Bad Bramstedt, Germany - Polarsteps

We departed from Merle's house at around 10:15 this morning, after she and her big dog Spike walked for us on the treadmill. Her house was a spacious, beautifully designed loft, and we listened to music while having breakfast. After walking for about 20 minutes, a cracking, splitting sound came from the back of the cart - a tumour-like growth protruded from the wheel. Five seconds later it exploded like a gunshot. We had just discussed this possibility as we were walking and had resolved to replace the wheels at the next town, but we must have overinflated the wheels at Merle's house that morning. We began to take the wheel off and replace the rubber tire with our spare, feeling kind of out of our depths. Not five minutes later, a German man stopped his car beside us and pulled out a compressed air machine and a crowbar. He immediately had the new tire on and was waving goodbye, we didn't even get his name. We were left at the side of the road feeling emasculated. Merle caught up with us in her car and we walked the next couple of towns together. She took us to the supermarket and we ate our weight in sandwiches and pastries before saying our last goodbyes. We decided to set a timer for one hour when we would not say a word to eachother. We already were walking in silence but thought that maybe timing it would make it more loaded and exciting. It didn't. We walked through a dense forest where the silence was so thick it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We hoped that Sweden would feel a lot like this, judging by the satellite image of the landscape. We stopped at a bus shelter completely exhausted, and it felt like we would never get up again. Morale was low and we were feeling cynical. The last hour and a half was hell and as we rolled into town I felt like I would collapse, and Olivier took both the bag and the cart for a bit. The BNB we pulled up to said they didn't have any rooms, and we had run out of options - no hotels, no warm showers, and no friendly faces, our luck had run out. As we were walking away from the place looking like dead rats, a car pulled up - the owner of the BNB - and she took pity on us for looking like shit. She let us have a single room at her Pension. We made enough pasta to feed six and then passed out.