Guess who is in Germany? Yup, me and Greg are in Darmstadt, Germany! Got here late last night. It seems really cool thus far. Its like 30km south of Frankfurt. We are staying with Laura, a friend from Virginia Tech.
The Ride through the Netherlands
It was quite the amazing. The ride was beautiful. The people were wonderful. Bikes were everywhere. I feel like I am repeating myself, heh. But yeah, the first day we left Amsterdam we went about 110km (68ish miles). Around the end of the day right before we crossed the water I saw a man outside in his yard so we pulled over. Greg asked if she spoke English in Dutch, and he said a little. So we asked if we could camp out and he took us back into his pear/apple orchard. He let us be. Then he came out and took me inside so we could refill our water. He also offered us tea and took it out to us. And then 20 minutes later after food he offered us cherries and talked to us for an hour. He was a real estate agent with a really nice house. It used to be a farm. We got some nice pictures. But yeah, we just camped in his yard and he was awesome. It was like a five-star campground!
Something about the Netherlands... it rains every morning. Me and Greg did the normal biking thing. By the way I am taking the trailer now to take on the weight burden so we can go faster. But yeah after 40 miles and a thunderstorm forecast for the next few days... and the desire to be in Frankfurt for the weekend... we decided to check out trains...
The Train Ride into Germany
Despite missing the first train (on a scheduled ticket.. meaning you cant change it apparently) due to my making a phone call... we got on the one that came exactly an hour later. These trains come in the station and leave within 2 minutes... on the dot. Its crazy. So when the second one came we ran down the platform and loaded our bikes into the bike train. We had a transfer pretty quickly, and then another one. Thats where it got exciting. Dusseldorf to Frankfurt was the long ride (about 3 hours) and I knew it would be good immediately. As we rain down the platform to get on I saw the guys in the train cab jump to the door and help us lift them in. They were all in military fatigues. As soon as we got on David offered us some of his rum and coke. And more... and more... When the ticket guy came in they all sang at him in German. We found out they are all ex-German military and mostlz just bike ride/tour and drink. We exchanged information in case they ever come to the states or we go back to Germany. They saw us eating apples with peanut butter and nutella and they found that particularly odd. They kept giving us rum and I would say I got pretty tipsy. It definitelz made the train ride neat.
I noticed we got to Frankfurt real late. There were no more trains to Darmstadt. So we took a taxi again. We got to Lauras and went to bed.
So, Damn, We are in Germany
We got showers. We are walkign around the town/sightseeing. And this means we will be seeing Jeff very soon. And possibly going on an adventure to Prague with him!
P.S. Sorry about lack of pics... its hard to get them up and what not. I guess we will update in Dresden using Jeff's internet. And then again much later after that.
Love Frank
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Vermutung, wer in Deutschland ist?
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6 comments:
I love being the first to comment, because that makes me a better friend.
I hope you're having a good time in Darmstadt; it's supposed to be a pretty neat city. Of course, you won't be able to really enjoy it at all, knowing that both the coolest person and the coolest city in the world are just up the road.
So now your travels will be much better as bier, soft ice cream, and doener are at your fingertips.
Jeff's going to kill me for this, but you must not have seen the right part of the Rhine. It's a gorgeous river. With lots and lots of castles.
I'm glad you like Darmstadt. I'll actually be over there two weekends from now. But Dresden really is far cooler. And, as Jeff pointed out, it has me in it.
frank, when you instant message me during the day, as you seem to do whenever you sign onto a computer, you should send a text message via AIM first. I can log on at work, but i dont usually stay logged on for any extended period of time.
Hey lads of Glenbrook.........we miss you at home. Did you arrive in time for Darmstädter Heinerfest?
Frank and Greg, Have a good time in Dresden with Jeff. Just be sure to stay out of trouble and don't let alex bully you guys around! Have enjoyed reading you biking adventures.
Cycles Mercier is a marketing company that really doesnt know the first thing about bikes. They buy frames from Kinesis Industrial, a frame manufacturer that makes frames for Kona, Fuji, Specialized and others slap expensive components on them and then attempt to undercut the market by using a direct market sales techique which includes spamming bike forums. Any attempts to contact the company for a customer service request results in an email thanking you for purchasing thier product. Fortunately i dont care about any of that since i bought used anyway, and feel like i am intelligent enough to figure out how to service my own bicycle.
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