Updates Archives - Page 11 of 25

28 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 195 – 197 | Electric cars & More in Kyiv

Day 195 | Sunday September 25

My hosts needed to rebuild their kitchen so I helped them a bit with that, okay to be honest I moved 1 cupboard and the gasring. As they didn’t need to care about me I could focus on my own work.

At night Serhii made some fresh food on the bbq, potatoes, meat and more. He has a pretty big garden and he told me that he dreams about having solar panels on his roof, and of course owning an electric vehicle. Serhii had diamonds in his eyes when I offered him to test-drive my car.

Day 196 | Monday September 26

Serhii and Sergei (the other electric car guy) went with me to a car workshop. I told them I had some minor issues and they knew a professional workshop who could fix it. The issue was that the power to the Battery Management System (this is a small computer places under the steering wheel) was loose. It disconnected a lot and this gave not the right information about the status of the battery. Also the cigarette lighter was not working anymore, which I use for my navigation and now I needed an powerbank to charge it every time, not so convenient. The electrician looked at it for a few seconds and had it fixed easily.

Serhii than took me to 2 of his friends/ colleagues from the ElectroCars Club, Vladimir and Sergii (the third Sergii/hii I’ve met in the last days, they are not very creative with names here), they offered me lunch and than I headed to a meeting with Smart City Kyiv. This project aims to create opportunities for the evolution of the capital, combining strategic approach, technological advances and widespread public involvement in the creation of a new quality of life. Their office was location on a former Soviet Union complex where the USSR used to demonstrate it’s technologies. A full interview with Smart City will be published later on this website.

Together with Vladimir and Roman (it’s crazy how many people I have been introduced to today) we went a bit outside of the city to meet Viktor. He converts electric cars and had really special ones in his collection. One serial Chinese EV, a converted Ukrainian car which is the cheapest in the country and… the Synchronous. Probable the biggest electric vehicle I have ever seen, or should I call it a spaceship? It has room for 6 passengers and a driver. Monaco ordered this car and it had been driven around in the country, now it was here for maintenance. It has a 24KWh battery and 180km range.

My host for tonight was Vladimir who is the husband of Alina who I met at the Georgian festival earlier this weekend. We parked the car to charge at a nearby fuel station. At home we had some food with Smetana, it’s some kind of sour cream and they put it on everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s sweet, sour or another taste, they like it and I like it too.

Day 197 | Tuesday September 27

Time to leave Kyiv. It would be a long day as I needed to travel 300km. With Vlad I picked up the car at the gas station and together we drove to an Okko station just outside the city. There Sergii (number 3) joined us and we had some belated lunch.

The remaining of the day I drove a lot, charged at a few places and arrived at a hotel late in the night. The ElectroCars Club guys arranged this for me.

Support me

Lately I have been receiving messages from people who want so support me with financial resources. I always declined this as it was the challenge to do it without money, which worked well in the first part of this trip.
Now I am reaching a new stage: the Middle-East and I am going to need a lot of visa’s, temporary car insurances etc. so it’s going to be more convenient if I have financial support.

On the website I added an option to make a donation. You are free to decide which amount you want to donate and you can pay easily with PayPal, iDeal or bank transfer.

See this link: 2024.plugmeinproject.com/donate

It’s open now and looking for €29 to pay towards the visa for Turkey. Hope you can help 🙂

Pictures

Soviet Building

The Synchronous

Inside

in Updates 0 comments

25 September 201626 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 193 & 194 | Kyiv

Day 193 | Friday September 23

From Rivne I wanted to reach Kyiv in one day, which is a 330km drive. Under ‘normal’ circumstances not possible but with Ukraine’s charging network definitely worth a try. After breakfast with Ben and Alexandr I left.

I decided to use as much chargers as possible. The first one was as 3-phase charger at a hotel in Novohrad- Volons’kyi. I knew that this was not a free one so I checked first with the reception what the possibilities were, no problem to charge here. I did that for 2.5 hours until it was full and continued to Zhytomyr, just outside of the city was an Okko fuel station. Most of these fuel stations have a charger installed which gives your EV coverage over the whole country.
A few kilometers before Kyiv was also an Okko station so I drove there and thought I would make it from there to my host.

What I forget sometimes is that in some countries a city can have street names which occur multiple times. So when my navigation told me I arrived, I was at an industrial place which didn’t seem right. At a gas station with WiFi I found out I was 30km away from my host. This pretty much sucked as I calculated how much I needed to charge to reach this point, and it was already close to midnight. Now I needed to find a charger nearby. First one was just closed (private parking) but the second one was working, although another car was charging. Funny detail it was occupied by an Citroen Saxo electric, an EV from the beginning of the 2000 era, I saw this car only 1 time before in Germany. The driver was a bit surprised by my car and with a translator on his phone I could explain most of his questions. The older generation in Ukraine doesn’t speak much English.

Around 1am I arrived at Serhii. A few weeks ago another Sergei contacted me on Facebook, he told me he just organized an EV event in Kyiv and was interested to meet me. Today he couldn’t receive me but found his friend ready to host me.

Day 194 | Saturday September 24

Time to meet my new hosts, it was really late last night and after some food we went straight to bed. Serhii is big EV-enthusiast and lives here just outside Kyiv with his wife Lusiena and his kid Ivan. We drove to Mezhyhirya, the mansion which belonged to Viktor Yanukovich, former president of the Ukraine. Now it’s quite to important to know about the revolution which happened in 2014, it’s a very dirty one. In this post I will focus on what I saw today so please read this wikipedia page about it, for some more context. There we met with Sergei, Alina and her kids. All members of the Electro Car Club.

Serhii called Mezhyhirya “Museum of Corruption”. For many years it had been the symbol of the corruption and bad policy in the country, especially under Yanukovich’ lead. When he was the president his mansion was closed for anyone so no-one exactly knew how big this place was and what happened here. Well it’s enormous, about 400 hectares and all artificial. What I saw were many ponds with fountains, a huge mansion, boxing ring, lots of statues and a golfcourse. And we only saw like 3% of it. Also check out this article with pictures of the place when Yanukovich just was kicked out, you will understand what a badguy he was.

I was wondering why electric cars are so populair in Ukraine. Sergei explained me that Ukrainians would like to be completely in depended from Russia, of course they need to import gas from them so when everyone would drive electric that would not be necessary anymore.

Serhii took us than to an event somewhere in Kyiv. It was about the Ukrainian language and the organizers were very pleased to meet me and offered me some gifts (t-shirts). The presentation was fully in Ukrainian but you could notice that it was of importance. The Ukrainian language has been suppressed for many years and people want to promote te language, they are very proud of their language like all Ukrainians are proud of their country.

Than it was time for some relaxing. In Kyiv center we visited a Georgian festival. That includes Georgian foods, music and drinks. Very cosy and interesting experience. Kyiv so far is very interesting.

Pictures

Yanukich' House

That is me.

One of his many ponds.

Golfcourse obviously.

Remembrance of the Heavenly Hundred

in Updates 0 comments

23 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 190 – 192 | Lviv & around

Day 190 | Tuesday September 20

Today Liuda offered me a sightseeing tour through Lviv. Liuda found me on an Ukrainian Facebook page and voted for me to come to her country. The son of the first Ukrainian king Daniel of Galicia was called Lev and in honor to him he called the city ‘Lviv’, or ‘City of Lev’. The city is known for coffee, chocolate and caramel. They have some stores where you can see how they make the products. The caramel one was the most interesting as it was like a museum, they made many objects like houses and even running trains from this sweet good.

Liuda is young, only 22 and already married. She told me in Ukraine it’s common to marry at young age and it used to be even younger, between 16 and 18. We climbed to the top of a church, did a hike to a mountain with a beautiful overview on the city and she treated me with a big lunch. The first decent meal I had since Thursday and my body had a hard time to deal with it.

Day 191 | Wednesday September 21

Nazar, the one that arranged my accommodation came to visit me in the hotel. He is founder of To-U and the Ukrainian Tesla Club. With To-U they are installing the country’s biggest EV charging network, and the good thing: they are all free! They see charging as a service and make contracts with hotels, restaurant, fuel stations etc to install a station. The station is than owned by the hotel for example, they pay for the electricity and maintenance but To-U attracts customers to the stations. A full charge is very cheap in Ukraine so if the client drinks one cup of coffee at the hotel they already make profit. With their intelligent app you can even reserve the stations on your desired time, something I have never seen before.

Liuda had some contacts at a local radiostation and they were very interested in my story. We went there and I told them about my journey so far and my experience with the Polish/Ukrainian border. Which was very funny and interesting, it had something to do with a plastic doll, listen to it here.

Liuda’s husband Dmytro owned a clothing store in Lviv, Like by Look, A store were they only sell locally produced clothing. Dmytro told me that I could pick some new items and I received a complete new outfit! Looking fresh and sharp now.

After that it was time to move, my next stop was in Lutsk were Alexandr invited me. A young guy, 23 and works at the client desk of MacKeeper, if you have a mac you probably have seen one of their advertisements. We charged the car at his parents, than went to a friend, Alexandr had a night shift and his friends took me to the city. Ukrainian beers are definitely worth a try.

Day 192 | Thursday September 22

Alexandr came back from his nightshift, met me at his friend where I stayed for the night and gave me a short tour through Lutsk. We visited a castle from the year 1300 which is pretty iconic, it is even shown on the Ukrainian 100 bill.

My goal is to go to Kiev but that was out of reach. Alexandr had a friend in Rivne where I could stay, 70km from Lutsk and from there it was about 300km to Kiev, so I could make that tomorrow. Alexander joined me to Rivne as he didn’t see his friend for a long time.

On the way to Rivne we made a stop at the ‘Tunnel of Love’. Alexandr is very much into photography and showed me a picture of this tunnel. I had seen this before and didn’t know it was close by or in Ukraine at all, a gift I guess. The Love Tunnel is an deserted railroad in the forest and surrounded by green arches, where you can make the most beautiful pictures, even when you’re not a couple.

In the afternoon we got to Rivne where we met Ben. They treated me with a fish & chips menu at a restaurant. At his home we charged the car and Ben used an extension cord which seemed a bit old and thin. It made me worry a bit. I went for a check an hour later and when I opened the door I saw smoke, heard something crackle, it was hot and the room smelled odd. I instantly thought there was something on fire, ran up to the room to get all the people, ran down again to find out there was nothing wrong. The extension cord did get too hot and smelled burned but the crackle came from the central heating in the room. False alarm but everyone was wide awake now.

Pictures

Lviv

Caramel House

Liuda

Lviv

Lutz Castle

Hard to create a description

Tunnel of Love

Alexandr

in Updates 0 comments

21 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 186 – 189 | Some weird days

To not distract from the subject I wanted the previous blog to be completely about Auschwitz, so now I pick it up from there.

Day 186 | Friday September 16

I drove back to Krakow where I had a hostel who wanted to take care of me, the Pink Panther’s hostel. A party hostel and when I entered they had a summer-holiday-party-theme going on. I was up for some drinks but still needed to find a place to charge the car, which was difficult I experienced the day before yesterday. I spend a while driving from location to location but they either were not working with my car or already closes, most of them are placed in shopping malls. I knew that there was one mall with a 32A plug so I thought to go there the next morning, charge a few hours and continue. I parked the car close to the hostel and joined in for some drinks.

Day 187 | Saturday September 17

If there goes something wrong on this trip it usually happens in a chain of events, so was this time the case unfortunately. When I got to the car I found it had a wheel clamp, damn! I couldn’t figure out why because I parked between the lines. All the other 5 cars next to me had a clamp too. Apparently there where some temporary signs and it was not allowed to park here. I got pretty nervous because I was expecting a fine of a couple of hundred euros but it was only 100 Zloty, which is ‘only’ like 24 euro. Even better news was that I still had some Zloty’s left from Wouter and Ania so no troubles.

Than I needed to find a place to charge. The shopping mall was fully occupied and the other charging stations in the middle of the city too. I was hoping to find a place in the city and do some sightseeing. In stead I found a shopping mall outside the town and charged there on normal speed. This changed my plans as I couldn’t leave today. I send a message to Magdalena where I stayed in Warsaw. Later that night she replied that she founded a friend who could help me. I could sleep there and charge the car at the university across the street.

Day 188 | Sunday September 18

My goal for today was to reach Rseszow, about 18km from Krakau. It was raining, there was heavy wind and I lost range fast. About 20km from I realized I was not going to make it and needed a pit-stop to recharge. Problem was a pitstop (fuel station, house or anything with a plug) didn’t appear and I had 4% left. I started dring on the emergency lane with 10km/h to safe energy but after 5km my battery was 0%, damn! It had to happen at least one time this trip so that I did only after 6 months is not a bad achievement I reckon.

The car stopped on bend of an exit to a smaller road but passing cars only noted me when they drove by so none of them stopped to see what was going on. There was no emergency lane too so it was even a dangerous situation. I called my insurance in Holland and they would send a Polish roadside assistance. Just when I hung up a nice man stopped and offered to tow me to the city.

When towing the car started to recharge itself, because of the spinning of the wheels it regenerates electricity, and that goes pretty fast actually. When we got to the city after 15 minutes I already had 25%. I thanked the good man for his kindness and drove to a charger. Before leaving Krakau I did some research and there were 3 chargers here, unfortunately the first one I couldn’t find and the second one was closed on Sunday. The third one was available but the slowest option. Again it was located in the garage of a shopping mall and I decided to spend the night in the car as I couldn’t find a place to stay.

Day 189 | Monday September 19

Hungry, sleepy and Grumpy I woke up in the car around 7am. I realized that the last time I had a decent meal was last Thursday at Ania’s place. The previous day I only had eaten some noodles. Today I wanted to reach Lviv in Ukraine. Early morning I crossed the border, on both the Polish and Ukrainian side they were very cautious. The Polish customs went through the car with dogs 3 times and the complete process took one hour. Luckily for Ukraine I didn’t need a visa.

My hosts in Lviv were Nazar and Lena. I met them at the presentation of the Detroit Electric SP-O1 in Oslo. They are installing a charging network in the country and also sell electric cars, more about this in a later blog. Unfortunately they were away from Lviv to install chargers somewhere in the mountains so they put me in a hotel. As I was super tired I slept some hours and woke up around 9pm. Than I was super hungry and made some rice in the bathroom of the hotelroom.

Pictures

Charging at the hotel in Lviv

in Updates 0 comments

18 September 201618 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 186 | Auschwitz

Day 186 | Friday September 16

Ania wanted to make sure that I was allright for the coming days so she bought me some bread, bananas, water and even gave me some pocket money “for your Auschwitz trip”, that is where I was going today. Ania lives only 1 hour away from the memorial site.

Auschwitz

For many years I wanted to go to this place because of it’s historical importance. The camp is one of the few things that is still visible from the war. Auschwitz consists of 3 different areas: Auschwitz I (base camp and central office), Auschwitz II (Birkenau ) and Auschwitz III (Monoscwitz with the sub-camp and buna). Today I visited I and II.

The tour started in Auschwitz I, this complex was already there before the start of the war and used to be a Polish military camp and the town was called Oświęcim. When the Germans took over Poland they changed the name into how the camp is known today. The first people who were send to the camp were 700 polish people, mostly intellectuals or people who committed a crime.

We entered the camp through the famous gate with the text “arbeit macht frei” (meaning: work sets you free) above it. Little detail: the ‘B’ in arbeit is placed upside-down. There are various stories of why this is. Some say the detainees did it as a protest or to warn new people but this is criticized as the Nazi’s must have seen that in the 5 years that the camp was in operation. Another theory is that in that time the Germans experimented with Sans-Serif fonts and in some variants the lower part of the B was smaller as the upper part.

The majority of the barracks in the complex are still intact, inside are various exhibitions and explanations about the war. In one room is a 30-meter long showcase of cut-off women’s hair. Every detainees hair was removed to avoid diseases and later sold. Another room was completely filled with kitchen wares. People who came to the camps believed they were going to a place where to would have a decent life, it’s one of the many cruel ironies you’ll find here.

Auschwitz I rapidly became to small for the plans the Nazi’s had so they gave orders to build a second camp, Birkenau. Man and woman were separated. The woman placed on the left side of the complex in brick houses. Bricks became scarce in the area so for the man they build wooden barracks. This complex houses 250 barracks, build to the design of horse stables which usually houses 52 horses. Now 800 to 1000 people shared one barrack. At it’s peak Birkenau housed 200.000 people in total.

The second camp was mainly build for factory scale extermination. Between 1940 and 1945 1.3 million people were send to Auschwitz and 1,1 million dead, 90% of them were Jewish people.

It’s unbelievable what has happened here, only 70 years ago. One of the survivors wrote in his book “it happened before and it could happen again”. Unfortunately that is very true and we should realize that our freedom is something to cherish and in many countries it is still not for granted.

Celebrate life!

Pictures

Personal stuff of detainees

Auschwitz I

Gas chamber

Auschwitz-Birkenau

in Updates 0 comments

17 September 201617 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 184 & 185 | Warsaw – Krakaw – Jelesnia

Day 184 | Wednesday September 14

Wouter and Magdelena wanted to take really good care of me. They have traveled a lot themselves, with the bike they toured around South-America so they know the difficulties of traveling on a budget. I went shopping with Wouter, he bought campinggaz for me, food for today, rice for emergencies and he even gave me some Zloty’s for on the way. That is all really appreciated!

Magdalena sent out some requests to people in Poland asking for a place to stay for me.

My goal for today was to reach Krakow. 300km from Warschau so I needed to charge in between. In Kielce I found a car workshop with a type 2 station and charged for about 4 hours. It was a bit outside of the city so not much to see there. When I travel 200+ km days are mostly long and boring. I did had wifi at the workshop so I sent out some requests to hostels in Krakow asking for a bed. There were actually a few who replied positively so I was in the luxurious position to choose one! I decided to go to the Blueberry Hostel, just because I liked that name. I got there around 11pm. Problem now was that I needed to find a place to charge, most of the charging stations were inside parkings which were closed from 10pm, bad luck. I decided that I would charge my car the following day as there were many stations and thus didn’t need to wait 12 hours.

It was the first time this trip that I spend the night in a hostel. On previous travels (Australia, Asia) I only stayed in hostels. The atmosphere, people and the shared rooms instantly gave me the feeling of being a backpacker. Which is one of the best feelings.

Day 185 | Thursday September 15

Today I needed to drive only 80km to Jelesnia, problem was the car was not charged yet. I found a BMW dealer which allowed me to charge the car and after a few hours I could leave.

Around 6 I arrived in Jelesnia were I met Ania. This was the second time this trip that I saw her. Remember that day in Lofoten when my car broke down and some nice Polish people helped me out and invited me for dinner in their campervan? Well that was her. She saw I was in Poland and invited me again. At that time she was with her boyfriend’s parents, now I was at her parents place, and Pawel, her boyfriend dropped by later too.

They took me with the car for a sightseeing trip, it was a typical Polish village. famous for a beer brewery, the highest mountain in the Beskidy mountains and a 5 meters high waterfall which was the highest in the area. To finish the tour we went to a traditional pub to have some apple pie with ice cream. When traveling without money and eating basic food you really learn to appreciate a treat like this. Not that I had bad food the last days by the way, everyone treated me really well!

When back home we had even more food (we already had dinner), it looks like the Polish eat all day long. Which is definitely not a bad thing.

Pictures

Wouter & Magdalena

Near Jelesnia

The world famous waterfall

The Fam.

in Updates 0 comments

14 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 182 & 183 | Exploring Warsaw

Day 182 | Monday September 12

Today I did nothing else but work. I’m very busy with preparing the next stage of this trip: the Middle East. Every country requires a visa, I need Carnet de Passages and injections against diseases. I did not find the solution for all of this yet, or money, which is also a problem.

That’s it for today. Not every day is crazy adventurous.

Day 183 | Tuesday September 13

The last 3 days I have been in Warsaw but didn’t see anything of the city yet. In the morning I had a little bit of time to look around. I parked my car at a EV charger, this was the first time since St. Petersburg, a few 1000 kilometers ago. Parking & charging is free for electric cars in the city. Sadly there are no rules for people parking on the EV spots with normal car, and so the first 2 chargers I found were occupied with ICE-cars, which made it not easy for me.

Warsaw is nice and calm. During WWII the city had rough times, nearly one million people were killed and the biggest part of the city was bombed into ruins. After the war it was rebuild and because there were not much people left they made very wide streets. In and around the city huge shopping malls are placed were most people go shopping so this makes it very comfortable to walk in the city without bumping in to anyone, a luxury for a capital.

Michal’s office is also located in the city and I went to have lunch with him in a restaurant under the former headquarters of the Soviet Union. Next to this building is now a street called “the new era” and there is this Polish saying “If you have the Soviet Union in your back, you look into the new era”.
I interviewed Michal about Bioelektra, which will be online soon.

Than I went to a next host, parked my car right in front of the Palace of Culture and Science and walked a few minutes to his house. The palace was a gift from the Russians to Poland and you can find copies of this building in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

My host was Wouter, a dutchman and son of a friend of my mother from years ago when we lived in Belgium (it’s ok to read this twice). I didn’t remember if I had ever met him but according to him we didn’t.
Wouter has been living here for 10 years with his wife Magdalena. They’re expecting a child within 4 weeks. The bathroom was fully filled with children’s clothes so I expected it was their 2nd child coming but it was their first. They have a lot of friends.

Magdalena and Wouter took me for a sightseeing tour in the old part of Warsaw. We visited a store were the sold amber. I learned that amber is actually fossilized tree resin. When you heat it up to 150 degrees it becomes fluid again and you can reshape it. Here they sold ambers of 40 million years ago. And the special thing: with insects inside of it (remember Jurassic Park?). Some stones were worth more then a million euros.

For dinner we went to a Polish restaurant. Polish food is a lot of meat and potatoes. Very much practical food. Wouter ordered some different things and the main dish I could’t finish, friends of me would know that’s something special.

Pictures

Michal

2 foreign cars at 1 spot

Palace of Culture and Sciene

in Updates 0 comments

12 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 178 – 181 | Poland

The last days I traveled from hotel to hotel. I’m on my way to Ilawa were Michal wants to show me a waste recycling plant. He arranged all the accommodations for me and I used these days to do a lot of work. I wrote this blog about Tuup, RePack and made some movies on Facebook.

Thursday I arrived in Olsztyn and Friday I spend the night in a beautiful hotel in Ilawa.

Day 180 | Saturday September 10

Krysztof, the manager of the plant picked me up in the morning and brought me to Boielektra. It’s a huge factory with 3 different chambers. In the first chamber the waste is brought in. The waste is coming from Olsztyn. In a shredder it’s crumbled into pieces to remove any large waste components and shredding the waste for a more homogeneous mass.

In the next chamber the waste is put into autoclaves and heated up to 180 C and goes through some processes. After 3 hours the waste is emptied from the autoclaves and is now sterile and free of smell.

In the next chamber the sterile waste is segregated in different categories: aluminum, plastics, PET bottles, biomass, textile, glass and metal.

At the end of the line the products appear on a big pule. There was a big pile of aluminum cans and this was worth €25.000 and is sold to recyclers. Impressive. Definitely considering the fact that this waste is normally burned or buried. With this system is possible to recycle almost 100% of the materials.

Full interview coming up soon.

https://www.facebook.com/PlugMeIn/photos/a.357717747770627.1073741829.211949022347501/532186576990409/?type=3&theater

Than it was time to go to Warsaw. A 220km drive. Michal arranged that I could charge my car at a workshop in Plonsk. They had some cars there who were being repaired an a mini museum with Polish cars. Well, semi-polish cars because the brand is called “Polsky Fiat”. If the cars were being build in Italy or here was not clear.

They had a 32A socket (which is the fastest possibility for my car) but it was behind some tires and machines. Quickly they tried to remove all the obstacles but unfortunately the cable was too short and we charged the car on 16A. Luckily they had two 16A sockets and my car has the wonderful possibility to insert 2 cables, in the front and in the back. So we had the same 32A power through 2 different cables and one hour later I could go again.

In the evening I arrived in Warsaw at Michal’s place. He lives here with his wife, 2 children and an au pair who takes care of the kids. We had some food and talks and went to bed early.

Day 181 | Sunday September 11

With the whole family we went to the city to have breakfast. I had a croissant and that last time I saw one was in Bodo, Norway. Than we moved to a park were a Chopin concert was. Michal told me that the Polish don’t have a really rich culture so they are very proud of the things they have, like Chopin.

Pictures

Working on night photography skills

The people at the workshop

in Updates 0 comments

7 September 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 176 & 177 | From big city to little town

Day 176 | Tuesday September 6

Tuesday started with a TV-interview, it looks like there is coming more and more attention for Plug Me In. The show is called “Labas rytas, Lietuva!” or good morning Lithuania! They asked me to come to a charging station in the city and asked me some questions about my plans and stay in Vilnius, will be broadcasted tomorrow.

After the interview I went to Cozy and said goodbye te Bernie and Renata. They have been very hospitable to let me stay for 5 nights, I could do whatever I wanted and they treated me with a lot of stories, beers and food. That last one was also now the case, Bernie send me to his hamburger restaurant Le Butcher were I could have a final free lunch. They had a beef steak burger on the menu and I never had that before. It was beef cut in tiny slices with some sauce, lettuce and potato wedges, excellent choice if you would ask me 😉

Time to leave Vilnius now. Simonas invited me to come to his parents summer resort in Pivašiūnai. I actually wanted to go there yesterday but because of the TV interview today I postponed it. That was no problem for him bit today he could’t be there himself. Luckily he was able to come to the meeting with the electric Honda yesterday and we had the opportunity to meet.

Pivašiūnai was only 75km from Vilnius. I was welcomed by Simonas parents Gerardas and Ramute on this countryside mansion. It was really a mansion because the area of their place was at least 5 football fields. They had a big house with a big stable with a big sauna next to it and very very big solar panels. They had 3 huge arrays of panels, at least 15 meters wide each of them. On a average day they collect around 200KWh of electricity, which is a lot and way more than they can use. What remains they sell back to the power company.

Gerardas and Ramute didn’t speak fluently English and one of the first things I could understand was Gerardas asking “you want shot tequila?” Which I than couldn’t decline. Some more shots of local spirits followed and after dinner we sweat it out of our bloodstreams in the sauna.

Day 177 | Wednesday September 7

I woke up before 9 to watch myself on television, broadcast was between 9 and 12. We waited, waited more and eventually were let down, no handsome man on television. I sent a message to the interviewer and she replied that the planning for this week was already full so it will be aired on the 14th. They will sent me a link which I will post here.

A few weeks ago I received a message from Michal who lives in Poland. He saw one of my movies and wanted me to show his sustainable project. I thought it was interesting so a few days ago I’d let him know that I would be coming soon. As I had no-one who plugged me in between the Lithuanian border and his place (about 450km in Ilawa) I asked him for assistance. He wanted to take care of me and look for friends or other possibilities on the way. For today he and his assistance Weronika booked a hotelroom for me in Augustow! Great because I had a lot of work to do and had now had some time and quietness to write and edit stuff, like this interview about RePack, go read it!

So today I arrived in Poland, country #15 this trip. Since I got to Denmark all the countries I passed I had never been before. Poland is new territory too but it feels (and it not only feels) like I’m getting more close to home, but that is what makes this trip so much fun, letting other people decide how I’m traveling to Australia.

Pictures

Beef steak burger

Le Butcher

Gerardas and Ramute's House

Hot Tub

Huge solar panels

Sauna

Playing around

At night

Charging fully on solar energy

Gerardas and Ramute'

in Updates 0 comments

7 September 20168 September 2016 by Wiebe

Day 174 & 175 | Vilnius Pt. II

Day 174 | Sunday September 5

My host Bernie has a lot of contacts throughout the city and today he arranged something special. A Dutch friend of him is about to open a ski-center in Vilnius, Slidinėjimo Akademija. Not one with snow or brushes but a rotating track. It’s about a 15 meters long and the height can be adjusted. It’s been a while since I skied for the last time, at least 18 years, so it was nice to do it again. It was a cool experience, I expected the track to be a bit stiff but it was actually pretty easy to make turns. The ‘cool’ thing is that you can do it with your t-shirt on as it’s of course not cold at all. For Bernie it was the first time but he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

In the evening I met Johan, another friend of Bernie. Johan made a road trip per bike from Lithuania to Malaysia, so from here I’m making the same route as he did and wanted to meet up with him to hear his experiences about especially the middle-east. I got a lot wiser, felt relieved about some issues I was thinking about and had some new things to think about.

Johan is a traveler pur sang himself. He had a baby a few years ago and couldn’t resist to travel again. He bought an old fireman truck from Austria and with his girlfriend and baby they traveled around the world. Great inspiration for later. You can find his stories and pictures here.

Lithuanians are very proud of their language. This is because they have been under pressure for a long time and due to circumstances over the years the country changed a lot. The language is something that never changes. Bernie and Renata told me that there even is a law that says you always need to stick to the language. They received an email from the government who saw the menu of one of their restaurants online. For a dish they used different words than the original Lithuanian language and now they risk a fine if they don’t change it!

Day 175 | Monday September 6

The day started with a meeting at the Dutch embassy in Vilnius. Via Facebook I was in touch with Bert, the ambassador, for already some days. He even offered me a place to stay at his house, a really nice gesture. He told me more about sustainability in Lithuania. How the country bought a boat to get their own gas so they can be independent from Russia and how the Dutch are helping with giving advice about our biking infrastructure.

For lunch I had a meeting with Zilvinas, journalist from 15 Mins, one of the countries biggest media channels. He took me for lunch and asked me everything about my trip. You can read the article here, it’s in Lithuanian of course but definitely worth putting through Google Translate.

Than I picked up Johan and drove to Mindaugas. This guy converted his own Honda HR to fully electric already in 2008. I made a video about it (which is very technical but interesting) which you can see here:

Full Electric Honda HR-V

Pictures

At the embassy

The electric Honda

Indoor Skiing

in Updates 0 comments

« Previous