The Former East

I had never before spent much time in the former Eastern Germany. But I liked it a lot. I like the accents the people have when they speak their German, though most Germans don't. I like the feel of the cities and how it feels like the people appreciate what they have, they're very proud of where they are from. I like how 'the Former DDR' comes up in conversation all the time. All the time. And I like how 'Western' Germans complain that the roads in 'Eastern' Germany are better, and paid for with their tax money, and how they are a little bit bothered by it. I don't know why I like that, but I do.



Dresden was completely ripped apart at the end of WWII. And the communists never put much into rebuilding it. This church was recently put together. All the black stones are original, the light colored stones are new. I really liked the patchwork look on it. It felt like society.

That Dresden was even bombed was absurd. The war was pretty much over, there was no reason to bomb it. But America did. Mostly out of vengance?




The art school had a display going and the space was fantastic.



I stayed with some good friends of some good friends. Really cool people.




They took me to that one place from that one rock climbing movie where it's all sandstone towers and no metal is allowed on the wall. So for protection climbers tie different sized knots into small sections of rope and wedge the knots into cracks. Crazy. The place was beautiful. It rained the whole time.



Anna and Karsten.



A friend from Berlin took the train down to Dresden and rode the two days with me to Berlin.

The first seventy kilometers or whatever was river riding. It's like I never learn. River riding is awfully boring. Awfully boring. But I keep finding myself riding next to them. Once we got off the river it turned much better. A lot of the fields are yellow with Raps Seed (oil-seed rape in english, maybe?). Sure it's pretty. But I see it all day everyday....





Berlin is cool. Real cool.



Most of the pictures I take now are of maps. Instead of buying them I go into book stores and take pictures of them....



Brandenburg Gate.



I love taking pictures of the surfaces I walk on.



Some really politically active crazy man sat a sausage onto the bench next to me, and then left for about 15 minutes. A bird kept picking at it. Then the guy came back. He pushed a bike with all sorts of political signs all over it. All the crazy men who walked buy looking for recycleable bottles talked to him.




Jewish monument in Berlin.

If it isn't blaringly obvious, I'm feeling really burned out on blogging....

'Mountains'

Long way from home.

I left the river riding when I left Regensberg. And I got rid of that adventure-less funk I was in. And had some really really good days.

The first few days the weather was fantastic. I just kept rolling through quaint little German towns with narrow streets and old fashioned houses set alongside rivers. I was seeing so many that I didn't even take any pictures. I just kept seeing beautiful town after beautiful town.

I slept in this field one night.

When I woke up the field was yellow.

Away from the river riding I still hit bicycle paths. But more frequently I'm just on roads that are good for cycling, because the traffic is light (my map has color coded roads showing how many cars drive on each road per day...overkill? yes, but I appreciate it). The roads go through farms, literally between barns which are full of livestock, past fields, into forests, through villages, alongside streams, uphills, downhills, everything. It's been good. The forests are so quiet and so clean.

Saturday was a holiday. In Germany holidays mean everything is closed. Everything. Restaurants and gas stations are the only things open. I had a little bit of bread with me, a lot of lunch meat and some nutella. I was staying at another Warmshowers place that night, so dinner would be good. The holidays made the roads quiet. It tried raining all day but never did. The temperatures were perfect. I made some detours and rode an extra 20 km or so before getting to my hosts house, just because the riding was so good.

My warmshowers host. She's cycling to St. Petersburg this summer. She lives in a tiny village near a pond with hills all around. She made me some very good cherry cake.

The next day was still rainy weather. And hilly. I hovered between 500 and 700 meters above the level of the sea all day long, but ended up climbing something like 1500 m total, which is a lot when I have no mountain passes to show for it.

It rained off and on most of the day, only ever getting me a little wet, then stopping long enough to dry me out. My rain clothes suck. I don't even know why I still carry them. The jacket is held together by about nine strips of duct tape, and the pants were worthless the minute I paid $3 for them....I only wear them every once in a while. They make me sweat so much that I'd rather be wet from the rain.

And rain it did. Near the end of the day it started and went solid for two hours. By the time I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to stop, I was already soaking wet, so I didn't even bother putting on my 'rain' clothes. I had planned on camping that night, but waking up and putting on cold wet clothes is awful, so I started to look for a cheap hotel.

There aren't cheap hotels in Europe. Just expensive and slightly not as expensive. I've only stayed in one hotel since leaving the Balkans, it was a hostel in Regensberg and it cost about $20. But that was a touristy town, so there were 'cheap' options. On this rainy day I wasn't in a touristy town.

And then I saw the Mormons walking down the street. Spot them from three miles away. The one was from Australia, the other from Stuttgart. They made a couple of calls and fifteen minutes later I was taking a warm shower at the house of some members.

Elder Cameron and Elder Brauer. Thanks boys.

The Seifert family were great. Gave me dinner and breakfast and a packed lunch. They are about the age of my parents. For a living they grow tea in their garden, dry it and sell it to businesses to use as corporate gifts or whatever. One of their sons works with them. They lived on the edge of a beautiful city, right up against the forest. They built their house all by themselves. Felled the trees and everything, right out of the forest they live next to. Took them ten years. It was fun hanging out with them for the evening.

I was apprehensive about the missionaries calling around and asking for me to stay somewhere. Apprehensive, but also really wet and I was starting to get cold. I like feeling self sufficient and taking care of myself. Yes, I use Warmshowers a lot, but Warmshowers people list themselves on a website and offer a place to stay. The people these missionaries were calling weren't offering anything. Not only that, but I was a soaking wet mess. When I rolled my bike through the gate of their garden though, they acted as though they had been expecting a wet cyclist to show up any minute. I felt at home right away. It was cool.

Old former East German buildings.

The next days ride was another one of those days that are just incredibly cool. It tried raining all day but never did. I had long sections of slightly downhill good paved roads through forests with no traffic. Beautiful Beautiful Day. Fantastic.

It's not that the adventures are gone. They're just different adventures now. And it took me a few days to realize this. I'm meeting all sorts of cool people and I can talk with them. I'm seeing all sorts of history and beautiful cities. Eating good foods. And riding my bike everyday.....oh yeah.

European Sissy

I crossed into Germany after leaving Salzburg.

I was nervous that Europe would take the adventure out of cycle touring. I mean, I knew I would still love the traveling and the freedom and the bicycling, but the other stresses would be gone. The stresses that made cycle touring so adventurous. Like the sandstorms and snow storms and windstorms. Washboard roads, muddy roads, yaks in the road. Bad food, bad water, dirty toilets, bad maps. Scary Tibetan dogs, scary Turkish dogs with huge spikes on their collars. Wolves, 'alligators', rats, children. Seriously, Spencer poohed his pants everyday that we were in China. Every day, for nearly 75 days Spencer crapped himself.

And these things just aren't worrisome anymore. The only thing I worry about is what if I crave delicious Italian Gelatto and I have to wait for longer than 15 minutes before finding it? (I haven't yet had to wait that long....I always find it whenever I want it....). Maybe a lot of this is because I lived in Germany for two years, and everything is somewhat familiar. And it's the discovery that is lacking, which makes it feel less adventurous. Or, more likely, it's just civilized, which makes it less adventurous....

I don't even have to worry about uneven surfaces on unpaved portions of hard packed bicycle/walking trails. Because somebody highlights all the dangers. Like rocks.

There is this website called Warmshowers.org which is pretty much couchsurfing for cyclists. I emailed some girl who claimed to have a place, which was really her parents house, where she no longer lives. But her parents were super cool and more than happy to feed me and let me stay the night. Politically, they are in the 'Green' Party. They live in a small village in the Bavarian Forest (which is insanely hilly....), which is really more just a cluster of houses. Their house is decked out in all sorts of solar panel equipment. He works for a recycling company. And it seemed to me like there were more recycling facilities in the Bavarian Forest than in all of America....These guys felt the effects of Chernobyl. They still can't eat wild mushrooms.

Really nice people. Really beautiful forest.

European farming methods.

Everything is green in Germany in the spring.

Camping hasn't been hard at all. I was nervous that it would be hard to find a spot away from roads and people. But Germany is so densely populated, that Germans love their parks and forests and green spaces, so there is quite a bit of open space. The cities and villages are all dense, once outside a village everything is empty. The camping has actually been really good. I've slept in some really beautiful forests.

I rode right by the Danube for something like 200 kilometers. It's nice because there is no traffic, it's all bike paths. But, I had to ride along the Danube for something like 200 kilometers....

Regensburg.

German campgrounds.....they really look more like slightly more mobile American trailer parks.

It's not that I miss constantly having diarrhea, because I really don't (I'm unsure whether or not Spencer misses poohing himself....). But the cycle touring has just taken a different direction. It feels a lot more like just going for a bike ride in the countryside. I'm still enjoying it. If I wasn't enjoying it I would stop. But it definitely has a different feel.

It's fun to be back in Germany. My German is coming back as quickly as I hoped. Still not great, but getting better.

The Alps

In Slovenia the farmers stack their hay on these wooden racks to help them dry better. These things are all over the place.

I rode out of Ljubljiana on a beautiful sunny day with the Austrian Alps right in front of me. I rode up a nice quiet pass with virtually no traffic and really big mountains all around. It felt good to ride again after 4 or 5 days off.

Dam made of wood.

Austria.

Switchbacks.

My second day in Austria I made a wrong turn near the end of the day and went uphill for about 1 km before I realized I shouldn't have been going up hill. I was in a tiny village on a hillside and I pulled over and by a woman working in her garden to talk to her about which road I should have taken. It was evening and would be dark soon so I asked if I could put up my tent in her yard. She said I could, then invited me to sleep inside instead. Which was surprising because Europeans are supposed to be really cold and not friendly....

I've never ridden such steep roads. I was up and out of the saddle for the whole climb up Katschberg Pass.

There's so much not garbage all over the place. It makes everything seem fake for some reason. Not that I miss the garbage, but Asia and the Middle East has garbage everywhere. And it's just something I've gotten so accustomed to seeing, that when I don't see it it feels like I'm in Disneyland.

My third night in Austria it was kind of rainy and I was heading up another pass. I wasn't sure if I would get over the top before dark, I was planning on camping so I pulled over at a guesthouse to ask if I get some water. The owner ended up letting me stay there for free. She gave me dinner and breakfast. I stayed up late talking with her and her family. They live in the mountains in Austria with ski resorts all over the place and her son is a ski patrol guy. Really cool family. I really like Austria.

Snow on the pass. I saw people skiing.

I spent a few days in Salzburg with Christian, who I cycled with in China for a few days a year ago. I had been to Salzburg before in 2003, it's a beautiful city. But I didn't take a single picture. Until I got the mall and saw this:

Hordes of people lined up to get an autograph.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I had been in a German speaking country for about 4 days and I saw David Hasslehoff signing autographs at the mall. He's kicking off a concert tour in Frankfurt in July....

This whole thing was very funny for me. I was talking to the German guy next to me, who was about my age, and just happened to be lucky enough to be at the mall the same time as David Hasslehoff, about how not big David Hasslehoff is in America. How American's always found it strange that the Europeans loved the guy. The crowd was singing his songs, and I'd never heard any of them. It was all very funny.

He had on some really fancy jeans.

Christian.