"I'm going on an adventure!" The words of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit kept echoing in my head as I pedaled my bike closer to Burg this morning.
Today was a particularly exciting day. A group of 5 of us headed out for our first trip of any real distance away from Friedensau. We went to a small town in the Harz mountains called Thale. It's a cute little village with a cathedral with a park around it and mountains behind. I also saw the biggest ropes course I have ever seen. It was quite a fantastic day that had many close encounters and many more adventures.
We rode into Burg around 9:30 to catch our train. We had some issues with one of the bikes so we were a little behind schedule. We got to the train a full five seconds before it started to leave. Now I could set my very heavy pack down and take a rest from the long ride we just did. In Magdeburg we had to switch trains to get to another line. Made that one by a skim too. One thing I have learned about German trains is that every single time we have ridden them thus far, they have been late, most of the time to our benefit and we cannot count on that happening much more. In Magdeburg there were Politzei everywhere. I hadn't seen so many in one place very often so I was curious as to why they were there. Then we got to talking about it on the train. They were there because today was election day in Germany and it was a preventative measure to keep less than peaceful demonstrations from erupting. We were on the train and on our way to Thale and our adventures there.
The weather was perfect for our climbing. We set up two hammocks and one route. At the end we had to tear down and I had noticed that you could climb off the back edge and hike back to the trail. I volunteered to be the one to climb up, tear down, and walk back. So, not being without my ego (and therefore less reasoning) I climbed the route with my 40lb. (aprox 18.2kg for the Europeans) backpack. It wasn't the worst idea I have ever had…it certainly was the best one either. It wasn't too bad until the top when I had to do two lay backs. My Sharma scream became a little better than in the past. Once I climbed over and was on my way down I realized the crux of the climb was before me. When I looked at how passable it was I misjudged the fact that what I was seeing was not a grassy slope, but instead a cliff covered in a carpet of moss. Since I have historically had bad experiences with mossy rocks I was not the most overjoyed person in the world. All the manliness I was feeling from the climb was running away into the forest like a rabbit in the sights of a .22 rifle in the hands of an over zealous kid. After making one turn that I wasn't excited about I finally found the route of most resistance. (If I wanted the path of least resistance I would have just jumped.) Once I got down I rearranged my pack as I waited for the rest of the group. We eventually met up and off we went.
There was a bike race in Thale and therefore there were hoards of people there. With that and the fairly urgent need for a bathroom that didn't operate only by coins (of course the only kind we didn't have), we boarded the train where we had both free bathrooms and the promise of a new adventure in the next town: Quedlinburg.
We had heard that it had a nice downtown area and was super old looking. It was really quite fantastic. Then we found food. Some of, if not the best pasta I have ever eaten was at Quedlinburg. I will be stopping there again for sure. If you ever find yourself in a small town in Germany that has a funny name starting with a Q, go to the place called Flying Pizza and get some of their pasta. It won't be a bad choice….unless you are allergic to cheese. We walked around the city until it got darker and we had killed enough time before the train home.
Nope. We didn't kill enough time. Oh well, an empty train platform isn't the worst place to sit for ten minutes. We had fun just chilling. We eventually made it back to our bikes in Burg, and after meeting a nice guy on the train who was traveling to London to get his masters and try to start a band we headed off. I had almost forgotten that I had a pretty heavy pack on until the ride back. By now it is around 21:30 and we still had about an hour ride until Friedensau. I am rarely the one to be slowed by a little work put into an adventure, so I took the not so functioning bike and limped it back. I have ridden worse bikes before, however it has been a while since and I didn't have a 40lb pack on and it wasn't dark. So the adventure continues. It was a fixie and was meant for someone half the size of me. On the trip I was compared to the old woman on the bike in The Wizard of Oz with my heavy pack on and me leaning all the way forward on it, not from the weight of the pack but from the fact that it was a miniature bike.
We finally made it back and were really excited about the day we just had. All in all we loved it. From riding our bikes 18km (11.2miles) one way, to barely making trains, we had an epic time. The weather could not have been better and the company was top notch. I cannot wait for more times where we get to experience more and to get ahold of a little more of my wanderlust.
