I have worked in Karlskrona for 6 years before joining IKEA and this means I have lots of friends and former colleagues here. Yesterday evening we had a wonderful dinner at my friend Alexander and his girlfriend Karin’s house. Karin had to leave to work her night shift at the hospital but we sat up late and had interesting discussions with Alexander.
It was so nice to see each other again and we want to say thanks a lot once again to Aili, Karin and Alexander.

The ride from Alexander’s house to our next host Sten-Olov’s house is 3,5 km. Although being a very short distance we actually carried all our gear and did a transport from one place to another a little bit closer to Bangkok. I can’t make up my mind whether this should be considered to be as a “day in the saddle” or something else. This is a bit of a dilemma that we’d better work out since it will happen many times again.

This morning we had an appointment with journalists from the local newspaper here in Karlskrona. They will make an article about us and our trip and we had a cup of coffee with them while trying to answer all their questions. They took lots of photos of us and our gear and soon we will be real celebrities. First a radio interview in by the local radio station back in Göteborg and now this interview by the local newspaper. And don’t forget that we had to write our autographs to an impressed pizzeria owner in Falkenberg. We will soon have to find a manager who can deal with all the media coverage 😉 😉 But trying to be more serious again we both think it will be very interesting to read that article and I hope we can link to it our put a copy of it here on this blog later.

We also got new bikes today. At least it felt like that after dropping all our bags at our next host’s house. When we continued to cycle our bikes felt extremely light, lively and responding in the same manner like a brand new carbon super duper road bike.

I used to work for the Swedish Coastguard’s HQ here in Karlskrona and after seeing the journalists we dropped by and said hello to some of my ex-colleagues. I haven’t been to the premises since I quit and it was indeed very nice to see them all again.

Me in full cycling uniform together with former colleagues Ingrid, Ingvar and Styrbjörn

After having a heavy lunch we proceeded to the sports and cycle shop in Karlskrona to buy brake pads and try to find a front derailleur for my bike. After searching for a while in their stock we eventually found one that we believe will fit my bike. It felt like a great relief to get my hands on one in the last minute before leaving Sweden.

On the way to the cycle shop we passed the city library. Whenever we have been traveling somewhere and run into a library we have always paid a visit. This time we were in a hurry and had no time so we only took a photo outside. I guess this is only the first of a number of photos of Wej in front of a library in a city or town along our way.

Photo 1 of Wej in front of a library

My coughing is still bad and we have decided to stay one extra day here in Karlskrona so that I can recover, mount my front derailleur and relax in the Spa at Karlskrona Varmbadhus.

/Joakim