We arrive at half past nine at the tree bike, which we had parked on the grounds of the fire department in Angermünde, a fifteen-minute drive from our accommodation in Joachims-Thal. Hilbert is also there and we build two thin boards at the bottom of the tree bike so that from now on we have an extra battery with us on the road. We say goodbye to Hilbert, who is going back to the Netherlands, and we leave. We cycle on a beautiful, as I now call it, “Circle4Change path” towards the Oder, the river on the border between Germany and Poland. We encounter hardly anyone. Those who live here really live in the lee, at least it feels that way. Border areas have something special, they have a kind of indeterminate space that you don’t find anywhere else. It’s hard for me to explain, but it’s a fascinating phenomenon. I cycle with Sanne through the rolling landscape until, after about ten kilometers, we see the Oder River. And there lies Poland on the other side. We follow the Oder for several kilometers upstream in a southerly direction, along the bike path over the dike. Here we meet an enthusiastic man (Andreas Koch) who would very much like to stay in contact with our project. Top again a nice contact. We go off the wind, along the border on the German side, until we can cross a bridge. And then suddenly, after cycling eight hundred kilometers through northern Germany, we are in Poland. Different signs, different hard-to-pronounce names. You sense that it is no longer Germany, but what exactly is different is still hard to pinpoint. The landscape is not so different, it is the houses, the gardens and yards, and the villages that look different. From here, Daan cycles with me. We now follow the Oder for about twenty kilometers on the Polish side until we turn off into the forest towards Mieszkowice, again we encounter almost no one. Just before the railroad line in Mieszkowice we ask a man who is sawing wood if we can park the tree bike in his yard. In his best German he says that’s fine. We give the children two Birthday Trees and take a picture. And with the car and trailer we leave for our sleeping place in Kagno, ten minutes away. Nothing could be found in Mieszkowice. Sanne prepares her Yoga class and the risotto is already simmering. The tiny chalet where we spend the night is touching, a bit of a nuisance, and also fine. Tomorrow we reach our destination Dabroszym, our “weekend” and the thousand kilometers. Quite an achievement, if we do say so ourselves! And that on this special day, Liberation Day!