A travel to the end of the old world (Part III, ferry boats and fairy tales)

My last day at work in Copenhagen was much anticipated, yet, departing was not entirely devoid of melancholy. Leaving a place and people you have grown to like always leaves a sense of loss - as if the entire thing would miraculously disappear when I walked out of the office to never resurface again. It is however true that you cannot recreate the past, and that Friday a chapter of my life had been finished, the ink had dried, now blank pages were ahead of me.

Kristian picked me up in front of the office at 16:30. The ever so familiar sense of restlessness started to pump around in my body. An understood nod was exchanged as the grinning faces became impossible to suppress, ahead was adventure, freedom and thousands and thousands of unknown roads to travel, pure bliss. The sunroof went down and our 70's aviator sunglasses went on as some trashy European dance tunes started to blast out of the loudspeakers.
We avoided the worst traffic jams leaving the city and it wasn't long before Copenhagen bid us farewell. The shadows grew longer as we bathed in the sun's beautiful orange glow while cruising south on the highway towards Gedser. When it doesn't rain, the long Danish summer nights really do wonders to you, like a bonus check for enduring the painfully short and dark Danish winter days. Sadly, like everything else in Denmark, this bonus check is heavily taxed by the frequent rainfalls, which only makes it so much more agreeable. As we reached Falster, we had to get off the highway to catch the ferry boat by Gedser which would take us to the German town Rostock. We aimed at reaching the 19:00 connection, but our progress on the south bound highway could not compensate fully for the slow moving traffic around Copenhagen. We had to step on it to make it down to the ferry boat in time. It shall remain unsaid whether it was this increased pressure or simply the treacherous design of the gear box in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine that made Kristian put the car in reverse instead of first gear at a traffic light in Nykøbing. It is, however, an undisputed fact that as the light turned green we started to reverse. It is cunning how divine insights can be gained from the most absurd situations and I feel privileged to be able to remove one of the “things that only happen in bad movies” from my list. Had it not been because there was a motorbike behind us, who probably turned from concerned as he saw the reversing light turn on to absolutely horrified as the car started to inch towards him, this incident would have been quite entertaining...Ok, ok to tell the truth it took me around 5 minutes to recover from laugh induced spasms and to this date I still break out in spontaneous laughing fits thinking about it, yes, I am immature. Despite these “set backs” we managed to squeeze into the ferry boat on time. A well deserved rest awaited both car and drivers after a fast and furious getaway from Denmark. With the car safely parked we ventured up on the deck. After having endured and outwaited the uncommonly unresponsive service staff we were entrusted with a meal from the canteen. It quickly became clear why they only dared to reward the most patient and persistent of their clients with the privilege of getting their warm food, but at least it filled us up. With the foundation of the needs pyramid firmly laid we went on to the duty free shop to stock up in junk food, soda and other prerequisites for a successful road trip.


We hit Germany around 21:00; the goal was to be by the German/Polish border by 02:00 and by the Ukrainian border by 12:00. A whole night of driving was ahead of us. The sun slowly set in the most beautiful colour patterns as we drove through the fields and pine forests of North Eastern Germany. As we enjoyed this wonder of nature an equally breathtaking event occurred, the car started to stall! You learn a lot of things from driving an old car, one of the most striking ones being the ability to circumvent conventional wisdom. Case in point - when the fuel gauge is in the deep red you assume that it is an indicator that the fuel gauge is not working, not that you actually don't have any more fuel left. It was very dark as the car finally stopped rolling. We parked in the shoulder of the Autobahn, put the emergency light on and dug out our spare fuel tank with cars zooming by at alarming speeds. It was empty. We had earlier, when the fuel situation was under control, debated at much length which would be the optimal place of filling up the tank. We knew that Poland was cheap, and Ukraine even more so. In this very second the woman in Hans Christian Andersen's “The Woman with the Eggs” was probably a better representation of us than the image of savvy fuel traders looking for arbitrage opportunities.


Sigh, it is getting late of hour, so I will return to our little predicament next time and elaborate on how we made it to Ukraine.

A travel to the end of the old world (Part II, the end of reason)

Good, where were we...yes, why did we buy a Ford Sierra from the 80's?

For quite some time we had been toying with the thought of going on a road trip, not like the ones we had grown quite accustomed to, where we (including my elder brother) rented a new car in a western country like Sweden or Germany and then drove around on perfect roads. No, not this time, instead we had been intrigued by the prospects of buying a car for less than 5000 dkk/1000 USD and driving beyond what any sane person in our social sphere would consider insane. While the big ambition was at the scale of driving from Europe through Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia and back through Russia in a VW beetle, then even people with a well developed aptitude for megalomania have their moments of humbleness/realism. In one of these moments we concluded that a smaller practice trip would probably be advisable. Further, I was in the middle of being expatriated to Benin, meaning that we only had 3 weeks available for the venture. The passion for embarking on this kind of challenge was not sparked by schizophrenic seizures causing me to believe I was Phileas Fogg, even though I must admit to being inspired by excentric characters like him. Rather, the desire to see the world, to do something difficult and different, and to prove to myself and to others that many of the limits by which we restrain ourselves are mainly creatures of our own minds were high on the list of reasons for spending many hours on the road in these, to us, unknown territories. As time passed, we had bought the car and made a few preliminary arrangements such as taking time off work and browsing through the various visa rules in eastern Europe we finally decided on a rough route. Even though the philosophy was to go where the wind took us, we had early on agreed on reaching a few check points, namely Ukraine, Turkey and ex Yugoslavia. This common understanding was necessary to ensure that the trip did not turn into a 2 person reenactment of 'Lord of the Flies'. Our choice of vehicle also centered around this blueprint; a cheap, durable, gas guzzling car with a quite simple engine was found to be the best fit for driving through relatively poor countries with bad roads, a high risk of theft and low fuel prices. Finally it would be impossible to take a rental car from western Europe into these countries, so we had to prepare well in advance by buying and insuring the car etc. to make the trip happen.

In essence this was more than drinks by mediterranean beaches and post cards from distant places, it was also embracing and living a philosophy of life, believing that people all around the world are peaceful and friendly, that we live in one world despite different borders, cultures and languages. But most of all it was a deliberate attempt to turn my profound belief that men can be so much more than they are if only they would try into a habit – whenever people tell you that something's impossible, don't believe them, prove them wrong.

But enough reasoning, let's get on to the best part of the trip, the trip!
To give you an idea of what awaits, I've charted our course on below map:

A travel to the end of the old world (Part I, good Ford!)

Last week in Paris I had the pleasure of reading through Aldous Huxley's 'Brave new World', a highly recommendable book which despite its lack of strong plot or literary force (for Ford's sake, you're writing a book and not a commercial for the new Focus or Mondeo) left me full of admiration for Mr. Huxley's ability to ask profound questions about the meaning of life and other such troubling issues. Yes, the book made me think, both of our future, and also of my own immediate past.
That same week when I was in Paris finishing my psychology course with an exam and reading 'Brave new World' was also when I learned to whom my younger brother back in Denmark had sold the car that we bought together 6 months earlier. That's when I figured it was time to write a little account of Ford, the world I know and a trip to the temporary end of it.

“What do you say, should we go out and take a look” was the brief text in the email with subject “CAR” that ticked into my mailbox from Kristian that Wednesday afternoon in the middle of April. The email contained a link to an ad for a Ford Sierra 1.6 CLX from 1988. That same evening we went out to a dodgy part of Copenhagen to take a look at this ageing beauty, the first impression of a healthy cruising vehicle persisted despite obvious evidence of the owner's shameful neglect.
“It's a good car...had I kept her I would've replaced the panel by the door”. As the owner pointed to a barely scratched plastic panel it was impossible to overlook the back seat which due to a disgusting amount of small white hairs could easily have been confused with a dog house. He was a man with an odd set of priorities, which made it difficult to assess the true state of the vehicle. At times he would ramble on about minor cosmetic improvements while only making a passing remark of a “minor issue” with the engine which proved to be a little more as we took her for a spin. For one thing it is never a good sign when it takes an otherwise seasoned driver 5 attempts to pull out from the curb because the engine dies on you. Secondly, as innovative as the idea might sound, cars that try to emulate the movements of a kangaroo when they ought to accelerate are awfully uncomfortable and do not give an air of particular trustworthiness, not at all a suitable car for our purpose. The fact that the car had actually been driven for several months in this condition only increased our fears, a little like buying a house from a person who talks about changing door knobs when the walls are falling apart, the fear that unparalleled defects could be lurking right under the surface. Upon finishing the test drive it was evident that the sales contract on this car was ultimately a lottery ticket. The owner had given up on his former “flame” and talked about buying a Mondeo to cement his image as a man of complete desperation, the Sierra was put for sale at a price devoid of decency (4000 dkk/usd 750). We decided to place our bets that night, more out of a gut feeling that sellers like him don't come around terribly often than a clear idea of what we actually had to do to make the car functional.
The spirits were high as we had closed the deal and rolled away in our first Ford Sierra in the beginning twilight, though a strange feeling of unease sneaked in as we noticed the seller's grinning face. He was an odd man, an odd man indeed.

The coming weeks were spent fixing up the car; after having vacuumed enough dog hair out of the cabin to make a complete set of wigs for an 80'ies glamrock band the car's interior started to reach a standard where offering people a ride no longer would put us at danger of being prosecuted under the convention against torture. A visit to a mechanic revealed that the rebellious engine could be appeased by changing some vacuum tubes - cost: 300 dkk (USD 55). Though with one problem less another one entered the stage; the cooling system would at the most inconvenient times leak and splash out the coolant resulting in violent steams pulsing out from the hood - undoubtedly producing vivid deja vus from Stan and Ollie in the minds of most bypassers while at the same time testing my patience with this car to the maximum.

Yes, the Ford was a car with a strong personality, but slowly a relationship of trust emerged and after a month we even had the courage to leave home without a fully equipped tool box(!).

The Sierra and me

But why should we buy a car and why buy it together? Well, that my dear reader I will shed light on in part II of this narrative.