Day 1: July 30th
We crossed the border into Passau and were immediately confronted with a population of beggars larger than any of the previous towns.
What could be the cause of such a confluence of international beggars?
It wasn’t until much later in the day when we happened upon Passau’s discount food store and everything started to make sense.
Six packs for 1€.
Bottles of wine for 1€.
All of the food seemingly for 1€.
It was here that I slowly ran into every person who had asked for money throughout the day.
The only intolerable part of this was the check out line in which everyone paid in a mountain of tiny € cents and this poor teenager was desperately sorting through and doing addition faster than the Micro-Machines guy (or whoever reads the side-effects portion of the new miracle drug commercials),
Day 2: July 31st
The day got off to a slow start so we decided to kick it up a notch and drink a Rhino Energy Drink. Right when Anna took her first sip a van started its engine – so that looked and sounded good to me.
With the suddenness of an old German man trying to help us with wayfinding, a wirey Englishman (who later revealed himself to be a Scot) appeared on his bicycle, coffee in hand. He was a wealth of information regarding cycling through the Balkans, including special little gems like how to bribe the Hungarian train attendants to allow your bicycle aboard the train.
He had a wonderful disposition toward us and our “style” of travelling. He had been in a rather strange habit of biking an average of 200km a day and was seemingly unaware that it could be done any slower.
He spent the remainder of the day riding with us and speaking English which he was very excited to do.
Later, after pizza and a wild donkey chase through the streets of Deggendorf in search of a grocery store, we came upon a campsite with a French couple who had similarly to Ed (our Scottish friend) started their cycling adventure in Bucharest, Romania.
We all cooked dinner, looked a maps, drank wine, and laughed about all of the stupid decisions we were making.
Day 3: August 1st
We rode further than we ever have!
90km in one day! A new trip record! All to arrive in Regensburg an hour too late to visit the Kepler Museum. We managed to keep our sanity despite Vegan Mania going on all around us. . .
Or did we?
We ran into our French friends at the Netto Discount food mart.
They had inspired us to buy a map and chart our progress which we did only to be underwhelmed by the actual biking distance we had covered in comparison to the massive (ahem, second smallest. . .) continent.
Day 4: August 2nd
The dust is in the details, it’s in my eyes, my mouth, it’s all over everything we have. Our tires, once black, now look like Victorian royalty with the powder caked on. In fact, everything looks like Victorian royalty just having a gay little time, ignorant of the consequences of their lavishness. Our cheeks even had that rosey rawness you only get after 10 days in the saddle. The sole benefit of the dust is that Anna’s bandana finally looks like a cool outlaw bandana.
It was in this way that we tore into the Donau gorge, a cloud of dust with the occasional arm or leg appearing, like a Popeye fighting cloud on bicycles.
The Donau gorge, from an Oregonian’s perspective, is underwhelming in the extreme. Though what it lacks in scenic impact it makes up for in a history rich with constant drunkenness and river pirates.
We arrived after a short ferry ride to the oldest monastery in Bavaria, celebrated masters of the Christ-approved witches brew.
This was great news because after a half days ride in some serious high noon heat I was ready to let my spirituality run wild. But we were out of cash and the goddamned-once-fascist monks have a 50€ minimum on credit purchases. Master manipulators of the Christ Rackett.
Soon, after being denied spiritual communion due to lack of cash funds, we suffered our first casualty of the trip. Anna’s fender, driven mad by dust, suicidaly dove into her tire causing it to buckle in 5 places, folding in on itself like an origami suicide victim or an accordion playing the last note in a song frequently played a funerals. We strapped the fender on the the back of her bike, strung up like a dead coyote. A lesson to all the other components on the bike that this is the kind of treatment and dishonour noncompliants should expect.
Day 5: August 3rd
The definition of Romance is not fixed. It’s like asking someone what their favorite color is, and sure, there will be popular colors like candle lit dinners or being tied up to a wall where someone fucks you through a pizza, but the point is no one can define that for you.
Especially not Germany.
After riding some 65km in communist-dictator-oppressive heat, we made it to the Romantische Straße (Romantic Road) only to be turned away from our campsite because they just don’t do camping anymore. We were forced to push on for another 20km already delirious from sweat and sunscreen soaked eyes.
I’m sure this is Romance to someone, someone who maybe trains for the Olympics or has a serious problem not giving up.
But me, I’m a heavy quitter and I also don’t sweat so regulating my body temperature on a hot day is like making someone watch a kindergartner and saying, “You can’t give it Vallium.’
Regardless, we pushed on, irritated like our bug bites and our ass cheeks. As the once flat Donau Cycle Route gave way to steep and consistent hills, Anna was heard saying, “These hills are really grinding my butt out.”
And however Romantic grinding Anna’s butt out sounds, it’s just not the way I imagined it.
Maximum Romance 