Day 1 - Rostock

I woke up at 5.40 this morning and felt pretty good. Spreading out my sleeping bag on the floor of the air seat lounge turned out to be a decent idea after all. A couple of chairs over, JB - a French drummer, moving home after living in Finland for two years - looked up in a daze and went back to sleep as I exited the lounge. JB and I got to talking last night when he asked if he could borrow my phone for a short call to a friend in Finland. Later we had a beer in the bar and went through the bare minimum intros needed to keep the conversation going before going down stairs and turning in for the night.

Returning after a quick e-mail check and a short stroll to stretch my legs I found JB had borrowed my sleeping bag, wrapping it over his shoulders to get warm again in the unnecessarily efficently air-conditioned sleeping lounge.

I dozed off for a couple of hours, alternating between an air seat and the comparatively comfy floor. Then I started giving some more thought to where I was going to spend the following night. I'd been hoping to find either a couchsurfing host in or near Rostock, or a campsite in the range of 20-40 km south/southwest of the city. Turns out most, if not all, of the campsites in the area are situated immediately on the coast, leaving the south of the city void of, safe and legal, places to pitch a tent. I also made the mistake of sending the CS requests for Rostock a bit too late, so it took until early in the evening until I heard from Paloma. I'm now in her and her boyfriend's apartment, sipping on a cup of peppermint tea, after riding for 22,86 km through the by then already dark suburbs and downtown Rostock.

This is then my first, official couchsurf. Tomorrow my touring starts in earnest. I should be able to reach the Elbe as planned, if nothing too drastic happens along the way. I've got a few solid suggestions of campsites in the Dannenberg area, so finding a place to stay is mostly up to me making it all the way.