A whopping 74 days on the road, many people have been met and many sights have been seen.. And it was great even with the setbacks i encountered.. Then again, what would a journey be without some setbacks?

For the last leg of the trip, i took the mindset of "i am going home" and i pretty much put the pedal to the metal for the rest of the remaining kilometres... And i can tell you that starting a little before 8 am and finishing a little over midnight was a loong day behind the wheel... Strangely enough, after midnight i felt that i could still go on; but with a little less than 1500km, it was quite enough of driving for one go.

And it is pretty much as i said, not much to see on the way, here's couple of pics anyhow.

Was a good morning with the warm sunshine making itself known.

I did say pedal to the metal, but wood on pedal works quite aswell.

The night time started to be foggy again, but easy roads just going straight on the highway.

Last morning abroad, sweden was almost completely snow free.

As it started, so it will end.

And finally getting back home.. Was a nice morning with lots of sunshine..

And as it is cold in here, need to light up the fireplace. Here i am, again!

Got there for the weekend to spend it with them.

Well, actually i went to work with Sylvain for the saturday morning, he sells and installs windows so i just went with him to give a hand.. A little work to get back on track after all this vacationing.

Then obviosly it was time to check some jetskis.

And do a little fix on the van before continuing towards the coldness..

Random picture they had on their wall, which i liked.

The french have a funny way of transporting jetskis..

I had to show them the finnish way of transporting jetskis.

And i just could not help myself when i found a great deal on an another jetski....

Then it was finally time to say goodbye to Bordeaux and continue. I parked at the parking space of a lidl store and got to enjoy the sunset in the evening and in the morning the sunrise.

Otherwise i am just on the road.. Not much to see while driving but this advertisement made me laugh.

I might not take any more pictures anymore as i think there is pretty much nothing of interest anymore on the way.. We will see. Did manage to reach Belgium today so not many days left anymore before getting to cold Scandinavia.

This was one of the last pictures of Portugal i took before getting back to Spain.

I headed up the coast towards Playa de las Catedrales which was actually really nice!

The road there then again was not.. 

Found one of the most challenging roads of the trip.. Was really narrow, winding up and down and doing crazy 90 degree turns; all accompanied with this really thick fog. On the lower picture, just outside of that iron fence was quite a big drop down to a valley..

Well, even though it was challenging and i did that section of the road at a crawling pace (the speed limit was 90km/h, i went at most at 40km/h), the sights on the next spot were awesome.

This was with high tide and quite rough seas..

I stayed there for the night as i wanted to see how it is at low tide; someone came to the parking area selling some freshly made patisseries in the morning also which was nice. 

So low tide was actually really awesome, here is all the pics i took from that place.. I loved it.

Weather was quite cold and raining as you can see from my clothing...

On a side note, taking panorama pics going from down to up, is a great way to catch some more monumental moments.. As you can see on the pictures above, you can really get a feel of the sheer size and sights to behold.

After playing on the beach i headed again on the road and ended up in this small town called Laredo.

It felt really cozy and i got to surf a little the next day aswell.

Then it was again back on the road..

The snowy mountain peaks did not really motivate me to move up north towards home... 

And what a more iconic place than Nazare. The worlds biggest waves have been recorded here.

It is a beautiful place with the old town on top of a hill and the rest of the town right on the beach.

At the far end of the hill is the lighthouse, which also serves as a museum of surfboards that have been used to surf these giant waves; and a jetski.

The view was really awesome from the lighthouse, above is Praia du norte side.

I did manage to see the guy riding his jetski in 6 to 8 metres high waves, and i was really inspired.. Sadly i did not get to meet him in person, that would have been nice, but there's always a next time

Above is pictured the view towards the town of Nazare, below is the chuch in the old town. There was some sort of carnival also going on so you can see the people were dressed up.

Below is from the town, there was like i said a carnival of sorts and a free concert right next to the beach.

The small streets were a very interesting sight.

Someone had abandoned their camper in the middle of the bush, found it while walking back to my car from the old town.

And on my bike ride to the store was an interesting mural.

Was awesome that Mikko came all the way from Finland to meet me up, we spend a couple days just wandering around with his rental car.

Was a bit easier and faster to go with the rental than using my van.

Spend lots of time in Nazare aswell and here are some pics again from there.

Notice the small dot on the waves, that is the guy on his jetski in huge waves.

Some issues with the rescue jetskis could be seen, the sea is unforgiving in these more than rough conditions.

I did spend a lot of time just sitting on the beach chilling... The sea has a very calming and meditative effect.

The view from a restaurant on the top was awesome.

Below you can see what was happening pretty much everyday in the sea.. Takes a lot of courage and know how to be able to tackle these (small for Nazare) waves.

Was really different from what i expected, and way longer than i anticipated..

Luckily i know some friends over there, so the time spent was not too challenging.

The last thing to share of my Madrid adventure was that i got to help George in his filmmaking, here's some bits from that.

So George is making an action movie, and this location was an abandoned warehouse. Above we see a couple pics of what is happening behind the scenes and a movie prop hand.. 

What was really nice though was that i got to participate in a scene. The setting of the scene is that we are in prison and the main protagonist comes there and has to get some information from the bad guy. I got to play the thug that is serving the bad guy.. Will be nice to see the actual scene once the film is done.

The prop folding knife with some fake blood on it.. We destroyed two of these knives so i had to hold the blade with my thumb while doing the scene..

Like i said was very interesting to see how movies are made by being there in person. It is quite a long process and in these two days, i reckon we managed to get like maybe 10 minutes of actual footage.

After this, i got to finally start on the road again and headed straight to Portugal to go see the sea and possibly surf a little.

This last picture is the border crossing, was quite narrow.. But i managed to safely cross over.

I finally got my car back! Was a grueling 5 weeks at the garage.... Very long time, obviously there were the holidays etc. holding the repairs but still was a very long time... I cannot even explain how lucky i am to have had the chance to stay this whole time here with a great lodging and all amenities i could ever ask for... Would have been a long wait if i had to spend the time in the car waiting for it to get repaired..

Am still in madrid as i had scheduled an another thing to do for this week, but as i see it, next week i will finally be some new place experiencing other things.

Before all that though, here's some pictures from the last days.

Got to meet Claudia again, she has been so busy that we have not had the time to meet up.. Even this time, was a short time on her lunch break.. Obviously we went to eat some and just have a nice mid-day around the city

While i am not a fan of chocolate, the churros and chocolate with some coffee is a great combination.

Otherwise, as before, i have been going around the city either walking or with my bike .. Good thing i bought my old bike with me all the way from home.

I love the views with mountains... So nice to look at. Would not want to go there with my van though.

Final adjustments done to the van.

And there it is, where i left it first time here in Madrid..

Got some wine and a tuna steak to celebrate getting my van back in action. Was really great food!

Some more from the city.

Some street dancers were performing for a good size audience. Was one of the warmest days here.

Probably yes, but will i figure it out ever, probably no.

Anyhow; time here has atleast been gentle with me, been some pretty nice days with lots of sunshine and little to do.

Have been to stunt trainings with George and got to meet new awesome people all the while.

Did visit the Museum of Money, which was nice all and all. Here's so pictures from along all these days.

I would love these 10 euro coins to be in circulation, rather have physical money than just a plastic card in my pocket..

Anyway, below is pictures for visual purposes, which was an underlying theme before actually seeing money from ages past.

The chinese were way advanced compared to other regions in their era.. Nowadays, not so much.

Above is a reproduction of an ancient times coin forge, below is other artworks connected to money and moneymaking.

Start of 19th century, everybody could be a Billionaire =D

The machines pictured above do tell an interesting story as how civilization has advanced technically and how very complex the machines nowadays are.. Am pretty sure that a single person could never fabricate from scratch a machine that technical.

And even this machine was outdated from modern times.. Obviously there were no machines to see for the money they make in the present.

Was a nice museum to visit and totally free also, can recommend to anyone visiting Madrid.

Still here.

Trying to make the most of this time of nothingness, been walking around town, cycling, visiting museums, having coffee breaks, reading books, watching movies, having more coffee..

Was looking to get an another wetsuit, for when i get to go back to the sea, and after quite a lot of searching, and going around town looking, did manage to get one.. Not the most exciting thing but there is a catch.

Here's some pics from those days

It has been a couple of colder days.. Got even a tiny amount of snow falling down one day.

The first expedition to find the wetsuit was fruitless. The next one was way better as you can see in the pics.

Found a nice little riding place on the way to get my new wetsuit, and did enjoy it to the fullest with this little picnic of juice and chips. And got my wetsuit.

And saw the local wildlife, which has been mainly absent except for tiny birds.

Now the nice thing about this wetsuit, was that it was free =D

The seller contacted me on the day i was going to go get it, and said that they managed to break the zipper and i can get it fro free if i want it; so obviously i thought that i'll get it and see what is the actual problem.

Got it to the house, and spent maybe 30 minutes and fixed the zipper issue so now i have a fully functional wetsuit, which i might add is thicker than the other one i had with me, and again it was totally free.

Otherwise i have been just walking around whenever it is a nice day, and laying low when it isn't.

Had a cheeky summer wine for lunch because i can.

On the other hand, while trying to keep myself busy, i went to the Natural History Museum, which was nice.

All kinds of curiosities on display over there. Now if you don't like stuffed animals or skeletal remains, you can skip the rest of this article.

There was many other things to see aswell, with some space exploration, minerals and dinosaur fossils.

Out of the museums i have visited, personally this one was the most interesting although the smallest. Now i am not saying the other ones were not interesting on their own, but i feel disconnected looking at human history, and animals are still here roaming the earth (luckily no dinosaurs)

It was a great day of being outdoors aswell, enjoying the scenery.

Panorama mode does funky to the people apparently, did not even realize this before now looking at this upper picture.

A remnant of days long gone perhaps?

So that is it, again for this moment.

Somewhat wet after that day's walk.. At the start of the day i went to see the largest market they arrange every sunday, and even though the weather was not the most pleasant, plenty of people were wandering about seeing what they were selling in the street stalls.

All sorts of stuff were for sale, nothing really picked my interest. Did buy a wall cloth from a stall which i will post a pic of later when it is where i planned to install it.

The days merge into themselves, and the one thing i have instilled in my daily routine is walking and having a coffee etc somewhere

I've also wanted to somehow be of use in the house, as i have the fortune to be able to stay here while waiting for the van.. And as i am good with working with my hands building stuff, i offered to fix couple little things here that needed repairs. This is the drain on the balcony.. Obviously had some troubles as the building materials are not the ones i usually encounter back home and the added difficulty of the different language.. But i managed the fixes at an acceptable level.

Otherwise, i am quite liking the normal lifestyle here. Food is great and doesn't need to be overly complicated.

I think this was my late lunch one day.. 

The days pretty much resemble themselves and thus i have no particular recollection as to what happened and when.

Anyways, a week or so ago, George offered to take me with him to a reunion of old skool hiphop heads (mainly artists and his friends) so of course i went.. Was a great night out, even though as the evening progressed the language spoken was 99% spanish with intoxicated people, and my understanding is not the best when people speak fast..

Was awesome anyways!

On the course of the next days, haven't done much noteworthy, walked around the city mainly. Did also visit the museom of anthropoly, was quite interesting. I do not know however people have the added interest of exploring everything a museum has to offer.. This one had four floors, and pretty much after the first floor, i was quite exhausted and not paying that much attention anymore to everything that was exhibited. Here are some pics of interest.

This one above is particulary interesting as i have a similar stucco fragment back home, which i found in Malta at a very remote and sparsly populated beach.. I'll try to see if i have a picture somewhere of it but i think i do not have it at hand..

I am not too sure if i should tell all this here :D

I do not have the descriptions for the above pictures as to what they were and from what period but they caught my interest.

To finish it off, here's pictures from the city, as it was a beautiful day and lots of interesting things to see just by walking.

Here above, was right next to the anthropoly museum, notice the skaters also making good use of this public place.

'

To top it off, i also found a street workout site, with the equipment for a little workout quite close to the house so that was good.

Coffee and edibles just because they are a recurring theme here.

Disregarding all the dots in Finland and Georgia, as you can see, a pretty straigth forward line from sweden to here in Spain.

Almost as if i was in a hurry to get somewhere warm (: