Arctic Sprint, part 1: by van from Berlin to Helsinki

Exams are done, and instead of building at home in a dark room, René and I are sitting in a campervan heading for the Arctic Circle. We planned it about a week before we left.

The deal is simple. René is building Kobe AI, the startup pays for the van, and we deliver development work in return. One drives, the other codes. I drive half the distance. The other half I’m writing the agent pipeline that turns Slack data into an evidence-based skill profile. The van is a converted Fiat Ducato with a gas stove, a tiny toilet and two beds, one of them in the pop-up roof. A dashcam on the roof records the drive.

First stop: Warsaw. René’s mentor and his family welcomed us with lunch and the best city tour you could ask for. The Palace of Culture, the wavy glass roof of Złote Tarasy, the old town that was rebuilt completely after the war. What was supposed to be a stopover became one of the best days so far.

Then a full day of driving towards the Baltics and our first night in a roadside car park. Showers were at motorway service stations. Through Lithuania and Latvia up to Tallinn. The Baltics in winter are honestly pretty empty. Quiet, cold, hardly anyone around. In Tallinn someone gave us a spontaneous little tour, and we ate the worst döner kebab of the trip. I think it’ll keep that title.

Then the ferry to Helsinki and two days that were pretty much the whole concept of the trip. At Sompasauna, a free seaside sauna run by volunteers, we went from the sauna straight into the ice water. After that we worked at the University of Helsinki, laptops open, campus as an office. Ice bath first, then code.

The plan was to drive all the way to the North Cape. We’ll decide that further up. For now it’s Rovaniemi.