I stood by the high way. The Lappish mountains in front of me, from other side covered in wood, from other side bold as an old man. This summer was rainy and grey and Saariselkä had gone foggy. Sometimes I wish I had gotten a summer job from southern Europe.

I put my rugsack on the wet ground and tightened up my jacket. The rain was coming in from my neck. My core-tex jacket was failing on me. I clutched on a bunch of coins and a twenty euro note, exact the money for the student bus ticket to Rovaniemi.
Just like every Friday, Pekka drove the bus right in front of me. All I needed was to step back a bit for not getting wet and to avoid any damage made by the big tires to my small toes.
I took today’s newspaper with me from the front seat and headed to the end of the bus, for my regular seat in the back. I kicked of my shoes to relax and lifted my feet on the seat. Pekka knows I will fall asleep after reading the paper. I took a look around in the bus. Forest after forest in the window and a few school kids on their way home. The few kids in the bus were listening to music, the few adults on way home from work were reading magazines and the few elderly, on their way to the city for the weekend, were in deep thoughts watching the changing view. Then there was the backpacker. A young guy who looked like he had been travelling for some time already. His long, dark, curly hair was longer than it was supposed to and he had a take-a-way–coffee and the most famous Finnish, Fazer chocolate on his little table. His southern European nose was headed towards the end of the bus and his brown eyes were fixed… on me.

In some hours we were in the middle of the journey, in Sodankylä. I bought a warm cup of tea from the café by the bus station. I sat by the poker machine to watch the Italian putting a few coins in. “I don’t know the rules of this game” he said when he lost them. “Me neither” I answered.

People travel for two reasons: to get somewhere, or to get away from somewhere. Alberto was on his way away, but I did not ask from where. In the half an hour break before the bus continued the rest of the way to Rovaniemi, he had told me all about his journey from Milan to North Cape in Norway and about the two broken tires in his bike. On one lake he had found an original reindeer herder’s knife from the water and a gift from a girl from Oulu: a telescope sausage grilling stick after he had told his host how much he liked Finnish sausages. In his saddle bags he had coffee from Check Republic, dried meat from Estonia and vodka from somewhere where he could not remember buying it from. Of all the countries he said Finland was his favorite, although it had not treated him too well: the weather had been very bad the whole summer and he had been fined by police from camping on someone’s private field. But he liked Finnish people. “I would not change a minute of this summer. I needed to do this trip.”
When we stepped out of the bus in Rovaniemi, I asked him about his plans. He was fed up with bicycling and returning to Italy by public transportation. He wanted to rest a bit in Rovaniemi. “Perhaps on the camping grounds”. I helped him to get his bike down from the luggage storage in the back of the bus and proposed my couch for a few nights. He could have a proper shower as well and I could show him around the city.

On our way through Rovaniemi city, he asked me if I wanted to know why he was doing this, thousands of kilometers bike drive. I said I can listen, if he wants to tell. And he told me the doctors had given him one year time for living.