temperature still 35C, and the unbelievable piece of crap metal they have labeled Benelli, is unable to do more than 110km/h on a motorway without spilling the coolants. And the hangover didnt help, either.
A high-speed encounter with the local wildlife resulted in a hornet finding it's way into my leather pants. It started stinging me some 10km before arriving to Opatia, and was still hanging in my leg by its poisonous arse once i got to the hotel.
Wonder if the very understanding and lovely girlfriend back home would've believed if the bugger had stung somewhere higher up and i'd come home with a sort of throbbing red sea-cucumber in between my legs.

Split

Now in Split. Staying some 20 km north the coast from here.
Added some pics to previous posts, when got my hands on a real computer. (This far blogging done by mobile email).
Split is scorching hot, but looks like a place where one could do some Friday evening activities.
More later.

Note: changed the settings so that anyone can add comments now.

Learnings in a gas station at 5am.

The bars closed at Senj frustratingly early. But a fine policeman was friendly enough to inform us of an all-night gas station/bar. We didn't quite manage to find that one but instead found some other gas station. They had no bar but did sell beer so we naturally made a camping ground of the station yard. Were joined by 3 bicyclists coming from Zagreb (big respect to them for cycling in this heat!) and a Slovenian guy with two wolves. Fortunately they were fed and peaceful, and showed no particular interest in eating us (they were not on a leash. The wolves, that is).
We learned that the hot strong wind is called "bura". As well as several interesting insults in Croatian. No, dont remember any.
They learned to ask a person to go and perform oral stimulation on male genitalia (fin: ime munnaa).
Probably did the crab dance again. To the sweet tunes of Mr.President: Coco Jambo.
Yesterday was also otherwise succesfull, managed to get beachläpätins (fin: rantaläpättimet), a fallen bolt to the bike case rack and flush&refill the cooling system of the Benelli. And in the bar, the seagulls were so impressive that the last round of double vodkas with a twist of orange juice was offered by the barmaid herself.
The coast road is just awesome. Turqoise sea on the other side, mountains on the other and consists of millions of twists. Just wish that can next time ride it without hangover. Wonder how that could be done.
There seems to be some meteorite fallen to earth. We suspect it was Kim il Sung practicing with large boulders. Using only the left hand.
Not that he needs to practice.
Did u know that it was him who thaught Chuck Norris & Jack Bauer all that they know?

How To Make Drinking More Than Others Financially Beneficial

The usual way of eating and drinking among us is that we split the bill 5 ways, or deposit the same amount of cash into the mutual drinking trust (the best trust there is).
That's how drinking a lot is a sound financial decision.
(You just dont get monetary tips of this quality from your bank. You can thank me later.)
The wind in Senj, Croatia, is still fierce, but it makes the 33C temperature tolerable.
Coming to this coastal village the mountain road had some magnificent scenery, as well as a few surprises; one radar that occurred during the 1% of the time we were withing speed limits, and some mud on a hairpin which made Ramiro do some 2-wheel skidding.
Which is nice.
On a totally unrelated note, the very same man now wants to find a laundry place to clean his underwear.
This is a nice little town, but what saddens me is that some bars think that we cant tell watered-down vodka from the real thing. I thought it would be easy to see from our general appearance that we are quite the experts on the subject of vodka by now.

Siofok by night

has let us down. We just couldn't get that reilu ryyping meininki which means unpretentious drinking of reasonably priced booze. Siofok had beer prices more than double that of Rostock (town which i haven't praised enough) and even the beach wasnt free of charge. Add to that the scores of german tourists (and Austrian tuning-bmw-team) and we decided not to give Siofok another one of our precious drinking days.
Thus, now Senj, Croatia. The weather here is funny. Coming to the country, the temperature was above 35C, and wind was blowing at 20-25m/s. Like someone from above was punishing us with a giant hair dryer. I'm thinking Kim il-Sung, the Great Leader.
Senj looks like the place for us, now the thunderstorm with spetacular lightnings is passing, and i just got Pizza Frutti di Mare in front of me.

Siofok, lake Balaton, Hungary, July 23rd, 7.30pm

Did good distance today; from Prague, via Bratislava to Siofok, Hungary, including a 10km lane-splitting extravaganza caused by roadworks and a million trucks on Prague exit roads. Something absolutely not to be tried when hung over. Fortunately we weren't. It is not a nice feeling being scared shitless by irrational fear that everyone on the road is trying to kill you on the road. But it's even worse when the fear is well founded.
Crossing the border to Slovakia, it was sad to see they're saving electricity there. The giant fans that were spinning so wildly in the German countryside, were totally shut off.
It got incresingly warm coming south (the fans would help), and besides the riders, also Rami's bike got thirsty. Needed frequent watering. Apparently the Italian Benelli engineers hadn't planned the bike to be ridden at summery temperatures.
Will stay here for two nights. Maybe even go swimming tomorrow.
We dont worry of any diseases.
Surely the lake is enough to absorb them off us.

Vmax: Rostock-Prague

Forgot. 258km/h according to gps. (The bike itself was claiming something in the order of 270).
Do not try this at home.
(Or if u do, please do post pics of you doing more than that at your home.)

Suddenly Prague

Prague, CZ, local restaurant @ 22.30.
The course towards Poland was diverted for dryness reasons. Still had to ride 150km in rain.
Arrived to Prague, to a hugantic student dormitory/hostel a while ago. The rooms are easily accessible by just 35 minutes of walking after the elevator. And I kid you not.
On the way here (600km or so) Rami ran out if gas. I might be partly to blame since he was doing 255km/h (according to his Benelli-velocimetro; and we all know how trustworty those are) when i overtook him in a rush of autobahn-boredom. Which meant that we passed the gas station with speed in excess of 200km/h.
Which is nice.
Probably a calmer night tonight in Prague, since some dried seagulls are still not over last night.
Speaking of which, yesterday (this morning) the president started his sleep on the doorstep of the hostel, since no doorbell was answered and he had left his phone at the kämps (fin:kämpille). The authority seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
Still,we didn't get angry on behalf of him and hit anyone in the käkätin (fin:käkätin).
The human body works in mysterious ways; even in extreme state of dehydration, it still may refuse to keep water (&small pieces of schnitzel) inside.
In one small town we passed thru (in cz), some teenaged girls waved to us. It's the little things that keeps us going.
Talking about the pills, of couse.

lunch. Rastplatz. Sunday @ 2pm

Schnitzel mit pommes frites. What'd you expect?

a hostel at Rostock, Sun, July 22th @ 10am

Oml. Oml.
Note of advice: if your plan is to ride umbes 850km on Sunday, do refuse the free beer that is offered to you at 5am the same morning. Even if it is that pizza chef's birthday and you just popped into his closed-for-private-party restaurant to see who plays ac/dc so loud at that hour.
But his air-guitar moves w the pizza shovel were impressive (for that level of intoxication).
Also got some Looks in when did the crab-dance in Student-Keller.

On sea, approaching Rostock, July 21th @ 8pm

Partial success in trying to drink all night. Highlight of the night: pretty bar-maid's long-ago pretty mother exposed her bra to horny moustached truckers but apparently managed to escape.
The last of us was escorted to quarters some time before 9am.
Something to think about: if we had instead of those 5 bikes gotten one car to make this trip with, it could have had a price tag of 70000€ and mileage of 30l/100km.
And only one of us would need to be sober at a time. Plus we would only need to wear the black leather condoms in bars of certain theme.

how to stay pretty

Eastern sea @ 2.30 am.
The secret of staying pretty is stretching your face muscles. This should be done whenever possible, even amongst people. Don't mind if they dont see you as pretty now, they shall envy you in 10 years. This entry requires a picture. There'll be one.

July 20th TKU-HEL

160km, GPS given Vmax 173 km/h. Got my case mounting from the post office 45 mins before should be on the road, so missed the rendez-vous w the other guys but caught them 55 km before Helsinki, where they were waiting for me. (Hence the Vmax). Bit of rain, but it was neverminded.
Made it to ferry ok, and now the general consensus on board now is that we should reach "maximum bamboocha" asap. We have 1 1/4 cabins for us, and we agreed that it is The Weasel who shall take one for the team and go sleep with 3 russian-sex-deprived turkish trukcers that we except the other cabin be occupied by. ETA for the President's drunken-eye (fin: kännisilmä) is 90 minutes.
Signing off at the ferry bar, getting another double.

Preface

The trip: from Finland to Croatia (Split) and back.
The who: MC Murskeat Lokit minus one (Vanha has problems with his back)
The players & equipment:
Hese (the President, on left) & 1100 XX Blackbird
Ramiro & Benelli TNT 1150
Gusse & ZZR1200
Näätä (the Weasel) & Speed Triple
Baba (that's me) & Hayabusa.

Leaving this evening with ferry from Helsinki, Finland to Rostock, Germany. Arriving there tomorrow evening. That's 24 hrs on a boat. I imagine we'll be pulling proper faces today (fin: vedetään kunnon naamat) to take the edge off. Maybe then we can manage to take it easy in Rostock, once we get there, and on Sunday be early on our way towards Krakow, Poland.
But if there's rain in Poland, we may just as well ride thru Germany.