1500 kilometers on three cups of coffee and three cans of Red Bull

A long, long time ago, in a Scandinavian country filled with Ikea furniture and hot blondes, Erik was celebrating his well-deserved Easter break. He was studying very intensely and focused all his energy on learning the very interesting subjects of sociology and organizational structural theory. Not a single night was spent partying or procrastinating, even though his “friends” photoshopped several images and posted them on facebook to ruin Erik’s reputation



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It’s amazing what malevolent people can do with photoshop nowadays... Anyway, after Erik had spent three weeks at the library of his little cozy country town, it was time to head home to London to write some exciting exams. But the big, bad volcano Ekkajörkul (or whatever it’s called) decided to demolish Erik’s ambitious plans. To that end, the volcano gave out the biggest, baddest, ashiest eruption/ejaculation for two hundred years, and all flights were cancelled.

What should Erik do now? He was stuck in Sweden, and even though he looked for buses, trains, boats, rafts, bicycles and tricycles, he found no possible way of going home.

At the same time, Erik’s friend Oscar was stuck in London and had to come home to Sweden, coz’ he was sick of all the fish & chips, beer and people who drive on the wrong side of the road. They called each other on skype and gave each other the same genius solution: Erik would drive a car to Calais and Oscar would drive it home to Sweden!

Next followed an intensive period of planning. Oscar ordered a hideously expensive but luxurious Toyota Avensis which Erik really liked driving:

However, since Erik had spent ALL of his hard-earned money on booze and… ehh I mean schoolbooks and papers and stuff, he would really need some help with paying for the trip. He therefore posted an ad on the internet asking if people would be interested to join him in the drive to Calais. Over ten people answered, and the four who eventually joined in were a great group who kept the mood up in the car. Mike, for example, was a music teacher and actor who could imitate any accent in any language, and made everybody laugh as soon as the car passed another border. The trip went through Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and Great Britain, so there were lots of languages to ridicule.

On the drive, Erik and his co-travelers listened to the only CD which was available, but it created and maintained a high atmosphere in the car: Bob Marley – Legend. Pretty soon, everyone were singing “I SHOT THE SHERIFF” and thus almost got arrested by the German police for admitting committing murder.

The drive itself lasted for 18 hours, from 6 in the morning ‘til midnight. Erik managed to stay awake all the time by inducing a stimulant known as “caffeine”, in the form of 3 coffees and 3 red bulls. As Erik also was driving all the time except for the 2-hour drive through Denmark, he really enjoyed the two hours of sleep he got at the most luxurious hotel in Calais:

Needless to say, the soundtrack to this night was “Sleeping in my car” by Roxette.

At 4am the next morning, Erik dropped off the passengers and spent three hours looking for a gas-station. Apparently, French people either don’t use gasoline in their cars or have simply never figured out how to make legible signs for them, coz’ Erik couldn’t find a single gas-station in all of Calais. The one he did find was only for trucks and only served diesel, so luckily he didn’t fill the tank with the wrong liquid.

The next morning, Erik met up with Oscar who took the car and drove it home to Sweden. The hardest part of the journey was now done, but Erik still had to cross the English Channel and get back to London. And from the looks of the queue to the ferry, he thought he’d be stuck in the god-forsaken land called France forever:

And this was just the queue to get IN to the terminal where the ferry tickets were sold... However, in the queue he met Nassima, a licensed pilot who was on her way to Gatwick for a meeting. She offered Erik a ride, which shorted down the trip considerably. In other words, the last part of the trip was filled with good conversation and a beautiful view of the English channel:

And suddenly, as fast as the trip had started, Erik was back in London again. And guess what? As SOON as he set foot in the city, he could see the first airplanes taking off again. During the 36-hour trip from Sweden to London, the airline restrictions had been lifted. Was Erik disappointed that he didn’t wait for two days and then flew home? Not really. After all, the trip brought about a nice roadtrip through northern Europe, and he got to meet some awesome people along the way. He’s already planning another roadtrip, but before that he’ll have to live in the library twenty-four hours per day for 2 months. Because as we all know – final exams hold far greater powers than Icelandic volcanoes…

Ett typexempel på ett "stölleprov"

Så sitter man fast på grund av askmolnet. Mitt flyg blev inställt. Kanske får jag inga pengar tillbaka. Kanske missar man sina tentor och blir utkastad av skolan. Kanske är det bäst att sitta still och hoppas på bättre tider.

Nä, stopp och belägg. I alla situationer gäller det att tänka praktiskt och försöka hitta den bästa lösningen. Ibland går det åt skogen ändå, men det kvittar. För ibland lyckas man med såna där gyllene lösningar som gör att man glömmer alla misslyckanden. En sån lösning har jag hittat nu:

Min kompis Oscar är i samma situation som mig, men han sitter fast i London. Vi ringde varann därför på Skype och kom på att vi skulle kunna köra bil åt varsitt håll och sedan mötas halvvägs för att byta förare på bilen. Sagt och gjort - snart hade vi bestämt oss. Då okm jag på att det säkert fanns fler som behövde komma från Sverige till London, och la upp en annons på Blocket: http://www.blocket.se/vi/26935980.htm . Jag fick en mängd svar, och nu har jag plötsligt en full bil. 2000 per person är väldigt rimligt, tycker alla som har ringt, och är väldigt tacksamma över att de kan åka med. Det kommer även att åka ett par personer hem från London med Oscar.

Så nu idag har det varit full organisation för att hämta hyrbilen (en modern Toyota Avensis, helt makalös bil!), ringa runt och planera upphämtningar (i Göteborg och Helsingborg), köpa färjebiljetter samt planera själva körningen. De av mina vänner som träffat mit idag har nog tyckt att jag pendlat från hopp till förtvivlan, från lycka till panik om vartannat. Men nu är iallafall allt klart, och vi är redo att åka kl 6 imorgon bitti.

En del har kallat mig galen, en del har kallat mig för ett kapitalistiskt geni. Personligen håller jag med personen som sa "The difference between madness and genius is measured only in success". Med andra ord: skillnaden på en galning och ett geni är att geniet lyckas. Så vi får helt enkelt se om jag är galen eller genial :)

Önska mig lycka till, nu drar vi iväg! Lovar att skriva när jag kommer fram.