don't mess with sunflowers

character. The same thing I saw in my already-former neighbor, who in his time also did freestyle wrestling… I took the train to Krasnodar. Upon arrival, I decided to look at an apartment for the future while I had the chance. I got in touch with Svetlana – a developer’s assistant who was selling her apartment in the Prikubansky district. It was 10 km from the station, and by 7:00 PM I was already at her place. Svetlana turned out to be a sweet, simple, and kind young woman, and we spent a pleasant time over a cup of coffee until her husband came home, who for some reason wasn’t too happy about my showing up. After looking at the apartment, we decided to take a short walk with her dog – a big, noble one with thick fur. What breed is that, I wonder? After we said goodbye, Svetlana offered me to spend the night in her second apartment, which she was also selling, and which was in a neighboring building nearby, in the same courtyard. It was empty and had a rough finish, but it was perfectly fine for getting some sleep. That’s still better than looking for a place to crash at such a late hour, and in unfamiliar territory too, like I’d done so eagerly several times before…

DON’T MESS WITH SUNFLOWERS = Day 11 =

After a failed attempt to reach the abandoned orchard, where, according to Svetlana, locals go to pick fruit, I set off for Belorechensk. The journey was no short one – 110 km, no more, no less.

After riding 50 km out of the city (70 km total for the whole day), I saw a huge field of sunflowers on the left side of the road. At first I wanted to take a short half-hour break there, but after a brief deliberation I decided I’d had enough pedaling for today – I was tired. It was impossible to walk past such a massive field of sunflowers and not pick a single head. )) So I picked one – for the road tomorrow. Heading back to my bike, I noticed that two guys in an Audi had pulled up to my stuff left on the roadside and were probably about to load it into their car while I was picking the head. )) Luckily, there weren’t many cars on the road at that moment, and I managed to cross the road in time and get to my bike. Those two said something to me from the car window and drove off. So much for picking sunflower heads – karma doesn’t sleep. ))

I rode a bit further and turned onto a dirt road heading toward the forest that ran along the sunflower field. As I entered the woods and started setting up my tent, a huge swarm of wild, obscenely vicious, oversized mosquitoes immediately tried to devour me. I set up the tent in a flash (I don’t even remember if I was breathing at that moment) and dove inside like a bullet. And now I’ll finish writing this line in my notebook, eat a couple (or a couple dozen) seeds from the sunflower I picked an hour ago, and head off to meet my dreams…