July 22-23, 2010 - Celebration on the Baltic Sea

Thursday the 22nd was spent killing time in Swinousjcie, going from beach to cafe to dock to bookstore to park and back to the cafe until the SS Pomerania loaded up at 6PM headed for the port of Copenhagen.  For the last 2 hours, I plugged into the fantastic Marc Maron podcast WTF and watched the boats come in and out of the harbor.

Eventually a weather-beaten, drunken man came up to me and asked if I liked beer.  After answering him in the affirmative, he said, "Me too.  Give me 7 zloty so we can drink beer".  I was in an expansive and generous mood (and had two more hours to kill), so I gave him the coins (equivalent to around $2.50) and he returned with two beers.  He was travelling with his family as part of a musical group he called "The Crazy Family".  He was the leader and main singer.  The guitar player and the bodyguard were passed out a couple of benches over, equally red-faced and besotted.

Listening to his stories helped kill the time till I needed to hop onto this enormous boat:

When I came into the loading area, a fellow American bicycle tourist was in line with me.  He was the first American bicyclist I'd encountered on this trip, so I peppered him with questions.

Upon loading, we grabbed a bench on the top deck, enjoying the last views of Poland.  I grew wistful and teary-eyed, saying an emotional "Good-bye" to all I had seen and experienced in the Old Country.  But it was also a time to celebrate, since I had accomplished exactly what I had set out to do so many months ago. 

Here's a shot of the final bit of Polish terrain I'll see in a while:

Of course, a bit of horrendous Polish vodka was in order:

The American bike tourist and I drank the vodka: he out of a used beer glass and me out of one of my water bottles.  Classy, huh?  Regardless, we had a nice time comparing stories and philosophies, just two drunk guys on a boat talking all sorts of nonsense.

That night I bedded down on the top deck, shielded from the mists of the Baltic Sea by a small overhang.  Behold my quarters:

The next morning, I met up with my new buddy in the car deck, both of us shaking the last bits of vodka from our heads.  Here's Wyndham, my fellow bike tourist, in the car deck:

When we got off the boat, it was 8AM, and he didn't have a place to go, and didn't have the means to get onto the Internet to look for a place.  So I invited him to come over to my Danish brother's place to use his computer and get a cup of coffee.  The 10 mile ride to where we were headed helped sweat out the night's festivities.

The transition from Poland to Denmark was more than a bit startling.  From an emerging eastern European country to fantastically wealthy and developed world-class metropolis.  Quite a stark contrast.

Next up: 2 weeks in Copenhagen!