06-10-2006

Kemerovo - Novosibirsk

Leaving Nadya (for now)

Upon returning from our trip to the Altay I told Nadya this would be my last week and that I had to go soon. She didn’t really want to hear that. Actually, neither did I.

When we said our goodbyes today we both had to cry. I hate leaving her, but have obligations in Belgium. I will go back to Nadya for a week in November and she will visit me for 2 or 4 weeks in January. I am already looking forward to that.

As I am writing this I long to be with Nadya again. My trip to Belgium now feels like an unavoidable obstacle. I just want to get there as soon as possible and plan how she and I can be together again. Nevertheless, I will try to enjoy the experience.

When I left Kemerovo the temperature was around 0 Celsius. The sky was grey and sometimes it would snow lightly. The trip to Novosibirsk was nothing different. The only problem is that I got very cold after an hour of driving. I stop and put on my thermal underwear. It helps but I should have done this sooner as I am not really warming up, I’m just not getting colder. Anyway, I’m getting hungry so I stop at a kafe to eat and warm up again. Despite the windscreen and heated grips I still get cold after about 2 hours of driving. I am almost in Novosibirsk now and stop for a hot coffee. Nadya gave me the telephone number of Anton. He helped me unload my motorcycle from the train. His English is very good and he can put me up for the night. I just need to make it to Akademgorodok, a suburb of Novosibirsk. There was heavy traffic in the city, so it takes me a little over an hour to ride the 25kms to Akademgorodok. This is were we spent the night after unloading the bike from the train; the bike show was also not far from here so I can find my way around here without a map.

Anton takes me to a friend of his, Sergey. He has a place for me to sleep. Sergey hears that I need a tent and would be happy to sell his tent to me for an interesting price. I don’t want to spend my time shopping around Novosibirsk in the morning and the color of his tent is subdued enough to suit me so I buy it. In Kemerovo I found a good tent, but sadly enough it was all yellow. I just do not feel comfortable sleeping in a tent that screams: “here’s a tourist with pockets full of money sleeping all by himself”. I’m sorry, Jerry.

We watch a couple of episodes of “Lost” in Russian while we eat and drink. Their local internet provider also offers a LAN where people can find a huge collection of movies and series on-line to watch.