Casa Robino

I am going back, aftur, to Iceland (it's a good word, because it both means 'back' and 'again'). Until last week I had no idea about it. Iceland caught me, when I least expected it. It'll be just a small detour from my trip from Norway southwards: instead of hitching Jutland down to the Netherlands, I will turn to Esbjerg and take my beloved Norrøna to Seyðisfjörður. This time, hitching backwards to Reykjavík along the North Coast. One day to Akureyri, and another day to Reykjavík. It's the best decision, because I was planning to go to the Netherlands 3 times before the end of the summer, but two is actually enough - once for my favourite summer course in Leiden at the end of July, straight after Slovakia; and once, for good, when I will move there at the end of August after the Hitchhiking Festival and the manuscript course in Copenhagen. The perfect plan has formed itself, without even the need of thinking too much about it (which I did already, though).I know this will break my heart, though. There are just a few people left there of the many that made last year the most awesome year of all. It's not the same place, Hljómalind is a fucking fashion store, and even those who are still there are planning to leave. I have the impending feeling that during those two weeks I will dramatically realize that the time of me in Iceland belongs once for all to the happy bygone days. But how can I resist the need to go and bid it farewell personally?This is today's picture of Voss, my immaculate snow sepulchre. And today I finished one of the best books I've ever read, One Moonlit Night by Welsh poet Caradog Pritchard (original title Un Nos Ola Leuad). I wish I could read more books like this. It almost made me cry, which is not common for a book. Tells the story of the journey of a boy into the grown-ups' world, taking place between the two world wars. Childhood friends leaving or dying, a mother that suddenly becomes mentally ill. So much poetry, inundating the page through the lyrical but simple words of a 10-years old. I only wish I could have read it in the original Welsh...

See original: Aftur

Here I am again. Being in Norway again after almost 3 years now is probably the weirdest thing that happened to me this year (I specify: I always reason in "schooyears", so september for me is the start of the year). It's a full load: Iceland, the Faroes and Denmark in the summer; then Iceland again, short visit to Sweden (if you can call Malmö Sweden of course...), and now Norway. Luckily, it's not Oslo again. I'm in the Hardangerfjord, somehow in that part of Norway that I mostly regret not having seen when I left the country in 2007.Even weirder than Japan. I mean, Japan was a total blast. I don't even have the mental strength to produce a post about it. Maybe I will, though, but not now. For now, may it suffice to say that Denise and I hitch-hiked from Nagasaki to Tokyo in 10 days (1300 km), soaking in hot springs for most of the time in between the rides we got. Unfortunately, Japan is not a good country for CouchSurfers, so we had to pay for accommodation sometimes. But still, we kept our budget as low as possible, around 1000 yen per day, accommodation excluded. We crashed for free most of the time, managed to surf 2 couches (in Niihama and Tokyo), went to a hostel 3 times (in Aso, Beppu and Matsuyama, each time around 1500 yen), "alternative" accommodation twice (in Kumamoto and Tenri, both times for 1000 yen), and two times crashed at manga cafes (1700 yen in Nagasaki and 800 in Tokyo). We also paid for a ferry 2 times, plus 2 times to and from the Goto islands. The balance? Japan is no good country for a) vegetarians, b) couch surfers, c) non-Japanese-speaking people. It is a great country for hitch-hikers and it is great to travel in the winter, when your limbs will benefit the most from soaking in hot springs.Briefly summed up, this is what I have seen in 18 days in Japan:Arita > Goto > Nagasaki > Shimabara > Kumamoto > Aso-san > Yufuin > Beppu > Matsuyama > Niihama > Osaka > Kyoto > Nara & Tenri > (Nagoya) > Tokyo.I had to put Nagoya within brackets because we were trying to get a ride there, when we actually got one to Tokyo instead. We didn't catch the night bus that we had booked from there, and got to Tokyo at 2 am. Denise crawled into the truck driver's sleeping den, and had to hide from the police (there was only one extra proper seat next to the driver's).After only 4 days since this was over, here I am in Norway again. I'm in an empty hostel with a job I just realized I no longer need (plus, my father just paid me all at once and unexpectedly all the translations I made for him since he started his business some years ago). I'll soon need to cater for 100 or even 150 school kids who only want French fries and who will hate you if you feed them anything else than that. And I have an M.A. thesis that I desperately need to finish before April. And too much to figure out for the future. If I am really going to get a teaching job in Italy next year, as it seems feasible right now, I might even go back to Iceland in July to do some more language study, and even back to Copenhagen in August to work with some Icelandic manuscripts. Now, as you can imagine my only goal would then be to stay away from books between April and July, or I go mad. Too bad this year's European Hitchhiking Festival is gonna take place in August (on the 6th), most probably in Finland (a bit out of the way, but still). If I come with the ferry from Iceland to Denmark, then I'll have to go to Finland and then back to Denmark again. Is that cheating if I take the ferry from Sweden or should I go all the way through Lapland?

See original: A Nomad's Train of Thought