My GPS is incapable of working out any route here for some reason, which makes things very interesting as you get into a city. Get to the hotel and go out without thinking. There are just millions of OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE here aren’t there. Floods of them. Waves of them breaking over me wherever I go. I need some relief. I know. I’ll go and get a Russian to drag a razor blade across my jugular. That usually relaxes me. Only this one doesn’t look Russian, and when he starts to drag the razor I know this is a game of neck, blade, A&E. Luckily he chickens out before I do and starts to use an electric razor instead.
Kaliningrad is like any other Russian city. Why did I expect anything else? You don’t know unless you try I guess.
As a gentlemen of a certain age, I spend 99% of my life like this
Kaliningrad was “significantly damaged” in the war but they’ve built back in the original style. Absolutely shit tonnes of Russians out enjoying the sunshine. Same same but different
Now, let’s play guess the bedroom theme today. Given that that this is the outside, what do you expect my room too look like.
Well, I didn’t quite expect this
I want to get away early today. I’ve got to put some miles after I get out of Kaliningrad. Coffee and cake. As good if not better than at home. Russia mostly imports coffee from Brazil and Vietnam. Probably not the finest beans good enough for me. Remember there are 105 rubles to the pound. Coffee and 2 cakes. £3. Makes you think doesn’t it. We’re so used to being screwed we lost contact with any value for money years ago.
I’ve got to get Brian some hand cleaner. I went to 2 tool shops yesterday. No luck. The last place gave me an address of a place down on the docks. Not easy to find with no satnav and a miss-behaving Bitch I forgot what i came here for. Was it a lady decorator wearing low cut jeans and a tight T shirt? Oh well I’ll buy a couple anyway. It’s good to have a spare for when one is full
No bloody hand cleaner though. And now I have to find my way out to the border form the badlands too. Bugger the hand cleaner. On the outskirts I ride past a scrappy car park with a big old sign saying something like ‘The End of the World shop’. Turn around, go in and sure enough it sells everything from car tyres to body bags to plastic garden animals, food, drugs, guns, knives , and hand cleaner. With grit. Only 2 tubes left though. Turns out that after the apocalypse it’s really important to keep your hands clean.
Head out towards Poland. It’s wet and cold and I’m hypersensitive. The Bitch is not well. For the last few days she’s been randomly trying to kill me. I’ll go to turn and it feels like the bars are locked solid. She won’t turn or she’ll just barely turn. Scares the shit out of me every single time. If it’s what I think it is,I just hope it will hold up a few more days.
Stop at the loneliest petrol station in the world for some cheap fuel and even cheaper cancer sticks for the blokes at work. I was going to buy some sweets, but sweets are bad for you.
The queue is very short but it’s the same as when as when I was waiting to come in this border a few weeks ago. Cars with german plates but Russian speaking passengers.
Done inside and hour and on to Poland…
which takes more than twice as long.. so I decide to get brut force and ignorance out the panniers. I’ve noticed one of the suspension struts is protruding more than the other so I loosen everything off and pull the suspension through to make them the same, as you do.
But while The Bitch is on the centre stand I turn the bars and there is a very nasty graunching noise from the head bearings. Sounds like a 90 year old doing the splits. BUGERTY TWAT WANGLES AND FLAPPY FANNY FARTS. That’s all I bloody well need. The front brakes are beginning to pulse again too, and I suspect they’re not releasing properly. That could be something to do with it. Still it’s only really a problem at junctions, roundabouts and slip roads. I’ll have to avoid them. I doubt there are many on the 1000 miles back home. I’ll just have to adopt the Clarkson philosophy. I’ll just ride a lot faster. That way I’d have a bigger accident, but I’d have less time to worry about it.