While driving in the pre noon, I heard a strange sound from the car, which I am sure is not supposed to be there. We told Fredrik over the walkie talkie, and stopped to try and localise the sound. It seemed to be from the shock absorbers, and we needed some shims to get the sound go away. It was nothing serious, though, just a really small problem, so nothing we had to prioritise.

We ate a pizza lunch at a cool restaurant, which sadly had pretty small pizzas. They said five would be enough, but I think they underestimate how much we eat.

  The small place we were seated at

  

They also had a boxing machine, which Pontus managed to damage his hand on. Probably a small fracture in his hand, which went pretty swollen, but at least he got the highest score (821, versus Jakob’s 820).

   
Fotat av Henric Fröberg 

When we came to Samara, we tried to get to the parking of the rocket museum. On our way there, we more or less went around in a circle, and had to turn back before coming out on the main road again.

  
The museum was about the rockets which they use to send material and food to the ISS, and they also had a rocket standing outside. What we understood was interesting, and we used the Google Translate app with the camera, which translates the text you point the camera at in real time, offline! Really helpful at many places.

  
  
After the rocket museum, we went back to where me had made the u-turn earlier to get some shims, as there happened to be a garage there! They pointed us to their ”everything small” boxes, which had everything in it (including an axe). We managed to find some shims, which they tried to drill big enough holes in, but as they failed, we went to the next place with only one shim good enough to start with.

While the others went shopping for food, Jakob, Fredrik and I tried to get the nut loose to place one more shim and get the sound away. We could not do it without risking breaking something for good, which would place us without a shock absorber, and therefore without the possibility to drive further. We decided to try later, when we would have more time.

   
 At the next place, Fredrik went shopping for some tools and shims, while some of us went to MediaMarkt. We bought some batteries, a frying pan and a tool that is made as a spoon with huge forks on it, designed to grab spaghetti from a big pot, and to transport it onto your plate. (English word?) It was not really as at home, because everything was pink!

  
We came to the place we were planning to spend the night at, made some sort of chicken dinner and set camp.

   
Fotat av Henric Fröberg 

Even though the problem itself is a bad thing, I really like to try and fix things like that. It is not always fun when everything goes as planned, and this makes everything more spontaneous and adventurous.

  
 Tomorrow we will try to cross the border to Kazakstan, and I think the trip will start ”for real”, I really look forward to it!