On pressure and chopping wood

So there I was last night, having spend around 2 hours on this post, and firefox crashes on me. I was screaming obscenities. What happened to autosave!?! Here comes a new, probably shorter and rushed version. On the bright side, you're also getting one more days worth of experiences.


I feel I've been gaping over more than I can swallow recently, with regards to this trip. I've felt stressed out - mainly because I'm afraid my apartment won't be sold in time. So, I thought, let's find sponsors! Many sponsors! Big sponsors!!! Why not do a tv-show!?!
In 2½ months? Wow, pressure! Too much I've realized. Perfection is an ugly thing.
I'm going to pursue sponsors, but if I don't get any, that won't bring me down. I have a few ideas that might really turn into something, but I'm not ready to talk too much about them just yet. That would be too much pressure!
Don't get me wrong however, if someone wants to do a tv-show with me, I'd be more than happy to!


It's been a great couple of weeks though. I took last week off, and Hedda was here from Thursday to Monday, which was amazing. We went to the aquarium, the zoo, the planetarium/IMAX cinema, and of course, spent a lot of time alone together. We have, however, decided not to see each other again as lovers, as none of us feel fulfilled by a long-distance relationship. Great girl though, it'll be a lucky guy who ends up with her!

On sunday, my bag got stolen. I was horrified since it had everything: my new digital camera, climbing shoes, two books, 500DKR in cash, clothes for 4 days, deoderants, and shaver. Fortunately, it didn't contain anything that couldn't be replaced, and fortunately, my insurance covers everything.


At work today we had a lecture by Torben Wiese which was a great experience. The subject was "break the habits". He was very inspiring and very entertaining to boot. In the end I split a board of wood with my palm in front of everyone! I've been feeling like He-Man ever since...

Later this afternoon, I'm visiting a friend to help him take out the battery from his motorcycle. I asked him if I could look at the bike as if it was for sale and I was interested in buying it, and he got very excited. He's only had it for half a year, so this is a great way for him to learn about it too. I printed this guide and I'll be taking it with me.

I have a lot to look forward to these next couple of days. Tomorrow I'm climbing, and Saturday me and my friends are having a Boys Night Out (tm). We start off with a movie (Max Payne, rotten reviews, but it has guns!), then an all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet, and then we hit the town. My goal for the evening is to shout more.

Ooh! And yesterday I had my international drivers license made out. Yay!

As I logged on to my Google Analytics page, I was very excited to find that people are reading my blog! People I don't know! This guy , for example! This thrills me tremendously...

I've been looking around for blogs about travelling, and travelling by motorbike especially. So far I've found two good ones: Ride Far by Mark Hammond - a guy who's currently riding through Africa - and Introducing Fylix by a girl with no name apparently. She named her bike though...

If you know of any other good stuff out there, please let me know!



PS: I've promised you pictures and videos. My computer's been out cold for months, and I'm writing from a crappy god-knows-how-old laptop (which is probably the reason for aforementioned browser crash), so I won't be able to put them up until my brother trusts me with his PC. Not today though, he's in his room with a girl with his door locked. Apparently my new hair wasn't interesting enough to let me in.

Information overload

In my last post I told you I'd gotten into contact with this guy who'd done a trip similar to mine. Well, I've mailed him, and he turned out to be a real wellspring of information. He sent me one of the longest mails I've received in my life with detailed answers to every question I'd asked him. It's been about 10 years since he made his trip though, so some things will have changed (like, Internet access and prices in general, gas in particular). Gas in Australia is a bit more than half the danish price, which I'm very pleased to hear as it might save me as much as 2000 USD.
He was kind enough to give me a few links to used bike market pages, insurance info, and backpacker sites.

Before talking to him I was pretty nervous about this motorcycle thing, what with my complete lack of experience and all. Now, however, I'm completely psyched about it! I just can't wait!

I'm a bit worried that the apartment won't sell in time for me leaving on January 12th, but I think I might be leaving anyhow. I just can't wait to get out there! I'm gonna look into sponsorships. I have a friend who's an elite athlete who knows a thing or two about how to get sponsors, and I'm gonna ask her for advice. Any little thing would help, and it'd be a fun challenge doing this for "more than myself". Who knows? Maybe one day you'll see me on National geographic!

I got to see my friend's little daughter last weekend. She's very small, and very beautiful. They're not too sure about what to name her, but last I heard they were going to call her Fri (which means free in danish). Beautiful name if you ask me.

I'm thinking about performing at an open-mic night this Wednesday. I was there last week, but didn't summon the courage. The place is really crowded each night, so it'll be a completely different experience for me. I'm scared senseless.


Wait. This is interesting.

Many things

A lot has happened these last two weeks! Some bad, some good.

The bad stuff was mainly just too much worrying about the trip, girls, and my music. The good stuff far outweighs it though.

Climbing is great and I'm getting better. A friend took a few pictures, but I don't have them available for upload yet. I'll post them soonish.

I played my own songs three times: one open-mic night, one small concert for friends and family, and once on request from a group of friends. Awesome!

The open-mic night was on an impulse, masterminded by a beautiful friend of mine, Sophie Woods, whose concert I attended the night before. Each musician got to play one song, then the other artists had a go, and because not many people was there, everyone who wanted to got to play three songs. I wanted to. The first one didn't go too well. I was really nervous (performing my own songs for an audience for the first time!), and I worried too much. The second song went much better, and by the time I was done with the third, even I was pleased with the result.
Sophie (whose real name is Anne-Stine) was kind enough to film two of my songs, and I'll post them when I get them converted to a smaller size. Which is, again, soonish.
The next Thursday I played a small concert for friends and family at a friend's house. I was still a bit nervous when I started, but that quickly passed. People responded really well, and it felt great doing it!

We've settled on an estate agent, and we've just signed the papers today. He seems like a good, down-to-earth guy, and we're confident he'll do a good job. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can confirm that departure date :)

I've had a lot of worries about my trip this last week, so I decided to find someone who'd done something similar and then interrogate him on how he did it. Particularly the bike-speciffic questions, like what should I buy, for how much, how much should I expect to use on gas, how about ensurance, and so on. A few days ago,  fate was kind enough to drop an e-mail adress for a guy who's done this kind of trip. I'm going to call him this weekend.



Oh, and I purchased the rice boy comic-book. It's that good!



I nearly forgot!!
One of my close friends became a dad about a week ago! He's the first in my group of friends to get a kid, so it's really exciting! Now he's the proud father of a beautiful little girl. I haven't seen her yet because I'm a bad person, but I hope to remedy that this weekend.