Winter?

It seems my GPS decided to give up after less than an hour of cold, and it seemed to be wonky for the first few minutes. Anyway, here's the log. Too bad that it didn't record the downhill, because it was quite a nice route.

I made a lot of photos today, so I shared them on Picasa:

I love this hostel! There's just so much to see and discover and take photos of. I quite enjoyed myself here, wandering around, discovering all kinds of things. This place will go in the records as the first awesome place I've discovered during this trip. Speaking of awesome places, there was another awesome building along the way which you can see in Picasa: an old museum of some kind, now it's abandoned and looking crappy, fenced off by barbed wire. I considered investigating it, but I was in the middle of a freezing downhill ride, and I didn't want to waste energy. I regret it a bit, but I'm sure I'll come across more awesome buildings along the way.

Today has been awesome! The snow was an unwelcome surprise at first, but once I got used to it I quite enjoyed cycling in the snow. The scenery was excellent all along the way. I also left some useless stuff at the last hostel, so I'm traveling lighter now, and probably with a better weight distribution as well. Climbing hills is noticeably easier today! The downhill was freezing, but the pace was high so I could see a lot of things along the way. Finding a hostel like this is great too, these kind of places are exactly the ones that I am looking for. Entertaining places with a lot of history, that almost nobody knows about or would look for. Forget the touristy places, hostels like these are the attraction for me.

All the good things come with a price tag though, and in this case it's distance. I underestimated my speed and  booked a hostel quite close to me, meaning I'd already reached it by early afternoon, wasting a couple of hours of cycling time. In return I got some awesome photos and a very nice time under the kotatsu (table with heating element), so I'm happy with this. Now the longest uphill climb is done, and it's safe to say that it will never be as cold again as today. From here on I can relax! :D

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