It all started in Summer of 2014 when I got a special invitation to Sweden from my long term friend, a London based lawyer with a big firm, to visit him in his fantastic house situated in Ljusdal. The place was amidst Sweden on a lakeside with a beaut iful landscape engulfed by a forest which actually was in the middle of nowhere… It was indeed very relaxing with all day sunshine and stars by the night…His wife cooked some great food, of course fish and then the 3 days excursion trip was quickly over.
A blessing in disguise… But the stress was approaching which I was totally unaware of… Finally with a good-bye I left on my rent-a-car with the remaining half fuel in the tank back for the airport in Stockholm, so no worries… But Sweden is big with no people and only forests, lakes, elks and mosses, no fuel stations in miles. So I was driving, driving and driving. The tank was going to become empty, very empty any time soon.
I stopped and was waiting t find a human being, car was approaching to dry carburetor state and there I was with no internet, no phone signals, no one to ask, no petrol station, no nothing…
So I waited, waited… Then a guy passed by after almost 20 minutes. I waved him to stop;
“Hi, can you help me? I need to refuel the car, need to reach my plane back to Germany”…“Oh”… he was saying…. “I think there is one in 20 km”….”good luck”….
I was pleased with an empty tank to try another 20 km in the middle of nowhere…..very carefully rolling, not really driving, with almost last drop I reached the “petrol station”…OK, I was happy…..but nobody was there…. no shop, nothing, only 2 pumps… so I took it, as I was used to do, opened my tank and pressed the switch… nothing happened at all….. what´s now?????
So I waited, waited… Then guy passed by after almost 20 minutes. I waved him to stop;
“Hi, can you help me? I need to refuel the car, need to reach my plane back to Germany”…“Oh”… he was saying…. “I think there is one in 20 km”….”good luck”….I was pleased with an empty tank to try another 20 km in the middle of nowhere…..very carefully rolling, not really driving, with almost last drop I reached the “petrol station”…OK, I was happy…..but nobody was there…. no shop, nothing, only 2 pumps… so I took it, as I was used to do, opened my tank and pressed the switch… nothing happened at all….. what´s now?????So I was looking to the monitor:“Please choose your payment method, Swedish Kronas or Bitcoins”
I have had a Debitcard, a Creditcard and Euros… what are Bitcoins…????
…no fuel…..What to do now??? Waiting again, and my God I was lucky, a guy was coming 30 minutes later.
“Please help me, I need some fuel to reach my plane, I have cards, Euros, but what are bitcoins?”
“Oh that’s easy, look!” he explained to me while reaching out for his mobile phone from the pocket and in next few minutes he was refueling his car tank using an app.
So my question still was, what are Bitcoins??? never heard of it before… he said we use it everywhere… its really a convenience now a days then got my fuel tank refueled as well…
He was so helpful and took my 30.– € as an exchange for Bitcoins so finally I reached the plane just before taking-off. Many thanks to him again…
In the plane, on my way back to home the word “Bitcoin” stuck there and was still ringing a bell in my head…
