This and/or That

I left Switzerland way back when and went to Bangkok and hung out with Spencer for a few days.

Nong. Sung. Sam.

In a few days I'm going to Thailand. I don't like to buy tickets until the last minute, because what if I really like Zürich and want to stay longer? So I'm not sure when I will go.

I'll hang out in SE Asia for a bit and then Spencer and I are going to teach each other how to surf in Bali for a month or something. Sounds really cute, doesn't it? It will be.

This whole going to Asia thing threw a bunch of problems my way as to what to do with my bike and all my stuff. I'm done cycle touring, for now, so I don't want to take it to Asia. Putting it on a plane to Asia and then traveling around with it and then getting back to the USofA sounded like a pain. And shipping it seemed expensive and also to be a pain.

So I decided to sell it. In Germany.

When I first thought of selling it, I didn't think I really wanted to. It took me about onepointfive months of talking myself into, before I actually decided that I could sell it. I would take off all the parts that I wanted and just sell the frame. It was all because how was I going to get it home anyway? And where am I going to be living anyway? And it would probably sit in Ben's garage (he called dibs on storing it for me...) anyway. And I've lived entirely out a couple of bags for over a year now, so it's not like I need possessions anyway. Especially possessions that are just going to sit around and clutter up my life. Right?

The day I cycled out of Berlin I was in a forest and there were no signs and I hadn't seen the sun in four days so I kept losing 'west' and I kept hitting junctions that weren't on the map and I wasn't sure which way to go. The road was made of sand and I had to walk a bit. Then I met Reinhard and his wife Annette. They're as old as my parents. They told me which way I needed to go and they were headed the same direction so we rode together for a bit. They invited me back to their house for some cake and whatever and we had a nice chat.

I told them of my trip and how I was planning on selling the bike once I was done. Circa four or five days.

I left their house and about 45 minutes later Reinhard was standing on the side of the road by his car. He gave me his phone number and told me he wanted to buy my bike and give it to his son. He said his son's girlfriend lived near Cuxhaven, so I could just leave it there. Perfect. I told him how much I wanted for it, which was fair, and he was cool with it. I was selling my bike. Perfect.

Then my second to last day I chickened out. I can't sell this thing. I love this bike. My Mom loves this bike and she's never even met it.

My new friend Anna told me I could store it in her basement in Dresden for as long as I needed (who knows when I'll pick this thing up). And this works out even more perfect, because not only do I get to keep my bike, but I get to remain all idealistic and stuff because I'm not cluttering up my life with possessions. I'm cluttering up Anna's (oh, I'm looking at you too Mahana...). I call this win win.

I'm heading to Switzerland today to hang out with a friend in Zürich. Then off to Asia.

I'll be traveling, like a sissy, without a bike, so I don't think I'll write on this too much. Maybe every now and again when I'm in Asia, but I don't know.

I'll start it up again next time I get on a bike for awhile....

Future Tense

Mahana just posted a comment congratulating me on receiving a job in NYC....however, I think she meant to tell me that she is putting Jacob on plane to hang out with me for the month of June and/or July. She sometimes confuses things.

I have not been offered a job in NYC. I'm not sure how Mahana got that idea.

Unrelatedly, I just had an interview with a German company who has an office in NYC, and they interviewed me to work for the NYC office. But they aren't hiring until the Fall or something, so while the interview went well, I have not been offered anything. But I am excited about it....

The thought did cross my mind that it is possible Mahana heard about the interview and somehow understood that I was offered a job. That could be possible. But really, I think she did mean to write that she was putting Jacob on a plane....see you soon Jake.

This Is Is Is It

I'm done. I got here, and stopped riding (if you keep the map zoomed in tight, it almost looks like there was nowhere else to go....). So in my last post when I wrote 'I'll be done soon...' I meant something like two or three days soon....

Getting off the bike was the only thing I could think of for about twopointfive weeks. I didn't know if I really wanted to stop or not. Or how it would feel to stop. Or, whatever.

I chose Cuxhaven for a few reasons. I used to live nearby in Bremerhaven. I had friends in the area I could stay with. But the bigger reasons are because it was on the ocean, and ending on the ocean felt right. And because it was incredibly flat for several days leading up to Cuxhaven, and I knew it would be insanely boring, and so ending wouldn't be so hard. That day I rode into Dresden was hilly and interesting and way to cool for me to not get back on the bike a few days later. By the time I hit Cuxhaven I had been looking at the same fields of Canola Oil flowers for days. Then I saw the ocean. Then I stopped.

I chose to stop now, because while I do enjoy the adventures I'm having, Europe is really tame. I like the wild more. And I didn't feel like riding in the tame for so long. And everything is familiar or normal or whatever and it takes away from the excitement. And I just felt ready for something different.

I woke up two hours earlier than normal on my last day because of a rainy weather forecast. Outside of my tent the skies were blue and I was excited. Excited to reach the ocean. Excited to ride through some familiar cities. Excited to stop the one thing and start the other things. And really excited that it wasn't raining.

I told everybody that it was my last day of a fifteen month bike trip from Singapore. I told the guy walking his dog in the forest, where I had camped. 'Toll', he said. I told the guy who rides his bike one hour to work each morning and one hour home each evening. I told the fruit stand sales lady, who charges too much for banana's. The Linguistics Professor who speaks better Spanish and French than English. The German who has been selling famous sausages, smoked with his family's special recipe, for something like 30 years. The Kazakh man selling Bratwurst and fries from a trailer by the ocean who prefers spring time in Kazakstan to spring time in Germany. Every woman at every bakery that I bought something from. And probably another 20 people, I can't remember. I don't know why I kept telling people. It felt normal to tell them. I couldn't stop telling them. I was excited and in a good mood.

Telling everyone made me realize why I like German people. Germans have a reputation of being 'cold' or 'unfriendly'. And while 'cold' and 'unfriendly' may not be the best words, because they have a negative connotation, it's more or less true. In Austria people would walk up to me and say 'that's an interesting bike, where did you get it?'. In Germany people would walk up to me and look at their friends and say 'that's an interesting bike, I wonder where he got it....' BUT, I don't think Germans to be 'cold' or 'unfriendly'. They just don't feel comfortable starting conversations with people they don't know. So as soon as I start the conversation they open right up and are incredibly friendly and interesting. I had a lot of cool conversations on my last day of cycling.


I rode around town just a little bit after I got here. Then I bought some cookie crisp and some milk. Cookie Crisp wasn't first choice, but I love cereal.... I rode to some wilderness near the coast, put my tent up in some trees and sat on this bench watching the sun go down and eating cereal. It was windy, but not too cold. And the tide was high.





My last day cycling was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. All my apprehension about stopping just kind of went away and I felt really good about ending. I've seen a lot. Good times.

Derek asked, as a question to my last post, why I spent over a year of my life looking for adventure. Maybe 'adventure' alone isn't the right word. Becuase it was more than just adventure. I wanted to see places. How people live. What they're like. I wanted to see mountains and deserts. I wanted to travel. I wanted to do something that was a little scary (scary in the sense that my first few days in Thailand in January 2009 I remember feeling nervous. I had just quit my job, sold a lot of my things, left my girlfriend, used a one-way ticket to Thailand and was starting this huge long trip. It was a strange feeling. Was I doing the right thing? It was hard to know). And I wanted to see and do these things on my own and really feel the independence.

But the thing is, I didn't spend over a year looking for adventure, I spent over a year having an adventure. What I've written on this blog doesn't even come close to explaining the experiences I've had. I'm not a writer to be able to explain them. And I've read plenty of travel books, even for the places I've been, and those writers don't do the experiences justice. The smells, the sounds, the feelings, the interaction with locals, the sights, the pain, the diahrea, the food, the depression, the excitement, the apprehension, the discovery. There's too many things.

Yeah, in January of 2009 I was doing the right thing.

If I were to have any regrets about this trip, it's that it took me until I was 29 before I realized how cool this sort of thing would be. And people say to me all the time 'wow, trip of a lifetime...' No way. Incredible trip yes, but not the only trip like this of my lifetime.

In the Hall Already

I don't remember what the holiday was on that Thursday that I rode out of Berlin, but lots of people were riding bikes. And lots of people were drinking lots of alcohol. What you can't see behind the man on a bike with a stereo system trailer is a man on a bike with a sausage barbeque trailer. I asked where they were headed, 'wherever the beer is...'.



I rode out of Berlin and just rode a lot. It was flat and I was always riding into the backs of spinning windmills, and always worried that the bad weather would turn worse. I was riding west towards some of the old cities I lived in while on a mission. One day, on my way into Hameln, I rode for four hours in the pouring down rain. My feet were so cold than when I stopped and put weight on my feet, it felt like I was standing on a million needles. So when the weather was nice, I just rode. And I love big mileage days.






Camping like this in Germany is illegal but is really really easy to do without anyone seeing. Or at least without anyone caring. All the time I told locals that I sleep in forests or in fields, and they all nod their heads as if that was the normal thing for me to do.




This was the communism line.



Wolfenbüttel. I lived upstairs for four months in 1999. It was cool how I still vaguely knew my way around town.








Hameln, home to the Pied Piper. I lived above this casino for five months in 1999.



I always liked this street for some reason.











I lived upstairs here for five months in 2000.

I'll be done cycling any day now. It's all I think about. Not because I want to stop, but because it feels like the right time to stop. And all I think about is how can I stop?Why should I stop? I mean, I didn't come on this trip for any 'finding myself' type of reason or something stupid like that, so its not like I "found myself" or "found what I was looking for", because I was looking for adventure, and I have been finding that the whole time.

But it feels right to stop soon. So, I'll stop soon.

philosophy

I'll be done cycling any day now. It's all I think about. Not because I want to stop, but because it feels like the right time to stop. And all I think about is how can I stop? I mean, I didn't come on this trip for any 'finding myself' type of reason or something stupid like that, I just did this because it sounded fun. And it was fun. And it is fun. And it's real easy to get accustomed to living like this. But I feel like I'm ready for something different. And I don't want to live on a bicycle forever (well....at least I think I don't want to live on a bicycle forever). But stopping is kind of freaking me out. There will be rainy days where I think about how I can't wait to stop. How nice it would be to just sit inside and watch a movie or something. But for every day like that I have twenty fantastic days where I just ride my bike all day through pretty places and I'm outside all day and I sleep in a tent every night and I have all the time in the world to go wherever my thoughts want me to go and people look at me strange like I'm the crazy one with all of my posessions sitting behind me and I don't ever have appointments or meetings or responsibilities and I have a phone but it only rings two times per week, at the most, and I never ever ever get bored and I get to look at a lot of maps, for good reasons, and I meet lots of interesting people and I get to observe all sorts of peoples and cultures and places and things and I think, really, how can I stop? Why would I stop?

But for some reason it feels right to stop soon. So, I'll stop soon.

I'll let you know how it goes....

And don't read this thinking I'm getting all philosophical about traveling. I'm not. I meet all sorts of douchy travellers that all they want to talk about is how 'non-conformist' they are or how 'this guy in Budapest is named 'windsock' because he just goes wherever the wind blows him, and he's so cool'...I hate that crap. I just traveled a lot because it would fun. And I liked it. And I think everyone should travel. It's interesting.

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.