Bavaria

Dinkelsbuhl, Bavaria, Germany
Jordan and I just biked into a picturesque Bavarian town by the strange name of Dinkelsbuhl. We decided to get a hotel, since our batteries, both physical and mental, needed recharging. Also, the hotel has Internet access, which is a large plus in our book. It is amazing how important that is to us. I love posting to the blog and reading the replies that come back.
Near the end of our train ride to Nuremburg, I used the toilet in the train. Since almost all the toilets in Europe cost cold, hard cash to use, cheap bastards like myself learn to train their bladders and colons to wait for the free bathrooms. The bathrooms on trains are free. I did some "heavy business" early on the ride, but then waited until the end of the ride to do one last number 1. Jordan and I were sitting in the bicycle car with one other guy who looked exactly like a good-looking Elliot Spitzer (no huge lantern jaw). He was a great guy who spoke English pretty well. The toilet in this car was amazing. It had a door that would have made most "panic room" doors jealous. Mr. Spitzer explained the workings of the door to me. I had to step inside and then hit a button to close the door. I followed his instructions, closed the door, unleashed the big fella, and started a vary satisfying micturation. About 10 seconds into it, I realized that I had no locked the door. That meant anyone outside could hit the open button, and there I would be in all my glory. I leaned over to the lock on the door, while continuing to relieve myself. There was a lock on the door, and I tried to turn it. To my surprise, turnig the lock OPENED the door. Jordan and Elliot started laughing their butts off at me! I reshut the door and started over. The same thing happened again! I finally decided to shut the door without locking it and hope nobody from outside opened it. I finished my business and came out. Jordan and Elliot were still laughing their asses off. Elliot explained to me that there was another button that locks the door. Oh well, another good bathroom humor story!
We arrived in Nuremberg about 3:20. After buying a map, we took off for a campground about 10 clicks away. The bike paths in Nuremberg were definitely a step down from the Netherlands, or Belgium, for that matter. They would start and stop rather indiscrimanately. I am sure there are good parts of this city, but going from the train station est, we did not see any. About 7 clicks outside the city we rode by a decent looking bike shop. I stopped and explained to one of the mechanics the problems I have been having with my rear derailleur. He asked if a could leave my bike until tomorrow, but I explained that I was just travelling through. He dropped everything and fixed the derailleur. The English guy who put it on, was not a good mechanic. I could tell that it was never in-line. The GERMANS fixed me up just fine! I ended up buying a new helmet and water bottle from them. They did not even charge me for the mechanical work.
We continued biking to a campground about 10 clicks from Nuremberg. We set up camp and then went to the campground restaurant. We ordered beers first and we just relaxing when a gregarious looking fellow walked by. I hit him with a "Wie geht es Ihnen?" which means "How are you?" I must have really shocked him, because his face screwed up and he asked "Was sagen Sie?" which means "What did you say?" After this initial blunder, we started communicating well. I asked him if I could buy him a drink, and he invited Jordan and me to eat dinner with his wife, mother, and step-father. We said sure! What a cool evening! His name was Juergen and his wife was Ursula. I never did get his parents's names, but they were really funny. Yuergen was extremely friendly and had a funny way of making strange expressions as he talked. We ate and drank until about 11PM and then parted company. What a great spontaneous experience!
Got up today around 8:30 and had breakfast of rolls and jam we bought last night, followed by a banana. Started biking by 9:30. We had an incredible head-wind and we were biking steadily up-hill all morning. Jordan asked if it was going to be like this all day and I said I hope not. After lunch, it leveled out considerably. Plus we changed from going due West to due South. The wind was coming out of the West so it was not affecting us as much now.
The Bavarian scenery is beautiful! Rolling landscape and beautiful bucolic farms. We rolled into Dinskelsbuhl around 4:30PM. It is the proto-typical Bavarian town. Since we are hotelling it, we bought food at a grocery store. After eating, we went out for dessert. Sehr gut!