To Helsinki

Gdansk is the one of a key place of this journey because that is the first sea from Istanbul and I cannot go to north anymore. My options are going to east or west. I have thought about that the direction of this journey since when I started. Before getting to Gdansk, 99% of my answer is west but it has changed. Of course, I have several reasons of this modification. Those reasons are;

1. going to Nordic conuntries better than Western Europe
2. touching a culture of old communist
3. visiting a place where there is less people and cars

Before and after I have started of this trip, I thought that it might be hard to go to Nordic countries of this time because those countries are very far and if I go there I couldn't go to a lot of eastern and western european countries. The span of this journey is three months as my first plan. I have already spend about two months through eastern european countries, that means I have no time . Whichever or anyway, I need about another two months to get to Edinburgh, that is my final destination of this journey. Even if I coundn't enough time to visit western countries such as Austria, Czech(Eastern), Italy, Swiss and Germany, the loning for Nordic is stronger than the rest of western and eastern Europe.
Through this journey my notification about Europe is that there is not a big differences between western and eastern Europe in terms of economics and politics. If this journey were 1990s it might be interested in those views. But now, even though the way of description such as"Eastern europe" and "Western europe" are feel like being obsolete. The best description of these areas are whether each country is "European Union" or not. In short, as I suggested, if I going to western europe along with the iron cartain from Berlin, it hard to see what was communism and how it has changed to Americanization. The last hope of this views are three Baltic countries, that is, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia are the best country to see those views but this time I have no changce to visit those countries because of the visa as well as time and money.
And last reason is that I just want to visit a place there is not a lot of people. The place where I have visited through this trip are alomost full of people not only tourist but also citizens. In addition, a lot of cars on a road and it is dangerous for bike. I am the person who loves nature than architecture.

That is the reason why I go to the Nordic countries.
I haven't decided after I reach Helsink wheather I will go to Arctic circle or directry go to Stockholm. I will decide it by the time when I arrive at Helsink probably.

Yuji @ Elblag, PL

P.S
Interestingly, my roommate of last night is from Finland by bike to Czech. He is going back to Finland after getting to Czech through western Europe. We might meet again anywhere in nordic countries!!

Additonally, the changing of my plan is that because I saw a sign on a road to Helsink at Gdansk by ferry(I will go by bike) and wind push me to east.