RideEatCamp

Aberdeen

Europe

When you travel and sleep in places where others are sleeping nearby, it’s inevitable that you’ll be serenaded by snoring. My defense strategy is to use ear plugs. Carrie’s defense strategy is to fall asleep. She’s a champion sleeper. But on the ferry ride to Aberdeen we were introduced to the Duke of Snoring. Both of our defenses were no match for his onslaught of sawing.

We paid extra for the sleeping pods for the overnight ferry ride in an attempt get a good night’s sleep because we needed to run a bunch of errands in Aberdeen before catching the plane to Norway. However upon meeting the Duke of Snoring, there was no conceivable way I was going to sleep. His snoring was deep and loud and most importantly it had no rhythm. Every inhale produced an erratic melody, jarring in the same way when you’re listening to a song that suddenly skips mid beat.

So how did the Duke become the Duke? Like the Earl of Sandwich, the Duke of Snoring had a special talent. The Earl, of course, was a wizard with sliced bread and condiments. He was granted land and the honorable title from Her Majesty the Queen in 1962 for his tremendous achievements in the culinary arts.

The Duke was also granted his title by the Queen, but only after the referendum. His was the first democratically elected honorary title in the history of the United Kingdom. The British were united in their desire to keep the Duke of Snoring on a large estate away from everybody but his poor paid servants.

With almost no sleep, we bid farewell to the Duke of Snoring and the ferry and headed to the first cafรฉ we could find in Aberdeen. Once artificially stimulated we started our errands: find supplies for cleaning and packing our bikes, send mail, buy food, connect with our Warmshowers host.

We found David’s flat and David, who was an excellent host and a great person to talk to. He gave us his bed, fed us, and then led us on a pub crawl, which I barely survived standing, but it was a grand time.

Again I can’t emphasize how awesome the Warmshowers community is. Aside from the free accommodation, guests get to know the locals as they travel and hosts get to meet cyclists from all over the world. All of our experiences both hosting and visiting have been rewarding.