Mostly about me, too boring?

Well, an other month.

Man! Time flies!

Originally (that is, three weeks ago), I wanted to blog on the weekend I spent in Italy to pick up my motorbike. I guess I will do that, but I want to write something more later this week (lazy bastard!).

So, let's start from the beginning.

As soon as I moved to The Netherlands, I had the wish to reunite with my beloved motorbike, so exactly the second weekend (!!) after I came here I flew to Italy, one way... ;-)

The organization started well in advanced. I had to unblock the insurance (otherwise I couldn't drive!), find a flight and find the best way to come from Italy to The Netherlands.

Unblocking (reactivating?) the insurance was the hardest part: I had to keep my finger crossed hoping that the new papers from the insurance would be able to travel 500km in three days. If you never sent mail in Italy, you can't understand this point. ;-)

About the way to travel back with the motorbike, at first I planned to drive all the way, sleeping in Germany Saturday night. It was just 1.000km, and on the German highway (the autobahn) there is no speed limit... But then a friend gave me a great idea: bring my motorbike with the train! Of course, no electronic ticket for that, so I had to buy it over the phone and a friend in Milan picked up the ticket for me.

And finally, the cherry on the icing: the motorbike, to run in Italy, needed a compulsory check to a mechanic (so called "revisione") since four years are elapsed since I bought it. I found a mechanic's number through a friend and (incredible!) Saturday morning was his last workday before holidays!

To be totally ready, I borrowed a GPS addon for my mobile phone, so that I would be able to see the road with it.

So, as you can see, it was planned as a typical, relaxing weekend.

I landed in Milan Malpensa airport around 10pm and the first good news came to welcoming back in my home country: the first bus for Lugano was leaving in about an hour. I decided to do something nice for my sisters (who hates to drive, especially to pick me up) and I took a taxi to the train station. During the short ride, I had to listen to the driver's complains because in the whole day he just had two customers, both going to the closest train station. I didn't feel really sympathetic towards him, thinking about the 100 EUR he would charge for the 50km from the airport to Milan.
Nevertheless, I reached the train station (about 25 EUR). The train brings me much closer to my parents' house. I told the change in plan to my sister and I started my journey.
About one hour later I was at the station. My sister was already waiting for me (maybe the first time in ten years?) and I reached my parents' house around midnight.

Few minutes after stepping into the house, we started arguing, but I am not gonna talk about that... ;-)

After dinner I started preparing for the next day. I prepared a small baggage, made sure the motorbike was all right and I checked the papers from the insurance (they actually came on Thursday!!!).

The next day, Saturday, I woke up at 6am, since the appoinment at the mechanic was for 9am. Since the motorbike was not used for more than one year, I disconnected its battery, which went totally flat in the meanwhile.

Using the appropriate cables, I connected the motorbike's battery to the car's, in order to turn it on. As you know, the battery charges while you are driving. But you need to drive for a while before the battery has enough power to turn on the engine again. So, if my engine would stop, I would be in trouble.

I started driving toward the mechanic, but once I was in the right town, I didn't know how to find it. I stopped to ask to someone and to avoid the noise, I turned off the engine. You guessed, the battery was still too low to turn on my engine again. I felt so stupid! But I had been lucky, I was on a slope: I just let the motorbike go freely downhill, I put the gear on and I turned the engine on.

Once I reached the mechanic and I started talking with him, he told me he didn't plan any work for that day. He was only supposed to clean before holiday period, but he did an exception to help me since at the phone I explained my situation to him. That (i.e. "an exception") is what I miss about Italy. Here (pretty much like in Finland), a rule is a rule, and the concept of bending a rule doesn't have space in people's mind. Somehow I have the feeling that here in The Netherlands they just enjoy red tape (burocracy).

Less than an hour later, I was on the road again, heading to Milan to pickup my train ticket.

I reached my friend's place, picked up the ticket and headed to Verona, where the train would leave. I was even there before the scheduled time to load the train! ;-)

Now a little cultural corner about Italy: the nice and friendly personnel from the train company (Trenitalia) that was supposed to check-in the drivers was speaking ONLY ITALIAN. The train was heading to Düsseldorf, it was full of Germans and Dutch, but the guy didn't speak a word of English, German or Dutch. I cannot guess for how long he did that work, but still the car's plate was "the ID", with the result that people always showed their passport when he was asking for "auto ID"... No comment.
Luckily a lady from the German train company (Die Bahn) was speaking German, English and Italian. By the way, the website for this service is dbautozug.

This is what my motorbike looked like after they loaded it. They also locked it so that it wouldn't move, but the picture was take after they took the locks away:

For the first hour or so I was alone, and then in Bolzano a family (father and son) from Germany joined my coach. They were actually a very funny couple. The father was probably on his late forties, and the son was 10 or so. They had a week of holidays together with a motorbike. We had a nice chat during the evening.

The next morning, around 7am, I was ready to drive from Düsseldorf to Den Haag, except I didn't have a clue which way to drive! This is when I turned on the GPS, but how to see the mobile's screen while driving? Have a look:


This looks crazy, I know. But believe me, it worked! I linked the mobile to the engine's key.

Without the GPS I would have been so lost! Sunday morning (7am) in August in Düsseldorf. There was nobody to whom ask for any indication.

Believe it or not on the highway the phone didn't move up to 200km/h in the autobahn.

Yes, this is the other thing I wanted to tell you. I reached twice, only for few seconds, 200km/h. It wasn't particularly fun. It's probably the kind of stupid thing men do. I did.

There were two way to tell when I crossed the border from Germany to The Netherlands. One was a sign on the side of the road, the other was that everyone slowed down to 120km/h. :-(

At that was it. I finally have my motorbike here with me! The fact that everything went exactly as planned made very happy.

But I cannot hide the truth to you. After four years, I had the first small accident with this motorbike. Few days ago I went to the cinema and while I was watching the movie it started raining. The area where I live is a damn maze of tram rails, and even if I know all the theory about it, I slipped on one tram rail. My bruises are almost gone, but my little bike will carry the scar for much longer. I guess shit happens. :-(

Stay tuned! More soon on the incredible amount of red tape in The Netherlands.


alfonso