Amsterdam-Chamonix: Newton's first law in getting carried away

Inertia: The tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion or an object at rest to remain at rest unless acted upon by some outside force.

Ever since I left Amsterdam I'd been feeling my trip carrying itself a little out of control. Two months on the road are a long time, and the constant go-go-go pace I was living at had finally begun to get to me as I continued pushing further and further...and still, I couldn't stop.

After leaving the city of Amsterdam I (with some difficulty, because I had in no way researched a route) navigated my way down to the Hook of Holland (literally the Corner of Holland, this place is a major 90 degree bend in the Dutch coastline as well as a major ferry port). After a night camping in the woods, not even worried about being found, I bought some nectarines and other appropriate travel foods and got on a ship bound for Harwich, England.

On the boat ride, I listened to The Beatles, The Who, and every other British Invasion artist whose name shows up in my debilitatingly small iTunes library. I was glad to be excited to go somewhere; not just a name on a map to say I had visited it but a place and a culture which had drawn my interest for so long my anticipation proved enough to fill even a 6 hour ferry ride.

Beowulf.
Chaucer.
Shakespeare.
Manley-Hopkins.
Phillip Pullman.
Rock and Roll.
The Clash.
Doctor Who.
Sherlock Holmes.
Douglas Adams.
Oxford.
Harry Potter.
THE ACCENTS.

I was pretty excited to be in a place where I spoke the language, as well.

When I got off the boat I was promptly greeted by some of the greatest accents I have ever encountered, requesting the customs form I had neglected to fill out. Pushed to the side, I began a brief yet fateful conversation with a couple of people travelling on a tandem bike named Raphael (henceforth Raph) and Ariel; a frenchman and a New Yorker (now living together in Paris) who were likewise riding to London.

It didn't take long for us to decide we would ride together.

That night we rode into town, changed some money, bought some food, lost the bike route almost instantly, and began riding in more or less the direction of London. We stopped and camped right off the side of the road in a little stand of trees near a soccer field, having a little cookout on a campfire and talking about all sorts of ridiculous things. True, I was the literal third wheel on a bike trip (a very 2-wheeled sort of affair), but it was nice to be with people, and the feelings of moderate insanity I'd been feeling began to ebb.

The next morning we departed for London, realizing promptly we really had no idea how to get there and further that there was no such thing as a well signposted bike route from Harwich to Colchester to Chelmsford to London. While we didn't know exactly how we were going to get there, I did come by one piece of particularly good luck: A public book exchange in a distinctly british red phone booth in the middle of nowhere. I traded some Vonnegut (thanks Ed) for some Sherlock Holmes (thematically appropriate) and we went on our way. It was good that I found something to make this day worthwhile, because as it turns out, we weren't going to make it to London.

We got lost. A lot. We argued (I tried to remain a neutral party). We asked for a lot of directions.

We resigned ourselves to our fate and decided to camp out near Brentwood, a little ways out of the London metropolitan area that sprawls forever outward and home to Ye Olde Green Dragon Pub.

Now, I didn't want to tell my friends this, but I had only insisted we try the Green Dragon because I figured any place whose very name was a thinly veiled reference to the finest bar in the Shire (Lord of the Rings, for those readers who might not get the reference) had to be a pretty good place to be. I was right.

While the opening ceremonies could never have compared to Beijing, it was the quipping humor of the bar-inhabitants who made this experience truly worthwhile. They did indeed make several Tolkien references that I picked up on, and besides the fact that the food was pointedly mediocre relative to the price, the whole affair was quite worthwhile. When we finally had to go it was very late, and our fellows were probably a little concerned for our wellfare...still, they bid us a fine farewell, all together, and we slept in a park nearby almost immediately.

London was certainly excited for the Olympics. Innumerable people flooding the streets, the famous rings everywhere, special Olympic-traffic-only lanes on the roadways...it was just pure energy and noise and fanfare. I was glad to have a couch to sleep on in this massive city, as it may honestly be said that there is no way to see London in a day. As the three days I did spend there have sufficiently blurred, I will instead offer some vignettes of my stay: The Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe (Richard the III), Sunny weather, Free Festivals, Bricklane Market, street performers, Wade Meade/Jeannin, dutch brass bands, swing dancing in the streets, Platform 9 and 3/4, Bagels, Big Ben, The London Eye, and meeting the man who rode 90,000 miles in a rickshaw to see the Olympics: Chen Guanming.

A 57 year old Chinese farmer, Chen Guanming either looks much older or much younger than his age betrays. While this short, wizened, and bearded man seems to have lived a hard life, he is youthful, strong, and immensely happy. To give you some background, he was given the privilege of seeing the closing ceremonies to the Beijing Olympics due to his immense feats of garbage collection surrounding the stadium. It says a lot about a man to get famous for picking up litter, but his awesomeness continues. Apparently, he was so incredibly moved by the ceremony that he decided he would do whatever it took to make it to London 2012, and so soon began riding his formidable 3-wheeled rickshaw to Europe, doing whatever it took to make it in time for the games.

It has been hard to get an accurate accounting of his precise route, but as I understand it he crossed the Himalayas 3 times, rode his bike across Iraq, and took some massive detours en route, battling floods, typhoons, visa problems, and wars.

Leaving London was hard, as was saying goodbye to Wade, Jeannin, Raph, and Ariel, but again my inertia was carrying me forward: I couldn't convince myself to slow down and decided to push on for Paris, albiet indirectly.

From Paddington Station I got a train to Oxford, hoping to avoid some of the insane traffic and mediocre roadways that go between the two, and was glad I did. After exploring the town for some time, realizing that I'd probably be a much more motivated student if I went to Oxford, visiting a ton of bookshops (including Blackwells, the preferred bookshop of J.R.R. Tolkien himself, who had apparently run up a massive debt he may or may not have ever repaid them), failing to see Richard Dawkins or anyone particularly famous, and eating an entire tub of Ben and Jerry's in front of a rather incredulous british child, I began my ride to Bath via the Cotswalds.

England has the topography of a rumpled sheet after a restless night. The hills may not be very long or particularly frequent, but many of the climbs are impossibly steep, and so I spent rather a lot of this day pushing my bike up 20 degree inclines that my worn out gears could not possibly conquer.

There are also a lot of cows, castles, and cottages.

Bath was cool, but not as awesome as the culture of thin-canal-dwellers that existed just outside of it. These people, whose lives are condensed into 2 meter wide, entirely customized river boats are really awesome. From the brightly painted to totally camoflauged to Lord of the Rings themed boats, these people lived in a world all their own, and after riding along the canal-tow-path for about 15 kilometers, I wouldn't have minded giving it a shot. They seemed to barter for a lot of their needs, most boats offering some sort of useful service with a little sign. They had solar panels and gardens and bikes. They had cozy little homes and friendly neighbors.

After leaving the Canal, I rode somewhat indirectly to Stonehenge, then pushed south towards Poole, where I expected to get a ferry to Cherbourg, France.

After some lovely riding in the New Forest, I got to Poole, only to find that I needed to ride 100k to get my ferry the next day, and it was around there my nerves started fraying.

I was losing it.

I rode as far as I could, but eventually had to take a train to get to Portsmouth in time.

While the terrain was lovely, much of it being sunny seaside resorts or deep forests, I didn't appreciate it much at the time: I hadn't been appreciating a whole lot for quite a while, really. While it was hard to see at the time, I think in retrospect it was clear I had become destination-focused (thinking I wanted to make it to a lot of famous places) instead of process-oriented in the course of the last few weeks, and I think it was this that began my downward spiral. In any case, one cannot ride in a destination oriented way for too long before feeling like a train would be more appropriate.

Biking was never much about the destination, and it's easy to forget that.

I was homesick and lonely, wishing for the faculties of community and family and friends and just wishing to do the sorts of everyday things that make life so great at home: Rock climbing with friends, night hikes, skateboarding, snowboarding, concerts, and just being with people one cares about. I love bikes, but 2 months is a lot of riding to do without taking a break, and I had overestimated myself. Admitting that was hard.

I pushed hard and I decided to make it to Paris before making a decision on what I was to do, but I think even then I had realized that I was no longer getting what I wanted out of my great European Odyssey. I was being pushed onward by my desire to go, but what I was chasing was something intangible; something one only finds by staying in one place for a while.

I rode from Caen to Versailles in one and a half days, one of which pushed my cyclocomputer 200k closer to the 5,000 kilometer mark I still hope to reach in the course of my trip.

Versailles was pretty, and I was excited to get in free due to my status as a long-term E.U. resident, but there really isn't much to say about it. It's one of those places that seems amazing until you begin to look at it historically and realize that it's basically a temple to unfairly allocated wealth and an abusive class system. While it may be true that having all-silver tables and chairs is nice, I'd honestly rather see no Versailles and a smaller slum: less people eating off plates of gold and more people eating. It did have some nice art though.

When I got to Paris, I was feeling burnt out, and got a nice youth hostel for a few days. While I planned to continue using my bike as a partial means of transportation, I made a hesitant decision and announced the end of my biking trip to my friends and family on Facebook. From here on out I thought it would be trains for long distances and bikes for short ones. I went to sleep, woke up, and as I rode to the Louvre a delivery truck made sure I kept my word about the end of my trip, although with much more finality. Finally my inertia was truly broken, and as an object that had been gaining in velocity for quite some time, stopping me took quite the outside force.

It was on a one way street with a nice bike lane and a few alleyways protruding off to either side that it happened, and really a simple accident in retrospect. While I rode along, not paying much attention to the road and busy feeling shocked at how light my bike could feel unloaded, a delivery truck pulled out in front of me, and I didn't think much of it. It drove forward for a little bit, and suddenly, right when I was alongside it, began backing into an alleyway. No signal, no stopping, no warning. It was an instant collision, and while my reflexes allowed me to stay on my bike, I smashed my hand, gripping hard on my left brake, straight through his back-right tail light. I thought I was fine until I saw the blood, and even then was unsurprised by the amount: I'd hurt my fingers enough times to know they bleed a lot.

Then I turned around, decided to talk to the driver, and washed the blood off. My fingers were ripped wide open, and I could see the tendons in them working as I demonstrated that nothing was broken. I think I threw up a little in my mouth, but in my state of shock felt no pain: it was either that or nerve damage.

I apologized to the driver, who looked shocked, and asked where the hospital was. He would have called an ambulance but I told him it was probably too expensive, which in retrospect probably made him feel pretty bad. Even then I didn't really blame him, and thought how weird it was that in the U.S. I could probably have sued him for a lot of money, even as I walked almost 2 kilometers to the hospital while my hand sprayed blood everywhere.

I was shocked at how little anyone noticed (or at least how little anyone reacted), but I guess Seattle would be the same...Big cities are funny like that. Anyway, the nurses at the hospital were a little brief with me at first and I had a bad feeling about going through a foreign medical system with no knowledge of the french language. They proved me wrong in my worrying.

The nurses were only rough because they saw what I didn't: That I was losing a lot of blood and that I was likely going to faint if they didn't do something quickly. They also probably thought I hurt my hand by getting into a fight or something stupid until they called in someone who spoke english to ask me what happened.

A specialist made sure nothing major was damaged, and he happily announced that it was "only a flesh wound". I have no idea if the Monty Python reference was deliberate, but the nurses looked at me weird for laughing. I got 5 stitches and a brief lesson on what the interior of fingers looks like. I had to come in every 2 days or so to get it looked at.

Paris was the end of the line, for a while.

Anyway, I'm in Chamonix now, enjoying some time to heal up in the alps. It's a little like a combination of Glacier National Park and Middle Earth (LOTR in french?), and I hope I can stay here a little while longer before pushing onward to Granada. I have 12 more days, after all, before I can really settle down, and I'm honestly immensely excited to get to where I'm going and just stay there.

Too much inertia is a little scary in life, but sometimes an outside force is just what we all need to remind us to slow down a little and enjoy the smaller things. To remember that no matter how independent we CAN be or how long we CAN ride in one day, that the thing that makes it worthwhile is always the people we meet and the places we go that make travelling worthwhile. It's a lesson I hope I never forget.

NOTE: I also have either food poisoning or the flu, so maybe there's another reason home sounds so appealing to me right now. Camping in the mountains, with temperatures ranging from 33 to -5 celsius isn't all that much fun when you are alternating between a fever and chills.

SECOND NOTE: I am also proud to say that I just finished reading Moby Dick, a whale of a book and, while not my favorite, an accomplishment just as challenging as riding my bike 5,000 kilometers.

THIRD NOTE: I'm sorry for how long this post was, and for how infrequent these are, but I've been camping almost every night and the internet was expensive to use in Paris.

FINAL NOTE: From here, I will likely go to Les Deux Alpes, a summer skiing resort outside of Grenoble, then Marseille via train, then to Barcelona, from there taking a bus to Granada. Because of the damage I did to my hand biking hasn't been comfortable for a while, nor is biking with the flu a very plausible endeavor.

Ireland and Britain: The end of the road

Even before I landed in Rosslare harbor, Ireland seemed bent on impressing me. The glowing rays of the sun shining through the gaps in the clouds had the amazing ability to make anything that they touched appear positively angelic. Thus I found myself mentally describing a rusty cargo ship as “beautiful” for the first time. Then it was taken to a whole new level once I got on the island. As I started riding (on the left side of the road…weirdos), the heavy fog made for a deliciously enigmatic view of the world that I cycled past. Things appeared exaggerated, distorted, or nonexistent until I got close enough to tell what they weren't. And then the heavens opened up in a torrential downpour, complete with roaring thunder and lightning that showed me what Ireland was capable of. It was the sort of weather that deserved its own soundtrack; something that combines the epic scope of a Wagnerian opera with the raw power of rock or heavy metal. I complied by singing at the top of my lungs the only thing I know of that can provide such a perfect marriage of sound: Blind Guardian. But within five minutes, the rain stopped, the fog and clouds receded, and the brilliant blue sky revealed Ireland’s famed greenery in all its glory. And it did not disappoint. The sheep-dotted rolling green hills, mossy rock walls, and wave-pounded sea cliffs made for easily the best landscape I have seen on this trip so far. Actually, probably the best I have seen ever. Having seemingly run through its arsenal of weather, Ireland appeared satisfied that I was impressed and kept the blue sky in place for the rest of my day of riding, which ended in the town of Arklow. I had made about 80 km in the half day since my ferry landed, leaving me about the same distance to cover to get to Dublin the next day. This was accomplished without incident until I got to the outskirts of the city, where I fell victim to one of the most common (but heretofore avoided) accidents to happen to cyclists: getting doored.

It was Bruce Springsteen’s fault. Indirectly, at least. See, he had just played a show in Dublin and was spending the night there in the 4 Seasons. I knew none of this at the time, but a family in a small SUV sitting in line at a stoplight did, and the mother and daughter were eager to meet The Boss. So eager that they decided to jump out of the car without first looking to see if there was a wild red-headed cyclist bearing down upon them. As it happened, one was, and the carelessly-opened door struck me squarely in the right thigh, bringing my momentum to a fully unexpected and equally sudden stop and sending me flopping gracelessly onto the sidewalk. Their erstwhile eagerness to meet Bruce was suddenly replaced by an even greater eagerness to apologize and see if I was all right. I mostly was; luckily (I suppose) the door had only hit me and so had not damaged my bike or their car. My leg pained mightily, but it soon receded to a dull throb while we talked. I found out about their reason for causing our unplanned meeting, and the father shook my hand an excessive amount of times and told me he was a firefighter. They eventually left, and I hopped nimbly back on my bike and took off down the street. Well, not exactly. My leg had refrained from contributing to the conversation while we were standing on the sidewalk, but it immediately became frightfully vocal as soon as I tried to contort it back into cycling position. But we were almost there, so I put up with its whining for the couple of remaining kilometers to the hostel. This hostel, by the way, wins the award for best accommodation deal. Nine euros per night with free wi-fi and all you can eat breakfast included. Most campgrounds charge more than that, and many hostels aren’t as well-equipped or fun. Why other hostels in cheaper cities can’t manage to be as awesome as this one escapes me. Anyway, I got settled (bike safely in the basement too; this place really was the best), and limped off to explore Dublin. And by “explore” I mean “find food in”. I soon did at a delicious soup place. When I finished my meal, I had one of many experiences that has convinced me that Irish people are exceedingly awesome. But to highlight this experience, I will first relate its antithesis in America. 

Location- Pizza Hut near Tillamook, Oregon. Time- 1:33 pm, 3 minutes after their lunch buffet ended. The buffet table was still mostly covered with still-hot pizzas and still-crisp salads. Having learned that I was too late for the buffet, I inquired what was to be done with the leftover food. The server informed me that it would all be thrown away. I was horrified, and pleaded with him to let me eat it instead, even if I had to pay full price for it. But this minion of the soulless corporate machine could not be swayed, and I ate a fresh pizza while watching its perfectly edible friends get dumped unceremoniously into the garbage. Okay, back to the soup place in Dublin. As I was searching out exact change to pay the lady (so that I could get rid of some coins), she put four delicious-looking muffins in a bag and told me I could have them because they were going to get thrown out anyway. I was so happy I almost dropped my carefully-counted coins and hugged her. Take note, Pizza Hut. That’s how you do customer service.

I spent the rest of my time in Dublin taking an exceptional (and free!) walking tour of the city and hanging out with some awesome French guys. Then I took a ferry across to Holyhead in Great Britain. I specify Great Britain because Holyhead is not, as I thought, in England, but in Wales. My map shows no difference between the two, so I had to find this out embarrassingly from an irate Welsh girl. I hurried on my way, and after most of the day’s ride, I escaped and was finally and happily in England. Not that Wales wasn’t nice. The countryside was beautiful, green, rocky, and entirely full of sheep. But they have to have the weirdest written language I have ever seen. They seem to be obsessed with consonants. Some words are a good fifteen letters long with nary a vowel to be seen. Unless “w” is a vowel in Welsh, which I think it must be, otherwise it would be impossible to pronounce these jumbles of letters. The only example I can remember right now is the word for bus: bws. Anyway, back to England. I camped two nights along the way to Bath, where I obstinately took a shower and spent the night in a hostel (after seeing The Dark Knight Rises!). Before I tell you where I spent the next night, there are two pieces of background knowledge I must impart.

#1: There is a website called warmshowers.org, which is a couchsurfing network exclusively for touring cyclists. I have been attempting to use this site to find a place to stay in every big city that I have stayed in since Rome, but thus far unsuccessfully. People either didn’t respond to my messages or didn’t have space for me.

#2: Along this whole trip, I have been reading a book called Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie. It was written by an English teacher named Andrew Sykes about his first big bicycle tour from London to Brindisi, Italy (also, incidentally, this book is how I found out about the above website).

Since I knew from the book that Andrew lived in Reading, and Reading is just about a day’s ride from Bath, I contacted him through warmshowers.org in hopes that I could stay with him. Success! I met him at the train station, and from there he was the perfect host. He gave my bike and me comfortable accommodation in his apartment, fed me a delicious dinner, showed me the sights of Reading, and lent me an excellent bicycle map to help me on my way to London the next day. We had a great time discussing our similar and different experiences with cycle touring, and discovered that we had actually stayed in the same campground in Pisa. I was a little disappointed that this was the only time I could use the warmshowers site on my whole trip, but very happy that my only experience with it was so positive. After breakfast the next morning, I left Andrew and began my last day of riding! It took me most of the day to make it through the urban mess of London to my hostel. Had I taken the time to reflect on arrival at my last European city, I might have felt a bittersweet jumble of emotions. I might have longed for the pleasant, liberating solitude of the open road, the thrill of undiscovered places ahead of me, the comforting click of my gears, and the happy chaos of not knowing where I would spend the night. I might have celebrated the end of long, hot roads, a constantly sore bum, and the loneliness of solitary travel. I might have felt these things, but time for reflection was not to be had as I immediately thrust myself into the now-familiar routine of settling into a new city. I would be in London for 6 nights before my flight home, the longest amount of time I have spent in any place along this whole trip. This is probably for the best as there is so much to see here: a plethora of architectural wonders, countless cultural curiosities, and, of course, wonderfully, THE OLYMPICS! I will probably not see any events live, but I couldn’t be happier to be in the middle of the best thing ever. But I’ll tell you about my time in London in my next post.

Oh by the way, if you are starved for pictures, I did buy a disposable camera, so be content that there are pictures being taken, even if you won't be able to see them until they get developed (hopefully stores in 'Merica can still deal with that caveman technology).

Czeching in from the West

 Before I move on in my narrative, at risk that a certain anecdote be forever lost in the chronological cascade of travel experiences that flood my brain, I have to make a brief aside, going all the way back to the night  that started my last post: The night of trampled tent.

(Before setting up camp, Bohemia.)

(Deer, outside Prague.)

It was dusk. I was tired after a long day of biking in the immensely hilly countryside of bohemia as I prepared for a massive descent into the town of Albers (I remember this simply because the Business School is called Albers and riding through the town at dusk seemed to evoke the very image of the college: Everyone was drunk and there was pizza.). While I was excited to arrive in Prague I was in a so-so mood. The Czech Republic is not a particularly uplifting land and I was feeling a little tired, a little hungry, and maybe even a little homesick.

Then I saw the crosswalk game.

I don't mean that it's actually called that of course-I don't know if it has a name or if it was indeed not some strange form of youth protest (crazy kids). Even so, if it's not named yet, I hereby form the Crosswalk Game League of America, to be founded in January in Seattle.

The crosswalk game is played like this: First, one must go to a rural country road around sunset. It is absolutely imperative that this road have absolutely nothing but forest on either side, indeed completely impassable on one side preferred. Second, one ought to draw a compelling recreation of a normal innercity crosswalk bisecting said road. Third, one should get 20 or 30 of their closest friends, enemies, and classmates, dress up in strange outfits (american baseball stars and doctors were popular) take them to said crosswalk, and have them wait on either side of the road, preferably just out of view but in such a way they can still see if a car is coming. Last (and the fun part), the moment a car begins approaching have everyone simultaneously begin crossing the road, acting as though it is absolutely necessary while engaging in Three Stooges-like shenanigans to make the process as drawn out as possible. If this individual is on a bicycle and looking a little too serious, it is likewise crucial that one person dressed as a schoolteacher stand right in front of them and proceed to drop ALL their papers all over the road, pick them up, and repeat this process indefinitely.

It is a great game.

(A Great Jazz Club in Prague.)

(Prague city-center at night.)

(Czech Bike Path.)

(Czech-German Border Region.)

\As it is getting late here (I will reveal my location as I arrive there in my narrative), I will try to speed things up, but I simply couldn't in good conscience pass that one up. Anyway, Prague lived up to the hype: a strange, depressed, depraved, thriving, beautiful city. It is the sort of place where Kafka would have to be from, where the primary entertianment is found in 5 story night clubs and where I chose to abstain from attending the biggest skateboard festival in Europe in favor of seeing the altogether more "Czech" form of entertianment: Black Light Theatre (A nonverbal theatre form that focuses on being as trippy as is possible, using an actor wearing white being aided by countless individuals who, by merit of their all black outfits and the blacklit stage, are rendered entirely invisible. It's pretty neat, and is a form exemplified by the American performance group Fighting Gravity, which is worth looking up if you get a chance).

Upon leaving Prague I was quite ready to get on with my travels and back to Germany, and so began fairly early on the bike path to Dresden, which I estimated to be a 2 day bike journey away along the famous River Elbe cyclepath. It should be noted that in the Czech Republic this river is called the Labe, which apparently distinguishes it from the one with the famous bike path. The Prague-Border segment was terrible, and everyone I saw along the way agreed. Often no more than a muddy outcropping on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river, I spent approximately 10 of my first day's 130 kilometers hiking ankle deep in sludge, trying to avoid the 3 meter cliff to my left. Very fun. Still, it was quite an adventure, and the people I met on that leg (an Austrailian couple in their 50's, a Dutch Cylcotourist Group, and some Polish Cyclists I gave my Greenways map to come to mind) were some of the most vibrant individuals I've had the pleasure of cycling/trundling/trudging with, and they really made it a nice part of my trip. (Also, I happened to pass the Jewish Eastern-European Youth Concentration Camp from WWII times on this leg, Terezin. While I didn't go in, I did happen to see some drawings made by children from the camp in a Synagogue-memorial in Prague. Apparently during the height of the war a Jewish woman was put in charge of entertianment for the camp and decided to give the children an outlet to normalcy in the form of art, providing the children with drawings supplies and paper. Because the local Nazis were so busy fighting the British and whatnot, no one seemed to notice this break from protocol for quite some time as the pictures accumulated, the woman saving every one of them. When she was finally found out, this intrepid woman decided she would go down fighting, and so took every picture, threw them into a suitcase, buried them in secret on the grounds, and told a friend who had a connection on the outside. Needless to say, the war soon ended and all the pictures were found safe and sound.).

As I crossed the border into Germany it seemed quite apparent the Germans are very proud of their superior-pathmaking-abilities: I think they deliberately went out of their way to make the path contrast as much as possible right on top of the border, immediately flooding cyclists with signage, maps, nice asphalt, guard railings, and all the amenities befitting the Glorious German Bicycle Path System. Riding to Dresden was a lot easier that way, and that very night I sat outside the city eating Currywurst and drinking a nice draft beer that was some of the cheapest I've found in Europe ( yeah, yeah, not vegetarian, but the only restaurant open at the time was a Biergarten...Very, very good way to reenter Germany to say the least). After almost a week of on and off rain, I finally saw some clear skies and good weather as I ate by the river (also, I rode 100 miles this day through the hills: definitely a good challenge!)

Dresden (Florence-of-the-North (tm)) is a great city to visit, and had the finest street performers I've ever encountered. An entire band of Opera singers were performing in the central square as some well practiced men and women spun Poi (Hilariously ironic because the only thing I could think of while riding in was "FIRE BOMBED. FIRE BOMBED. KURT VONNEGUT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE. HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS. FIRE BOMBBBBBBBBBBBB woah that looks really well restored..."

For those of you unaware of the story, Dresden was brutally firebombed in WWII.

(Dresden, Leipzig University, and Ed, everyone's favorite atmospheric chemist.)

I slept in a bush in a park downtown that night, because no where in the city had a bed available. This was not nearly as sketchy as it sounds, and I have gotten quite good at hiding myself  "in plain sight", as its something I find myself doing more and more as good hidden camping spots become more sparse. While the park was relaxing and it was nice when I woke up, the rain began pouring down right as I finished putting away my tent. Rain coat on, I trudged to the station and did the only think I could think to do: I bought a train ticket west. I was tired of the storms. I was tired of rain. It was time to find summer, I thought, and so I did.

While my train ticket was for Koln (Cologne, for Americans, although it's pronounced KUULN), I successfully orchestrated a stopover in Leipzig for that night in order to visit my friend Ed, who is interning on a project studying Atmospheric Chemistry there at the local university (which is beautiful and looks like the crystal fortress of justice mixed with a cathedral of knowledge). I won't bore you all with details here, but it was really, really reassuring to see a familiar face even in such unfamiliar climes. We made pasta and talked over friends old and new. We traded books and stories. I stole most of his iTunes library. We sat in a giant, industrial brick apartment complex that looked like every other giant industrial brick apartment complex in the entire country as the rain came down outside. We both agreed Germany is somewhat depressing at times, and I was glad to be leaving.

Someone jumped in front of my train to Koln and everyone who worked for Deutchbahn went ahead and took a long and well deserved smoking break somewhere in the middle of the countryside as the local authorities presumably cleaned things up. We arrived over an hour late at 1 a.m., I saw the cathedral, bought bread for dinner (late, late, glorious late dinner), and found my hostel. Pooped.

The next morning I awoke to perhaps the last thing I expected to see after so much rain: Sun in my eyes. It was going to be a good day.

Cathedral (Big, inspiring), Modern Art Museum (Huge, beautiful, thought-provoking, Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Warhol, etc.). It was time to hit the road up the Rhine.

The Rhineland was absurdly nice, but I will offer you only one brief vignette from my ride northwest: My first night out of Koln, and perhaps the most magical afternoon I can remember having.

After a beautiful day on the road I was ready to camp although I had no spot. I was worried. It had been rainy for a bit around 2, and it was all shipping yards as far as the eye could see near Duisburg (the biggest industrial shipping center in Europe). While I was distracted by the sweat on my brow and the chilly air, luck struck.

A small forested patch opened off to the right, going down to the river, complete with a hidden deer trail that, while stealthy, fit a bicycle easily. I followed it and was lead to a clearing surrounded on 3 sides by a blackberry bush that was fully ripe, yet unpicked and loaded with delicious berries.

After picking an entire grocery bag of berries for the night's consumption I decided to follow the path onward, leaving my bike locked up against a tree in a perfect camping site with a little view of the northern night sky showing the vestiges of a golden sunset off to the west.

Glorious, golden sunset over a bridge, old fishermen, cruising boats...it was one of the lovliest sunsets I can remember seeing. I watched it like a blockbuster movie, eating fresh picked berries by the handful, listening to Jack Johnson, and reading occasionally from Moby Dick.

When I got to my tent I was ready for a wonderful night's rest, when I heard an explosion from the river.

Then another one.

Fireworks.

Someone was setting off a full firework show right next to my tent and I had the perfect seat cuddled up in my warm sleeping bag and hidden away from the chilly air.

The next morning it became apparent that the weather was finally in compliance with my summery dreams, and I put on a tank top and my shorts for the first time in weeks. Then I rode to the Netherlands.

There is not much in particular to share from then on. I spent last night in a campground less than 2 miles from where my mom was a foreign exchange student in the 70's. Me and some fellow campers sat in a field on airmattresses listening to Henk, a much beloved stereo made of an old set of car speakers and some plywood. We watched the stars come out, drank belgian beer and chocolate milk, and listened to 2 Pink Floyd albums all the way through. While I figure this isn't what my mom did when she lived here I thought it was ironic to be doing the most quintessentially 1970's things I could imagine right there. The only thing missing was the hippy van, although if it is any consolation we were almost in Westfalia, afterall.

That was last night.

(The best idea ever: Bicyclist designed trashcans in Holland.)

(The Kroller Muller Museum, Netherlands)

(Van Gogh.)

*just walkin mah Shetland Pony...

(More Kroller Muller.)

Today I awoke to the sound of an early morning offer of breakfast, which I gladly accepted from my newfound friends. They gave me coffee, bread, nutella, and we sat around and talked as the sun rose and warmed our freezing bodies. After eating a second, much, much bigger breakfast (family size yogurt container with a box of cereal, a loaf of sugar-bread, and a 2 person pasta dish: A five euro masterpiece breakfast!)  I rode to Amsterdam and found a nice campground. I went to a science museum, ate breakfast for dinner, and watched the sun set over the canals.

Anyway, if you are still reading, I will conclude by giving you a brief expected-future itinerary for my trip:

Amsterdam-Hoek of Holland (Ferry to Harwich, England), Harwich-Cambridge-London-Canterbury-Dover-Bath-Newport-Normandy-Paris-French Alps/Chamonix maybe-Briancon-Torino-Genoa-Monaco-Marseilles-Barcelona, Train to Granada, school, and further adventures.

It is subject to change at a moments notice but I am almost done riding north, riding east, and riding west.

It is time to chase the sunny weather.

It's time to find summer.

(Author's Note: I just checked my cyclocomputer, which tells me I've biked about 3500 kilometers this summer, which figures with my approximate "A little more than 100, a little less than 150" pace that I've been keeping through most rural areas)