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.

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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.

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