To and through Ireland

That's it then

2012-02-16T14:18:00.003Z

That's what I did at all – not counted are the lots of kilometres I did when not doing stages, and that, all in all, have been a lot, too…

date	stage's start	stage's end	kilometers
1.8.11	Bamberg	Wartmannsroth	100
2.8.11	Wartmannsroth	Schlüchtern	42
3.8.11	Hüttenberg	Weilburg	50
4.8.11	Germscheid	Bedburg	105
5.8.11	Bedburg	Sittard	95
6.8.11	Sittard	Leopoldsburg	60
7.8.11	Leopoldsburg	Antwerpen	105
9.8.11	Antwerpen	Brügge	95
11.8.11	Brügge	Dunkerque	85
12.8.11	Dunkerque	Margate	65
14.8.11	Margate	London	150
17.8.11	London	London	42
19.8.11	London	Oxford	110
20.8.11	Oxford	Mitcheldean	100
22.8.11	Mitcheldean	Langadog	130
24.8.11	Llangadog	Fishguard	125
25.8.11	Rosslare	Tramore	75
29.8.11	Dungarvan	Youghal	30
30.8.11	Youghal	Baltimore	167,5
2.9.11	Baltimore	Bonane	105
4.9.11	Bonane	Cahersiveen	80
5.9.11	Cahersiveen	Tarbert	120
6.9.11	Tarbert	Limerick	60
8.9.11	Limerick	Doolin	105
9.9.11	Doolin	Galway	80
10.9.11	Galway	Mannin	100
15.9.11	Mannin	Castlebar	115
16.9.11	Castlebar	Sligo	110
19.9.11	Dublin	Tramore	50
22.9.11	Tramore	Rosslare	70
23.9.11	Roscoff	Saint-Brieuc	140
24.9.11	Saint-Brieuc	Pontorson	125
25.9.11	Pontorson	Saint James	20
26.9.11	Saint-James	Caen	150
28.9.11	Caen	Rouen	140
29.9.11	Rouen	Laigneville	120
30.9.11	Laigneville	Reims	145
2.9.12	Reims	Mesnil-sous-les-Côtes	145
4.9.11	Mesnil-sous-les-Côtes	Mondorff	95
6.9.11	Mondorff	Nennig	10

The last (so called) stage

2011-11-21T16:30:00.002Z

Tuesday, 6th of October. This morning there was a silent knocking on my door, hardly noticeable. When I boot on my lended computer to look for the time it was actually 8:18 A.M. – so I really had tu hurry, because my train would depart at 9:07 A.M. from 10 kilometres afar Nennig. Fast packing, fast symbolic breakfast… I angled my brakes more wide, so the wheel didn't hit so bad. My ability to slowdown wasn't so good now, but still working. And I also swapped the package of the panniers, so it was less weight on the carrier's broken side. Both helped.

I went on hurrying when I was on my bike, and surely it was uphill for a long time – but the outlook when being on top and also the high-angle downhill was great, and at this time I became more confident to catch the time. When I passed the German border – second border this day after first passing from France to Luxembourg – it was stormy and I felt some raindrops, so welcome back home! – but it were actually just this few drops. Nevertheless it was a cloudy and windy day.

As the station in Nennig was a very small one, there wasn't any lift but even no other help for people on wheels. I was quite impressed of myself, that I was able to shoulder my packed bike without any difficulty.

When I bought my ticket at the vending machine I was wondering, why it costed more than the railway website had informed me before. And when having a look at the itinerary it was also another route with less change but it would keep me via Cologne. I was wondering but just thinking this could maybe caused of the fact that I mentioned my bike when I did the internet search, so probably the vending machine had made his decision on shorter connecting times (but somehow in both cases I would arrive nearly at the same time at my destination – as I said, I didn't really thought about it). I needed the help of a train conductor to see my mistake: I had bought a ticket to Dortmund instead of Darmstadt, where I wanted to visit some friends and meet Klaus on Friday to visit the birthday party of his cousin. In Trier – first connecting station for both goals, so till then I was never the less in the right train – I had to go to the counter. Fortunately I had 25 minutes transfer time (but according to the line in front of the counter, I also needed this time). Surprisingly the Deutsche Bahn cancelled my old ticket and gave me the right one without any extra charge, so in the end I got some money back.

It was curious to sit in a German train. The people around me appeared to be grouchy, crabby, mopish. It's strange how prejudices and generalisation are working. I suppose half of my impression was caused by the fact, that I wasn't able to see my home country's people from an open minded curious view. In fact it wasn't that bad.

I visited some friends in Darmstadt and stayed overnight. Nice guitar session, interesting talks. Exiting sense of self, the changed me in a familiar context. Next day I met Klaus and we visited the birthday party of his cousin together. Great meal and many lovely people and all of them so fascinated about what I did. On Sunday another of Klaus' cousins who also had joined the party took us home with his car.

Being back is weird. Nice but very different. Live is easier when the only thing you have to do is cycling. Summer is definitely gone now. Things have changed. But I still contend with the same things I did before I went on my tour. I'm still learning to become free.

– THE END –

A daytrip to Luxembourg city

2011-11-02T14:55:00.001Z

Wednesday, 5th of October. I slept until 10 A.M. and some minutes after waking up Pierre knocked on my door. When having breakfast he suggested to spend the day in Luxembourg, we would take the car and later pick up Jordane, who is working in this town. When sitting in the car I felt strange, somehow like a bad headache, but before the pain comes. My neck muscles were totally hard, I felt completely tired all of sudden. Because of additional noise and light hypersensitivity it could have been a migraine, so I took some medicine against that. But it wasn't really better when we started walking, so I asked for a coffee break and this really helped. We just sat and relaxed for a while and I tried two different types of coffee drink and after that I felt definitely better, so much better, that it was also distinctly and visibly for Pierre, because he mentioned that I seemed to be much more alive and also had a smile in the face and some glance in the eyes.

Luxembourg is really nice, it has lots of green, and the historic part is exiting. To me it was great discovering, I found lots of curious sights – I took many photos. And it was also fun to talk with Pierre. He told a lot about history when showing interesting places. When talking about favourite films and music we had also some excursuses about European culture and music theory – mainly the movies were much more a way to talk about things that were meaningful to us, no topic for small talk. And it really felt good to discover that we had lots in common, so I was and still are very lucky to meet him and also Jordane. When being altogether we went on having good talk on a personal level. I loved the anecdote, when a female friend of Jordane, whom she told they now would have their first couchsurfer and that it would be a woman, asked her, if she wouldn't be frightened that this woman could steal her husband.

Later we made some music together. Although both said they're just learners, both know a lot about music and also have extremely good equipment. Jordane is doing drums and Pierre is playing the guitar, and when he started to play it was really impressive – thereafter I first felt to shy to start myself. While to me the guitar is a way to accompany my singing, Pierre is able to play amazing turns and melodies, and he knows several styles – his sleight of hand is on a level I can only dream about. Curiously Pierre himself was impressed of my strumming technique and had problems to copy or do ordinary accord sequences. That's strange to me, but maybe it shows that it's just a question of practice – I definitely want to work on my guitar play and extend my abilities. It would be great to go on with music exchange (and of course exchange at all!) and I'm highly motivated to go on with learning from the guitar book I already have.

To me meeting Pierre and Jordane was very special and the best last hosts one could wish – just the right thing for the end of my trip.

Not my day (but in the end it became much more better)

2011-11-02T14:43:00.001Z

Tuesday, 4th of October. This wasn't my day. I felt nervous from the moment I woke up, I have had crazy, unpleasant dreams, I felt somehow confused. I only wanted to go on my bike as soon as possible, but somehow this didn't work. I couldn't find my map about this day's stage, so Ben printed some maps from the internet but we had a misunderstanding, so these maps were mostly useless for me. When starting to pack my bike I discovered my carrier now totally cark it – not only more than one assembly seam were free, also the main frame was broken at the position where the pannier used to hang up. We tried to make an improvisational repairing. But nevertheless now it was no longer static. Next I discovered I had lost some air in my back wheel. So what to do? Just use the air pump and see how long this would work or stay and search if there's a hole in the tube? I decided to push one's luck and it lasted for four kilometres until my wheel suddenly was flat. During reparation I found an old patch loosened. I decided to do it the easy way and just change the tube.

Going on with cycling I followed an asphalt track which leaded into a non asphaltic track through a forest. Hard ground but all of it bumps and potholes. Anything from comfortable cycling. I was really annoyed. Then the road became crazy – no straight forward, but lots of turns and windings in every direction. I had asked some people I met where this road would lead to and they named the village I was looking for, but they really should have told me that it wouldn't be a straight way. To me it felt like cycling in circles. Once I followed a branch path, because I could see the end of the forest, but at its end there was only a field, locked with a wire fence, non passable. So next thing I tried was following a dirt track parallel to the field with my bike – dirt track means sparsely grown forests one can tell tractors had driven along in earlier times. Of course I wasn't able to cycle. I stumped to the ground, overgrown with bramble springs, and tried not to get caught in these mantraps. Nevertheless my legs had lots of stitches and scratches after that. After getting over the second blown down tree and still no chance to leave the forest I gave up and went back, went on following the winding road wherever it would lead me to. When it came to an end after some more kilometres and I could also see the village from where I would knew my route, it became cold, windy and cloudy. I wouldn't had been surprised if some rain had come next, it would had fit to the day. Surprisingly the rain hold off.

Größere Kartenansicht

A) start
B) flat tyre
C) met people who said, the road would lead to Ville-en-Woëvre
D) followed branch path, then tried to follow a dirt track parallel to the field for maybe 500 metres, then returned
E) reached Ville-en-Woëvre to follow D 908 road – no more experiments!

It was 12 o'clock when I thought I would go on my bike, 1 o'clock when I finally had done the check up, decided to go on and had done the package (funny thing was that thereby I found my missing map), 2 o'clock when I had repaired my wheel, 3 o'clock when I was back on my route (and so far I had cycled maybe 15 kilometres). I had planed to arrive at today's hosts' home at 6 o'clock, and today's stage was also planed as a short and easy one with only 80 kilometres. I worried about this failing time schedule, I was looking forward to meet Pierre and Jordane since yesterday, they were looking forward to meet me, and now I would arrive probably very late so we wouldn't have much time together – stupid thing.

Also the problems with my bike became more serious. When I was back on the normal road I noticed a regularly bumming caused by my back wheel, with every rotation it gave me hitches – definitely no comfortable way to cycle and also much more cumbersome than it would have been with a ideal bike, but I would go on like this – with the decision on my mind, that this would be my last stage. After this I only would do the distance to the next train station in Germany. 4,000 kilometres in total would be definitely enough.

Still it wasn't easy to make a phone call. Close to 6 P.M. I found an ability in a bakery where I bought a piece of cheese cake (my first cheese cake since I left Germany!), as Pierre and Jordane expected me by this time – they had also pronounced some meal… But I could only reach the mailbox. It became night cycling and around 9 P.M. I finally arrived. It had been 95 kilometres.

Pierre was glad to see me, he had worried about me – my call hadn't arrived, later we assumed I must have had dialled a wrong number – he actually have had a look on my website, had found my phone number there and had called Klaus, who becalmed him, that I surely just would have some problems with the bike, but would soon or later arrive. I felt really moved about so much care. From the very first moment – already in they way they had answered my request – these people seemed to be so open and warm.

Most important thing to me this evening: For the second time in period I met people, who had decided not to define themselves about work. Pierre had quitted one and a half year ago when feeling constantly uncomfortable with the social relationships in his company. Nevertheless he's doing lots of things. He's an inspiring photographer – nothing one can live from, but a good thing to spend time with. It doesn't seem to be so impossible – even if society declared it to be unthinkable to have other plans and concepts for life then just go to work until getting retired. And it was good to hear that others also knew respectively had felt the social pressure, that one have to work – when visiting some relatives, Pierres mother took him by the side and whispered: “Don't tell you're not working – they wouldn't understand!” All these people, Pierre and Jordane as less as Ben, don't want to life on others and they all have to care about how to get some money for living, but there seams to be much more freedom to live different, as one would think.

It gave me such a good feeling to talk with Pierre and Jordane, I felt so good and welcome, so I suggested to stay for one more night, and both were glad about it. So in the end there was no loss caused by arriving so late.

Douaumont ossuary close to Verdun

2011-10-28T17:37:00.001+01:00

Monday, 3th of October. I stayed for two nights at Bens place. Ben lives in a very nice house. When arriving in the night we mainly said hello, and after a shower and a meal I went to bed. But next day, a Monday, we spend the whole day together, starting with a very intense talk.

Ben told, he quitted work three years ago, so I became sensitive and wanted to hear more. The meaning of work in people's life was and still is an important topic for me. Ben was so relaxed when talking about a different value system: staying at home gives him and also his family – he has a sixteen year old daughter and a wife – so much more freedom. They now have less money but they also need less. There was no need to go on doing things he didn't want to do. To me it's still new, that one can change priorities. I still have all these „You are what you own “ phrases in my head (what I never believed but what seem to infect me more then I was aware). To me it was kind of apparentness to met someone who's happy with not working after I found out about my bequeathed inferiority complex. It's probably possible to do so without feeling guilty.

I told Ben about the changing in my life – quitting my job at university and maybe quitting work at all. When telling all the aspects why I no longer felt comfortable in doing my job I was a little bit shocked because it's so much what came together that it's actually no wonder I'm not able to go on. Looking from this side on the facts was kind of new, usually I prone to think that's my fault to be over-sensitive and not able to be factual and distance myself. It's still hard not to judge myself but take my feelings as a healthy reaction.

It was a very good talk, but after it I felt pretty exhausted and talking came to an end for now. It was a bright sunshiny day. Later we drove by car to Verdun and I got a feeling about the area I had cycled through in the night. Ben told a lot about history especially the battles in the first and second world war. We visited Douaumont ossuary close to Verdun, a memorial containing the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefield during the Battle of Verdun in first World War. In front of the monument lies the largest single French military cemetery of the first world war, it contains 16,142 graves.

Some years ago there were made graves for the Muslims which now face to Mecca. But the most curious experience was that there were lot of crosses pulled up the ground and lying there like a trenched field. Because the crosses are made of concrete they have to rebuild regularly.

Ben also showed me the little windows behind the ossuary, placed under the big red ones which symbolize all the blood. Beneath you can see all the human bones, the remains of both French and German soldiers who died on the battlefield. Some of the cave rooms, each representing an area, were full to the top.

All in good time

2011-10-20T17:13:00.002+01:00

Sunday, 2th of October. I went on my bike at 10 A.M. and because I had written down detailed route instructions for the first time I had no problems to leave the town and find my route. When cycling through lots of small villages it felt like a real Sunday – silent and peaceful. Downright lost. Everything seemed to sleep – except the dogs, to whom my appearance must have been a real experience, they barked for me for minutes and went on when they couldn't see me long ago. A cyclist seems to be a really important event in a dog's life. Once I passed a flee market, which was nice, lots of people were there, but nothing for sale I wanted to have – at least nothing which was small and light enough (and I also tried not to find anything too much interesting…).

The day was wonderful sunny. During the whole forenoon I met lots of other cyclists – sports cyclists, promenade cyclists, some of them disguised as professionals, strolling cyclists, most of them men but of all ages, so I was constantly greeting. In the afternoon the heat became unpleasant, especially because I was once again in open country where the reaped fields in brown and yellow enhanced the impression of wasteland. But I had learned from experience and was very careful with my resources, so I did a siesta from time to time when I found some shadow, and once I almost felt asleep. From time to time the landscape was somewhat hilly but normally comfortable. And before the heat became too frustrating I passed a nice forest, a fact that my map had told me, too, so I had been looking forward to this for a while.

When being in the Meuse department I passed lots of tiny villages, which were connected by little roads, sometimes just very small asphalt paths which were nevertheless shown on my map. It was a real pleasure to cycle through this landscape. By going on like this I didn't recognize how time went by. I had watched out for a café or restaurant for a while, but this wasn't easy on this sleepy Sunday. In Triaucout-en-Argonne I finally found a little bistro, where I ate a big roll in company of a group of older corpulent men and women, who were in an extremely good mood and were joking and laughing all the time. I couldn't understand nothing, but it were ribald topics for sure. And the laughing was infectious.

Back on my bike the shadows had become very long. Sundown was really peaceful, good place to be. But surely it ended up with night cycling. When I arrived in Sommedieue it was dark and meanwhile I felt fairly exhausted. My route guided me into a thick forest, so the darkness became much more intense. And of course it went uphill – and the good thing was that I couldn't see how high angle the uphill was and how long it would least. To me it was just being in my smallest gears and do the pedal routine. The darkness was somehow frightening. My light made just a small spot in some distance and some noise came out of the forest. And it went on like this for quite a long time. At some point I began to believe that this path would never end and felt like being part of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's short story The Tunnel. When looking at the map later it had only been for ten kilometres, but ten kilometres in a dark forest with no time or speedo by constant uphill can become very long… I reached the little village Mesnil-sous-les-Côtes, home of my couchsurfing host Ben, after 145 kilometres at 10 P.M.

Reims

2011-10-19T21:29:00.001+01:00

Friday to Saturday, 1th of October. Antoine, a cute nineteen year old first semester, lived just for some weeks in a cosy small student flat just in the centre of Reims. We had nice talk when I arrived in the night, especially about our couchsurfing experiences, music (he is playing the guitar, too), psychology (his studying topic) and education system in France in general. It was relaxed and open atmosphere, and when we went to bed Antoine offered me his bed to sleep. He himself would sleep on a sleeping mat in then kitchen. But as his bed was a fold-out couch and therefore big enough for two people I invited him to share the place with me.

Next day Antoine showed me around somewhat, as the city was still new to him, too. I really like this city. It was a fantastic sunny day and the atmosphere was very relaxed. The Place Drouet d'Erlon, that is just in the next street of Antoine home, reminded me a lot of Victory Square in Temeswar (Romania), where Klaus and I had been some years before. It contains many lively restaurants and bars, as well as several attractive statues and fountains, my favourite one is shown at the photo above. During the summer it fills with people sitting outside the many cafés enjoying the summer sun. And they have psychedelic buses in this city…

In the afternoon Antoine did some work for university (he's still very engaged at the moment…), so I went to an Internet café to go on with my blog and organize my remaining stages and couchsurfing hosts. In the evening we met some of his friends and went out for a beer. Because Reims is a student city most night life happens during the week, on weekends all the students go home to visit their parents. This phenomenon was new to me and still seems a little bit weird.

Being with his friends was curious. Since my staying with Antoine and his flat mates in Caen I'm used to the French way of welcoming and biting farewell other people, it's no longer weird to kiss the air – nevertheless it's still a little bit strange that this convention on the one hand seems to be more personal as the German handshaking but on the other had it's much more difficult to break through and give the other one a real hug. So on first impression French people feel more close but at the same time they make sure to keep some distance. I don't know if they are aware of this, maybe they just can't imagine to act different. The friends of Antione in Reims were young nice man, but they weren't able or didn't have the heart to speak in English. So most of the time the three guys talked and had fun and then Antoine translated to me in three sentences the topic of the last five minutes. In this sense the first evening was much more nicer and personal. Once we played tabletop football, but the French table are totally different from the ones I'm used to in Germany. So I lost very bad. No fun.

Another thing I recognised and couldn't understand was the fact, that French people didn't seem to be aware of pollution control. As one example of many my fellows (and also the other people in the pub) drank their beer out of a plastic cup. I myself had ordered a Guinness and because the pub had only bottles they asked if I'm okay with the bottle, so I took the chance to ask for a glass – and I got one with a very nice unusual shape. Because I was curious I asked Antoine about this unnecessary production of waste, and first he seemed to understand the problem as he talked about French mentality who didn't want to change behaviour to change reality. But the more I focussed on the question, why he didn't drank his beer from a glass, the more he didn't seem to understand and ended up in the phrase that they always used to do so. Later in the discussion he assumed that the pub probably had charged me extra for having a glass (I had paid more than the others), so I had a nice chat with the people behind the bar, who assured to be glad to give people a glass – surely without any extra charging – if they would like to have one. I'm afraid French people are far away to think about all the little changes in behaviour to save nature which are so usual in Germany.

Regenerated

2011-10-18T11:04:00.002+01:00

Friday, 30th of September. Surprisingly I was regenerated next morning. Cycling was nice and easy, it was once again hot, but after the first maybe 20 kilometres on a high traffic road my route leaded me through some lovely forests. I was really amazed. And I didn't browbeat myself and just didn't thought about how far to go this day. Of course it took me a while to find my route although Laigneville is really small, but the French signing is still mad sometimes – you have to follow the guiding to a place which is somehow in your direction but definitely wrong and if you are lucky the place where you want to go is signed at the next junction. I have no idea how someone should know, to me it's trial and error, although there seem to be rules for this lack of logic.

This day I crossed three maps. In Villers-Cotterêts after around 60 kilometres I called Antoine that I would arrive this day and not have an extra break in a hotel as I had warned him the day before. Once again the people in a tourist information where so friendly to let me use their phone.

In the end it was a 145 kilometres stage, so it was naturally night cycling. I had no idea where in Reims Antoine would live, so I started to ask people about his street from the moment I saw the first town sign, and once again I was lucky and one cyclist guided me – sometimes the missing knowledge of foreign languages is useful because it causes more practical help.

The heat is killing me

2011-10-11T21:53:00.003+01:00

Thursday, 29th of September. I hurried to leave the hotel next morning. As soon as the day broke (okay, it was 9 A.M.) it became very sunny – very bright and warm. This day's stage began with a serious uphill what also permitted me a nice outlook over the whole city. By the way, Rouen is placed on the river Seine, that I thereby also got to know. No need to go to Paris, that I avoided by purpose.

As I said, it was hot and it stayed hot, and unfortunately my route leaded me along open field – no trees, no houses, what means no shadow. And the harvested land amplified the impression of heat in the parched veld. Not really comfortable to cycle through. I made lots of breaks. Usually one wouldn't do anything exhausting within such a heat. But my couchsurfing hosts in Laigneville would be able to host only this night, as they wanted to go on holiday the next day, and as there was no youth hostel in this area, I didn't had that much alternatives. And because I had lots of time – Guillaume and Padcalin wouldn't be at home before 9 P.M. – I took my time. And indeed it was 9 o'clock, when I finally arrived after 120 kilometres.

Once I cycled on a street which was made new, the asphalt still seemed to be hot – it's weird to be on such a road, I'm always frightened my tyre could melt… Actually it felt very different when I went on cycling – numberless little asphalt stones had glued onto my tyre and I spent some time to delete them by using my clasp knife, but found my tyre undamaged.

I had the pleasure to be the first couchsurfer of Guillaume and Padcalin, who had only surfed but not hosted before. Both were very friendly, they offered all an exhausted cyclist could probably need, although they were tiered themselves and still had to arrange a lot for their vacation. So we spent little time together, including a delicious meal, before we all went to bed early. I couldn't imagine to go on cycling the next day, but as there was no way to stay somewhat longer – I had to leave the house early next morning, as both went to work for half the day before going on holidays – I would cycle as long as I felt comfortable and would look for a hotel when cycling would become uncomfortable.

A real dosshouse…

2011-10-03T19:14:00.005+01:00

Wednesday, 28th of September. It became late when I finally left Caen. As always it was hot (close after noon I saw a display which told it was 30 degrees), as always it took me some time to leave the town. When I finally found my route it was a big road with lots of traffic. And it went like this for a longer time. It would be a long stage up to Rouen (in the end it was 140 kilometres) so I tried to do the most direct route, but therefore it wasn't that nice to cycle.

In Lisieux I saw one of the tourist information centres and once again asked for maps. The woman behind the desk, a German student, who worked at this place during the semester break, was extremely helpful and this tourist information was the best appointed one I saw during my tour – while the others only had maps of their department, here they had everything, so when leaving I had everything I would probably need. It's funny how different the maps are, there's no standardized design, no consistent size, each one is very unique.

It became night before I reached even the suburbs of Rouen and I had to hurry, because as far as I knew the youth hostel I planed to spend the night in would close at 10:30 P.M. and in the end it became a problem to catch the time. Rouen is much more bigger than I would have thought. I started to ignore most of the traffic rules, but it didn't help. It was 10:40 when I finally arrived at the youth hostel, and a man who was working there opened the door but only to tell that the reception was closed – he didn't car about my situation. It was really frustrating. Next thing I did was searching for a cheap hotel, and I ended up in a real dosshouse, best of it were the soft and clean towels. If you take it with some humour, it was definitely an interesting experience.

At first I wasn't so sure if this place was maybe a transient hotel, the friendly but somehow sleazy fat man at the reception couldn't speak more than a few words English, but nevertheless he didn't stop to talk and to ask for details of my tour, while we tried to communicate about the details of renting a room. When I finally came into the room, there were two beds, each placed in one of the corners, which seemed to be camp beds with uncomfortable innerspring mattresses. Inside this room there was also a shower installed, a special feature which costs me 5 € extra and had caused lots of mildew on ceiling and walls. The toilet was outside at the staircase.

Time out in Caen

2011-10-01T16:31:00.018+01:00

Tuesday, 27th of September. I took a time out in Caen, and it was a very relaxed day. I went on with my blog (but was very slow because I felt very tiered, too). In the evening we, this means Antoine, his two flat mates Amin and Marine, Sebastian, a friend of him who is also living in the flat at the moment (he came for one week to visit, but felt in love with the city so he's staying somehow longer) and Tino, the other couchsurfer, went to the town, had a drink in an Irish pub and had some fun at the castle Château de Caen. Sebastian is a very ambitious photographer, and all of us had fun when posing.

The Greenway in Manche

2011-10-01T16:12:00.004+01:00

Monday, 26th of September. I would have loved to stay longer with Olivier and his family, but one shouldn't outstay one's welcome, so the next morning after a restorative breakfast Olivier drove me back to the café where we first met and I went on cycling. In Ducey I visited the tourist information to ask for cyclist's maps, and the woman in the office was exhilarated to help me, because in this area they had a greenway, a re-used railway track which leads through the green nature without any traffic. And while I still had some doubt because this would lengthen my stage even more, the woman exert herself to convince me – it would be easy cycling, because it's really flat and so nice… and she was right. Olivier had warned me, that the route up to Caen would be very hilly, so it was surely the right decision to take the greenway. It was just nice and relaxing cycling. I was also glad to have such a fine map. The landscape wasn't somehow special but very familiar from lots of tours I did in Germany. It was nice to have this train history background, and there were also some very nice outlooks. But mostly I liked the old train station houses. The only challenge were the uncountable conkers and bell-ends, which were laying spaced all over the ground, but this wasn't a problem at all.

After 75 kilometres close to Vire the greenway came to its end, so the remaining 60 kilometres became hilly, but it was still nice cycling. Surely it became late, surely it was night cycling. When I neared Caen there were lots of toads on the road trying to pass. I tried not to kill them, so I had to cycle wiggly lines, but I assume the chances for the toads weren't so good – actually there were more flat pads on the street then toads alive… Don't they have any tunnels for the toads in France?

It was great to see the city lights of Caen in the night! But I was also exhausted. Once again it had been nearly 150 kilometres – I think I'm a little bit crazy, and maybe it's no wonder that I arrive so late every day… This day it was 10 P.M. Coming to Antoine's place was a good thing. He's so nice, friendly and tolerant. Even if he's actually a couchsurfing newbie he acts like a natural born couchsurfer. He lives with two others together, Amin and Marine, and there was also another couchsurfer, Tino, who was on a motorcycle tour for some month and had arrived today, too, it was fun to join this community. It was also a pleasure to meet Tino. He's very relaxed, uncomplicated and positive. It was fun to talk in German and to compare our experiences when being on long distance touring and doing couchsurfing most of the time. I taught him how to juggle, and he was such a fast learner! Maybe it helps if you are a drummer…

Much to little sleep

2011-09-28T09:12:00.003+01:00

Sunday, 25th of September. Leaving the bed was easy, but staying awake became a problem. Nice night, starry sky, but after my experience on my way to Baltimore I'm fastidious… A special experience, although I didn't really understand why we had to come so early, it had to do with the tides, as far as I understand, but I didn't noticed something special there. The Mont Saint-Michel is definitely worth seeing, but it's so extremely touristic (on a usual day you are not able to go but shuffled by the masses) and therefore curious, similar to the Cliff of Moher – a big road leads to it and in front of Mont Saint-Michel there's a big parking place. Indeed they are planning to build a bridge instead of the road. Fortunately so early in the morning there are only a few people, so it's really quiet and peaceful. To me it was mainly a very nice walk, also nice to climb the stairs and so on, but then the big tiredness came over me, so I was sitting there, eyes closed and became very cold, until we drove back with the car to have some breakfast at the youth hostel.

Then I went on my bike, but I was extremely slow, and became more and more tired. Once again the day would become very sunny and warm. Once again I started to sweat. I couldn't find my sunglasses this morning, but this time I'm sure it wasn't my fault, it must have fallen out of my bag somehow. I laboured along for some kilometres, every uphill so little it could be I felt so intense, I was always in my smallest gears, I wasn't able to do different. I realized I wouldn't be able to do today's stage and tried to figure out how to go on: Go to Caen by train? (Next train station was still 20 kilometres away, I had to learn) Quit the tour? (Wouldn't this be somehow extreme?) I had to find an internet connection (or a public phone) to agree with my today's host and also to learn about the train possibilities and other alternatives. It was pretty hard to think and not to become desperate… When arriving in Saint-James after maybe 20 kilometres I asked some people in a café about an internet café or other ways to connect to the internet – once again it was very difficult to communicate, what was very frustrating in this situation. The men agreed that there used to be an internet café in this village, but it's closed on Sunday.

I must have looked very bad – suddenly a man addressed to me and offered, I could use his computer at home. He had called his wife before, I had seen him using his phone but had no idea this had to do with me. I was really glad – a gleam of hope. I left my bike at the café and drove with Olivier in his car to his house and family. Olivier and his family, too, were so friendly, so helpful. Not only let me use the computer, but also offered something to drink and to eat – Valerie, Olivier's wife makes a fantastic chocolate cookie! After a while sitting on the computer and became more and more cold I realized that it wouldn't help to go by train – I just needed a bed, so the only thing to do next would be looking for a hotel and fall asleep. When I told this to Olivier, who came from time to time to see how I was, he just said: “Hmhm” and left the room, and when he came back, he once again had talked to his wife, and now he offered me to stay, I could use the little daughter's room… So unbelievable! So helpful! So trustful! I didn't know what to say, this helped so much, I was glad, so happy, now I could relax. They showed me the room, the bath and then the family left the house, and I went to bed and I was fast asleep until they came back some hours later.

I was able to do some better route planning this day and I also spend much time talking with Olivier, who was glad to be able to practice his English (Valerie only speaks French). Olivier was also very interested in the idea of couchsurfing, especially because this could be a way for him to better his English – currently he is only able to practice during a weekly phone call with a teacher and when he's visiting other countries. So maybe I made a new couchsurfer… It was so relaxed, such a nice atmosphere. This is one of my most important and special experiences I had on my tour – taking a stranger and make her feel at home. I just can say many, many thanks – mercy, mercy, mercy! Many thanks for your trust, for your faith and for being so friendly and open. I felt so welcome… I hope, we stay in touch, and I would love to host you in Bamberg. Olivier, you are a real friend, much love to you and your family.

From Saint-Brieuc up to Pontorson

2011-09-27T21:23:00.004+01:00

Saturday, 24th of September. Now my speedo is totally broken, but unexpectedly this didn't effect me… Now I count my kilometres by reconstruct my tour on Google maps, and I don't care about the exact number – after likely 3000 kilometres it doesn't really matter, and I'm also okay with not knowing how much kilometres I still have to do.

It took me two hours to leave Saint-Brieuc and really find my route… It was around 2 P.M. (and probably around 15 kilometres) when I could start straight cycling. But on my way I saw interesting thinks like this rodeo machine…

Once again hilly cycling, sunny cycling – I was sweating all the time! Still nice, still exhausting. Once when I stopped to ask for refilling my water bottles a very nice woman invited me for a coffee. She was able to speak German and glad to have the chance to practice.

Once again I had problems to find my route when passing a town. In Dinan it was not only that the D 794 road I had followed up to the town and wanted to follow also when leaving the town wasn't signed anymore, it's general this bad signing: The signs placed on the exits of a roundabout for example are only readable if you are within the roundabout. It was also much traffic this day, that means stop and go, caused by a marathon that happened this day.

Also once again it became very late till I arrived at the end of today's stage after 125 kilometres. I had some hours of night cycling, and this feels also very familiar, because it's not so cold at all after sundown, but sometimes the air is very cold, just for some dozen metres. It was close to 10 P.M. when I finally arrived in Pontorson and also found the youth hostel – but no one of the staff was there anymore, they had closed the reception at 8:30… Some of the guests opened the door for me, and one of them offered me a place in the room where he and his friends where in, because there were still some beds free. But I would have to stand up together with them at 5 A.M. because they wanted to visit Mont Saint-Michel and didn't want me to stay alone in the room. When we had some more talk later they invited me to join them, and I was glad to be able to do so, because some people on my tour had told me about it, but I hadn't realize I was so close, just ten kilometres away. But for the moment I was just exhausted and after a short shower I felt asleep.

France

2011-09-27T16:06:00.002+01:00

Friday, 23th of September. Good sleep, good morning, still amazing, full of new energy and curious for the new day… When arriving in France at Roscoff harbour it was bright sunshine – so warm, I didn't needed my long sleeved shirt, I needed my sunglasses and suncream! During the last weeks I sometimes had thought I was maybe to late with my tour, so cycling time was over, but here in France it was just best late summer. Switching back to the right side of the street wasn't a problem, it's just the other routine, and now I can do both… Everything felt so much more like home,the landscape, the weather – I can't really explain.

But what's a real problem in France is the signing. If there's a system (and I don't think so) I don't get it. It's not that they give you some orientation by naming the next bigger cities or villages. When you leave the direct, big ways, which usually leads into motorways, they just name the next village, but sometimes they stop before arriving and name some other village close to where you are… Usually they say nothing about the distances. And what makes it more worse is that my map is also not good, wrong map scale, justified for car drivers, but it was the best I could get on the ferry. It doesn't tell anything about the smaller villages, so I can't make a connection between signs and map. And I also had to learn that the people who made my map had their own understanding of which roads are important to show, they don't orientated themselves on types of streets, so sometimes the route I follow end on my map but goes on in reality.

I needed some time to figure these things out, had to make some detours and also had to learn that most French people don't speak English or another foreign language. So I ask them in English the others answer in French and then I do what they have told me respective they do what I have asked them – it's surprising this works! But nevertheless I feel a little bit lost and much more thrown back on my own resources. Every time I cross a bigger village or town it's really difficult to find back my route, they stop signing and naming the roads name/number! So all this takes lots of time… Morlaix for example is a really worth seeing town, but without the help of a local I would have lost my way…

France is hilly. Acceptable hilly, but hilly, so cycling is demanding. Here in France within this fantastic weather I really become aware that I do challenging sports all the time. I didn't felt so when I was in Ireland. There it was just fighting with nature powers. Here I'm only fighting with myself. Cycling the small roads is just great. Less traffic, familiar landscape, very relaxed, all this remembers me a lot of all the one or two day tours I did with Klaus. This whole France experience is just godsend.

But as one can imagine, the cycling took lots of time and it was also a long distance – in the end I had cycled 140 kilometres when I reached the city limit of Saint-Brieuc. It was night cycling for the last hour. I stopped a car to ask for the directions to my host's place, and instead of giving directions, the kind young woman told me to follow her – she guided me with her car until I was at my goal. It wasn't that far, but once again I couldn't believe how friendly and helpful people act to me!

Then I met Sylvain, my couchsurfing host for this night, and it was such a nice welcome. After taking a shower I felt so relaxed, so awake, so positive… It was fun to talk with him. Sylvain was just lovely, so cute, very committed in giving me a good time and also so sweet in being a newbie, as I had the pleasure to be his first couchsurfer. I was curious about the differences between the couchsurfing groups vegetarians and gay vegetarians – he's a member of both. Maybe one can imagine what my pervert fantasy imagined… I would have loved to stay longer and spend much more time together as he is very easy going, curious and positive, but I had to go on my bike and he had to learn for an exam. Really hope to meet him again…

Leaving Ireland

2011-09-27T14:04:00.001+01:00

Thursday, 22th of September. I left Patti and Mark in the morning to cycle the 75 kilometres back to the ferry the same way I had come to some weeks before. Interesting to see how different my feelings were now, nothing left of seeing everything as new and amazing, everything was just usual, banal and a little boring – nevertheless nice. For the first time for weeks no clouds all the time, it became a really sunny day, and when there were clouds, it was far away from raining.

The crying came over me from time to time and culminated in the sentence: One's worthless if one's not working. I didn't know how deep my father's inferiority complexis working inside of me. I think I understand the mechanism, but I can't change my feelings, so it's still something to work on. For now I think it's just good to have some insight. Nevertheless it was just awareness, pure feeling. I didn't felt bad at all. Mainly I was still glad to come back home, and also full of faith, curious what will happen, how I will go on. And generally I'm really optimistic and think I'm on a good way.

Also at the ferry harbour it was really nice, the whole procedure was very relaxed – and then the ferry… The Oscar Wilde is not only a really big ship, but it's a real ship, that means as the most important fact for me one with a sun deck! For the first hour I milled around, looking for all the new things, seeing how things work… It was just amazing. As Melanie had told my I set up camp in my reserved seats room and put my sleeping mat and bag to the floor, as some others did, too. I felt so new, so refreshed – in this sense I'm pretty green, but it's great if you can be thrilled by a passage and all the things what are connected.

For the first time since I'm on tour my t-shirt with the free hugs print at both sides really worked! When I was walking around I heard some people talking about it, and when I met them later (something had fallen off my pocket down the stairs and one of them kept it and gave it back to me) I offered directly a hug, and he was glad – I think it was his first time – and made an “Oooh”-sound when being hugged. Later when I once again did my tour on the ferry an older man (he's 65 I had learned) asked me: “Is this true?”, referring to my shirt, so we had a really warm long hug, and I also hugged his wife, sitting next to him, who said while hugging: “Oh, I miss my daughter so bad!” Then they invited me for a glass of wine (and more glasses later…), and we spent the whole night together. Barbara had been a nun when she was very young, following the will of her parents when she was sixteen, but two years later she felt in love with a priest, so she quit, but the priest didn't. Later when meeting her husband Michael she became mother of four children. They invited me to come to their home in Cork and also to sleep in their cabin – so nice, so friendly and also a little bit drunk… During our conversation once a man came to me from the back and while saying: “I can't resist…!” he hugged me from the back, and than I answered his hug from the front, too. I also had a funny little moment, when I had eye contact with a retired man who obviously had read my shirt, so I gave him a smile and he answered very polite: “No, I don't want to…”

Back home via France!

2011-09-21T23:05:00.002+01:00

Wednesday, 21th of September. Tomorrow I will take the ferry back home – home to the continent, where I will understand less then here, I assume, but feel much closer to home, I suppose (when I left the continent it was the first time, that I felt being far away from home). My stages are planed. Except one stage at all these places is a youth hostel located, so in case something went wrong with my couchsurfing hosts, it don't has to bother me so bad.

I'm so glad to come back home! I sent a mail to my boss at university that I will quit. Although I still have no reasonable explanation and still think it's illogical and irrational, I feel better now. And I yearn so much for Klaus, my love. So much things to look forward!

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General thoughts about the package

2011-09-20T03:34:00.002+01:00

Tuesday, 20th of September. I'm pretty contended with the lot and the things I have packed. I have met several people who had said I have pretty much stuff with me and if it's very heavy (it isn't). Melanie was the first one, who was fascinated how few things I have with me – she isn't a cyclist and much more used to travelling with a van, but it's good to hear something like this, too. I needed some time to realize she didn't meant her statement ironical… To me it felt all the time like not to much and not to little. So here for the statistics:

Bicycle clothes

3 cycling shirts: 1 good, 2 normal. One of them is really for emergency and for the good feeling to have some clean stuff as a backup. I never had more than two of them in usage, but some days where I would have needed the third one if there wouldn't have been a washing machine. (I don't mind of the clothes are dirty, but I don't like to smell…)
1 long sleeved compression sports underwear shirt: Best I've ever had. And although the sellers named it underwear it is pretty good to wear as a normal long sleeved shirt.
2 padded knee length cycling shorts, 2 long sports tights: Since the weather is so cold I wear the shorts and the tights on top of each other (I have also 1 padded pants, that was great in August, but now are the cycling shorts better). It's perfect to have two pairs for changing…
1 pair of cycling gloves: It was new when I started the tour. Now it's pretty used and close to get broken, maybe I need some new ones soon. Sometimes I also would like to have a pair of cycling gloves were the fingers are protected, too. But at the moment the mitten addition connected to my rain coat works good enough.
1 cap: Perfect as sun protection, also good to keep the head warm. And it fits perfect together with the rain cap of my rain coat. I don't like that much how I look, but this shouldn't matter.
1 functional bandanna: Best to have to protect the neck from the wind.
1 cycling sun glasses: It was much more important when it was warm and sunny, but now I know how useful these sun glasses can be (although I don't like how I look when wearing them).
1 pair of rain pants: Needless to say more.
1 pair of gaiters: Most important, best one can have (especially if only one pair of shoes is packed…).
1 rain coat: Very light and works also perfect as a windbreaker.
1 warm jacket: Becomes more and more useful and works on the bike as good as after cycling.

Other clothes

around 5 pants: I don't have an overview, because when I need one I grab into my bag and until now I found more than enough.
around 5 pairs of socks: Same as with the pants. But I think much more often it could be too little, especially as I have warm and not so warm socks…
3 bras: Need all but never needed more.
2 pairs of footed socks: Good to have with me. Wore the thinner pair when it was warmer, now I use the other pair.
1 pair of jeans, 1 pair or thin trousers: First to wear outside, second to wear inside. Get dirty sometimes, but who cares? If both were laundered at the same time, I can still use one of the tights, and the trousers dry very fast.
4 3 t-shirts: 2 for usual wearing, one mostly for nights, the 1 to much I was glad to give to Melanie as a present to say thanks for the shelter she gave me – so in this sense the shirt was definitely worth it to take with me.
1 long sleeved cord shirt: I love it.
1 cord bonnet: I love it.
1 long sleeved shirt: As an alternative to the cord bonnet, also able to wear over it (but if it's cold I usually choose the warm jacket).
1 pair of shoes: Works fine, they went wet one time, but went dry again over night with some newspapers inside.
1 warm tuque: I use it as a sleepyhead when it's cold around me.
3 neckerchiefs: 1 I use nearly all the time when I'm not on the bike, 1 to protect Hobbes from falling down and get lost (what's totally dispensable, Hobbes says), 1 big one I don't need.
1 swimming suit, goggles: Useless. But one can never know…

miscellaneous

1 wash bag: Full of useful things, some of them I never use.
drugs: Most of them against headache, but fortunately I need them extremely seldom. Most important: magnesium. Also some emergency stuff if I get wounded. Things like this. Didn't miss anything.
1 sketchbook: Works also (or mostly) as a diary, notebook and collection of paper stuff.
1 pencil case: Full of fine liners and felt pens in different colours, some small brushes and pencils – just what one needs.
1 map with paper stuff what accrued: Good to have a place where collect those stuff, but I thought more than once about sending this map with its content back home. Otherwise it was good to show some of the papers to other people and talk about it…
1 little map with songs: My general orientation when playing the guitar. Very useful if I don't know what to play. When I started my tour I had also my big Beatles songbook with me, but this was some weight I had to get rid off.
1 western guitar: It was the right decision to take it with me, that's for sure. It's good to be able to play, and it's also an effective eye catcher when people see me crossing with the guitar on top of my package…
1 electronic tuner, 1 capo: Very useful when one's travelling with a guitar.
1 digital photo camera: Useful and important tool.
1 torch: I feel much more relaxed since I bought it.
some (rechargeable and non-rechargeable) batteries: Had to buy the non-rechargeable batteries when I bought the torch, but it's also good to have a backup if the rechargeable ones are empty.
3 small, 2 tiny juggling balls: I don't really use them, but otherwise they don't bother. And it's not wrong to have some more options – and I remember some great nights where I and my hosts had some fun with them.
1 glue stick: Really needful thing.
adhesive film: Really needful thing. I need it a lot to repair the map… Tape in general is very useful.
1 loo paper: Really needful thing, although I didn't needed it urgently on this tour.
some bicycle tools: Needless to say, really needful things. I missed some small things but nothing important.
1 mp3 player/USB stick: Includes some of my music which is good to be able to listen and also good to share. And it has enough space that I can use it to secure copy the photos I'm taking.
1 map of Ireland: Really needful thing. I think I will buy a map of France, too.
1 sleeping bag: Really needful thing.
1 sleeping mat: Really needful thing.
1 rucksack: It's usually packed inside one of my panniers. Very handy to have something to carry things with me what is independent from the bike.
2 panniers: That's where most of the stuff is packed in.
1 bumbag: I use it for many years as a handlebar bag, it includes all the stuff I want to reach while cycling and it has written on it “Never give up”.
1 stuffed tiger: One need a friend on such a trip.
some more little things that are not important or big enough to be counted: Little plastic bags for example are very useful, so I collect them. Same with rubber band and tissues.

I'm caving in

2011-09-19T19:44:00.003+01:00

Monday, 19th of September. I not only did the direct route to Dublin, I did it by train. Saturday was once again just a rainy day and I wasn't in the mood to go out and cycle. Wherefore? Sean, Anne's boyfriend, had agreed to host me, Anne was happily in Dublin, too, at the moment, and we arranged to meet in an Irish club where they wanted to go to this evening.

When I wanted to buy my ticket the woman on the counter referred me to the train people to asked if I could take my bike with me. First they weren't so sure but then they agreed. Going by train isn't so popular in Ireland, most people are using the buses. There are not that much routes, and also the usage differs from the way it is in Germany, it's much more relaxed but also seems to be much less organized.

I liked the train ride. A new facet of my Ireland image. But all over Ireland the same boring weather. When I arrived in Dublin I tried to open my perception for this place, and actually it was a little like an interesting new experience – big colourful lights, night life, maybe somehow unique… I had some optimism, and it was fun to navigate through the city centre to find the club where I would meet Anne and Sean. Club Conradh na Gaeilge is a non-governmental organisation that promotes the Irish language in Ireland and abroad – so Sean taught me how to order my guinness in Irish (but I can't remember the spelling anymore…). I had a little faith by seeing Anne again, but was also fragile inside of me. When I'm in this mood I need lots of affirmation that people really like me and mean it. Otherwise I feel bound to act self confident, to show I'm an interesting person, who is worth the time to spend with and no boring burden. And Anne and Sean were very friendly but also busy. And then I'm not so sure if people just try to be nice but not really care.

On Sunday I once again cycled the ten kilometres up to the city centre but felt so lonely I wasn't able to motivate myself to do some touristic or cultural stuff. Dublin is so loud, so much people, so much traffic (this day lots of people on the street were celebrating because some sports team had won some game), and I was so small and lost. For the first time on my tour I really missed Klaus, because there was no reason to discover this town without him. I went to an Internet café that also gave me a bad feeling about being impersonal and not trustful and secure because of the suggestion to lock the rucksack. This was the time when the crying started. I couldn't stand it, couldn't control it, It was just losing all cohesion. I tried to find something to hold on to, but in the end there was just crying and this complete caving in. I cycled back to Sean's place, when another rain caught me. But those things couldn't get me down, I felt so lost and without any faith, so it didn't matter or was just fitting.

When I was back, Sean asked if I wasn't okay, so my small ability to buck up got lost again. My only idea how to help myself was to take the next train up to Tramore, as this place was the closest to home I could get in the moment. Sean wasn't reserved when I couldn't hold back tears and tried to say helpful things – that I surely miss my boyfriend, that I'm probably homesick, what actually isn't wrong but when you are so much caving in those statements can't really help. I needed to stay with friends where I could be sure it would be okay to burden them with myself. And I couldn't imagine it could be fun for Sean to have me around crying all the time because I feel so lost and don't know how to go on with my life. So I packed my stuff. When saying good bye Sean seemed to be really concerned. He regret we didn't spend more time together to get to know each other and do some music together. And then he gave me a long and warm hug. This felt so good. Maybe I could have had some more trust. But going to a place where I could be sure to feel comfortable felt much more safer.

During this train ride the crying came over me from time to time, but changed it's character. It wasn't no longer just feeling lonely and homesick but much more about feeling helpless and desperate about still don't know how to go on with my life. Am I a loser if I can't stand society's rules? What makes oneself a worthwhile person? Am I bad and selfish if I just produce this feelings that I can't stand it anymore? Isn't it just handy to wallow in self-pity about my suffering and just feel to ill as I would be able to do what all people have to do? It's all gridlocked and I can't figure out these conflicts. Why can't I be different? Maybe I use my feelings to manipulate others, so if I would be an worthwhile person I would just feel different. I don't want to fulfil any demand anymore. But a worthwhile person would just be able not to think about these things as demands.

When I left the train a woman wished me good luck on my trip home what felt good. Night cycling the ten or fifteen kilometres up to Tramore was nice, so in the end I cycled nearly 50 kilometres this day. This evening I realized for the first time that the days have become significant shorter – it was dark when I get on my bike at 8 P.M. So once again: Maybe it's also not the best time for cycling. And I still don't have to. I'm looking forward to come back home. And cycling through France could be nice, I think I will give it a try. But first I will stay with Patti and Mark and have some good talks like we started to do yesterday. It's not that I'm unhappy. I just don't know how to change live and become satisfied. And it doesn't help that I'm so annoyed about myself and think I'm putting myself much to center-stage.

Ireland sucks

2011-09-17T14:09:00.002+01:00

Saturday, 17th of September. Once again: Rain, clouds, wind – it looses all its fun. So I'm changing plans again: I will not cycle the North of Ireland and Northern Ireland. My last vision is Dublin, where it shouldn't matter if it's raining or not, because there I will be just a visitor doing sightseeing – and then it's only two more stages until I will see my first Irish hosts and friends Patty and Mark again, with whom I will spend my last days in Ireland.

Yesterday started good. Some short rain shower shortly after leaving Castlebar (so once again a stop to put on the rain protection and then take off after ten minutes, but without the changing I would have been soaked). Then nice sun for maybe two hours. Fast and easy cycling for the first 50 kilometres. The area of Lough Conn is just great, but when I left it became cloudy and also some misty rain started from time to time. It also becomes autumn, what normally would be good, but if it means this bad weather, it isn't.

Cycling the N 59 from Ballina up to Sligo was definitely the wrong idea. Road and landscape are just boring – just a straight way with continuous ups and downs. And I don't realize an uphill, I'm just thinking: "Oh I'm not that fast, seems I'm more in a comfortable mood right now", and when it goes downhill I become clear. But it's nothing nice about this. Give me winding roads in interesting landscape, and I don't care about if it's hilly!

I had an acceptance for hosting me in Sligo, but no contact details – neither an address nor a phone number, so I hoped for a couchsurfing message when I arrived in Sligo, what I did after 110 kilometres at 5 P.M., but no message. I thought about going on after some warm food. but after being on the N 15 for two kilometres without any chance to cross a nice pub or restaurant, I decided to return – I definitely wouldn't cycle this disgusting road! And while thinking so I also didn't see any usage for going on to the North. And the fact, that I didn't had any contact details of my host in Ballylifllin confirmed my resolution.

So at least I found a good place to eat in Sligo and to think about how to go on. I felt really frustrated. Not about power. Not about no cycling anymore. It's just that I don't like it here at all. I don't feel comfortable. So I don't have to stay here. But nevertheless I could have cried. The nice woman in the Café Society helped me a lot when let me use her private internet access and also her phone and actually helped me to guide Kate, my host in Sligo (who meanwhile had answered again, so mow a I had a mobile number), to her place – Kate was so lovely to pick me up (I felt really lost in this town, I'm too sensitive to traffic and crowd). So it wasn't that easy but after some trouble we met.

Sligo has lot's of traffic, all in a one way street system… I don't feel comfortable in all these towns, Limerick doesn't seem so unusual at all. I love these small villages with all these colourful little shops, but not the towns. I don't know if it's because of the weather or the North – maybe people are different here. Maybe I have to much insight in people's daily routine and can't see any beauty in it any longer. Maybe people told me to much about the real Irish, what just means their experiences as a foreigner in this country. I don't know. At the moment I'm looking much more forward to cycle France.

On the road again!

2011-09-17T12:55:00.002+01:00

Thursday, 15th of September. I felt like doing cycling, I was awake, and it looked good outside. The whole forenoon it felt like the new morning, some gentle light, like from the first morning sun. And also when I was on my bike. it felt so peaceful, and I was constantly looking around to see all the beauty which surrounded me. So totally different from my last impression when I first cycled this roads with all the storm and rain and force of nature.

In Clifden I lost my way without noticing. Clifden seems to be very nice, but it doesn't care about ones orientation – barely a sign. So when I found one, I was glad to follow, but didn't thought about the road I was looking for didn't start in this town, so there were two ways for it (I wanted to cycle the N 59 up to Westport, but took accidentally the direction up to Galway). Nevertheless the landscape was nice and interesting, and when 20 kilometres later I realized how I went wrong, it wasn't a loop way, just an alternative way which didn't lead along the coast but along Darryclare Lough and Ballynahinch Lough, and when cycling the R 334 it was just great, such a nice little road. Now I was in the really hilly area of Connemara, but the road wasn't effected that much by this, some ups and downs, nice winding, but to both sides the mountains raise, Maumturk Mountains to the right and Twelve Bens to the left. And lots of sheep next to and on the road!

So it was just lovely new cycling, not that windy, mostly sunny. Originally I had planed to cycle the R 335 from Aasleagh up to Westport, but after a short break I noticed some tiredness, so I decided to take the shorter route, that also would be nice, a local woman told me, and it was. (It's so enjoyable, you just have to sit with your packed bike somewhere and people will come to you and ask about your doing…) The weather changed a little, so it was still bright clear sky in front, but cloudy and stormy behind me, and the dark clouds tried to catch me, but it wasn't that worse.

Once I passed a building, where a sign on the wall in front attract my attention: stop and pray. Just in the middle of nowhere. Then I realized the building was a church, build in modern style. The sign works, but just for half: When I was taking my photo another car stopped, too, but both we forgot about the praying…

In Westport after 80 kilometres of cycling I had a bigger break to eat something salty, and when standing up again, I had abruptly bad biting in my calves like getting a cramp – it came out of nothing. I did some stretching and took an extra magnesium and then it was okay again, no problems when going on with cycling. But very curious.

I arrived in Castlebar after 115 kilometres and didn't had any problems to find the home of this night's couchsurfing host John, to whom I had contact since I arrived in Ireland. Unfortunately my towel didn't arrive, I have no idea what has happened, I have contacted Allan but are waiting for reply at the moment – hopefully my stuff didn't get lost. Curiously I don't want to buy a new towel.

John was just nice, although he was tired of working the last three nights and haven't really slept since the last night. But I felt comfortable from the first moment. John has a unbelievable shower, which is located immediate behind a door – so the shower room isn't bigger than the shower tube!

It was a very relaxed evening we spend together and also curious, as there were some other people who were very – let's say: fascinated about conspiracy theory respective UFOs, aliens and the government who knows about this but does not tell us. They showed me some very weird "documentaries" on You Tube, that were made so extremely emotional manipulative – filming of unidentified objects and lights, crazy frightened people on the phone, scary music in the background, most reports taken from the news, so very popular level and much more entertaining, especially when the announcers talked about the features…

Johns brother shocked me when mentioned, I must have very rich parents to be able to do such a trip – it's not only that actually I'm doing this trip in very cheap way, but to think I could be one of these spoiled kids who never have to do something for the things they get! He couldn't be more wrong about me. One should think others know that such a bicycle tour isn't always fun.

The remaining stages in Ireland

2011-09-14T16:45:00.002+01:00

Wednesday, 14th of September. I feel good again, the weather is much better, and I'm looking forward to cycle again tomorrow, but nevertheless now it's with the feeling of being on my way back home (what seems to be weird if I have a look on the map, but probably make sense if you have all the cycling in mind what I did since I left Bamberg). For nearly all stages I know my couchsurfing hosts right now, what also gives me a good feeling. I will not put more effort in the search, one will see how it works, hostels are okay, too – but I love to look forward to meet other couchsurfers.

View Larger Map
Once again this map shows the closest Google maps allows me to create…

A place to rest where one can be

2011-09-13T18:28:00.002+01:00

Tuesday, 13th of September. Today is the first day where I feel generally okay again. I woke up early, awake, also it was sunny outside(!). The last days I felt terrible, was just down, ate all the time, felt exhausted, tired, flabby. Originally I had planed to stay for one night at Melanie's place but she offered me to stay as long as I want, so I'm still here, waiting for the storm to go away. And indeed, since this day it seems to become better. Thursday I will go on up to Castlebar, visiting my next host John, to whom I had contact from time to time as he was one of the people who said me welcome from the random request I made in Margate. So I'm looking forward to meet him finally. I also hope to see my towel again, that Allan has hopefully send early enough to his adress…

I think I wasn't a good couchsurfer the last days – one who is an enrichment for the others. I just felt down, depressed, bushed, cried a lot for no reason when I was alone. I was quiet, felt to be awkward. Just a boring person who's vegging out – most of the time in front of the computer. But this doesn't seem to bother Melanie. Her two boys are also just lovely – smart and sprightly. Melanie is doing a real good job as a mother. We had some very good talks, I took along what I could from her life story and once again about the question how to be happy without fulfilling society's requirements (and I still don't understand why this is rooted so deep inside of me…). I hope I could give a little bit back when teaching her some easy but impressive tricks on the guitar. And I hope she recognized how good all this did to me. Many thanks and much love. I'm still learning.

A new landscape – but this can't help

2011-09-13T17:29:00.002+01:00

Saturday, 10th of September. I left Galway with the feeling of escaping. I couldn't open my heart and my soul to the maybe or probably existing nice side of this town. To me it's just a symbol how fragile my world is. I first had to regenerate. But cycling the R 336 along the coast wasn't much better, it felt boring and soulless. One interesting thing was this so called craft village, very commercial and touristic but if it works, fair enough.

Once again I felt weary and couldn't really find into the cycling. But my edging of light was Melanie, my next host, who had answered so fast and nice to my request I sent from Aille River Hostel, that I knew this would be a warm and friendly place. When I left the straight way to west the landscape began to change, what was good. It also was very windy. This morning I had said to myself: Wind is okay but please no rain again, and so it came. I had sunny times, clouds and some more or less misty rain but nothing what sob you. But this day I had to learn, that it's much more easier to resist the rain than the wind if you are in it all the time.

When coming to Derryrush I decided not to cycle along the coast of the peninsula but to use a small road, because although it would be enough kilometres this day, I didn't trust the coast in this area and the wind had started to change into storm. This asphaltic path I now cycled was just like lost in the wide and power of nature. Those things frightened me, it's this Into the wild feeling. It's just too big, too powerful. It was an intense experience. In this area called Connemara Ireland has lost all it's green and remembered me much more of a mixture of Kansas (or what I think Kansas would be or once was or still is in The Wizard of Oz) and the German Lüneburg Heath than Ireland.

This storm was so intense! The only good thing or in one way good thing was that it changed constantly his direction, so not really a bad problem with adverse winds, but all this power all the time! Crosswind where one could and had to lean against. For a short time sometimes following wind, but the main experience was just all this power, and it was so loud, too, because the wind made lots sound with my rain coat. It's exhausting in a weird way, because the struggle isn't so much in the muscles when it makes no difference if you stay or move. But it's just hard to exist.

The Connemara ground is basically turf. Many of the residents continue to cut turf for use in heating their homes during the long winter months. So you can see lots of little ditches which were formed by the cutting. You see also many places were the turf is placed to dry. And surely you have the turf smell all around you. As I said, rather interesting, but this day I could only know but not feel this. To me everything became apathetically this day.

After 80 kilometres I start to feel bad and exhausted, I had enough sweety and fruity eating with me, but my body wanted something salty and savoury. I wasn't in an area with much population, yes, some houses combined to a village, but no shops or restaurants, and I was also looking forward to get some warm and tasty meal at Melanie's place. So I decided to go on – carefully but straight. Once again I didn't cycle along the coast but did the direct route from Cushatrower up to Ballinaboy and there it really wore me down. It's not that your muscles hurt or you don't have any power in them, it's just that it want work anymore.

The whole situation pissed me off. When I was at this end I gave up and rested, helped myself with some dates. You can't change circumstances. I wasn't up for cycling anymore, not now not the next days, never – I was just thinking about quitting the tour and come back home. Having a home is such a good memory. Curiously I wouldn't have taken a lift if one of the cars who rarely passed me would have offered. I knew I would be able to do it on my own, so it wasn't about power. But I was frustrated, so down, so much ways away from any meaning. So also in quitting there was no hope.

Cycling the R 341 next to the Mannin Bay there the storm topped his intensity, now there was so much wind one could have probably stand within it on the bike. At this time I once again counted the half kilometres – this was also the way I did the last five kilometres up to Ballinaboy. After 100 kilometres I finally arrived at Melanie's place, where it was lovely and warm, but it wasn't much verve left inside of me. I was glad not to be outside anymore, but that it was all. I didn't feel to be an interesting valuable person. No faith anymore. Melanie however was lovely. Such a warm welcome, just like coming to a place where you don't have to think about your acting and surely the right place for me. The most comfortable place for being so down.

This isn't my Ireland!

2011-09-12T16:40:00.002+01:00

Still Friday, 9th of September. Today's stage ended after 80 kilometres in Galway, and for the last two hours it was night cycling. My new lights worked pretty well, what didn't work was my coexistence next to the cars. When I had to follow the N 18 I found myself on a straight road, where one could see the cars' long distance light very early and it also blinded me very early, but this didn't matter to the drivers and still didn't when they came closer. More than one time I really couldn't see anything and had to do all my best not to lose balance respectively my direction, until I found a technique where best to look (raising my arm also worked but wasn't enough and isn't so easy to do all the time). This stupid idiots made me so mad and angry. Barely one turned his long distance light off, when they did they did it generally to late, and they also seemed to love it to turn it on again in the moment they were passing me, so it really flashed me – many thanks. Then the traffic became much more, more lanes, more cars, all pretty fast. And still no thought about other coexistence. When I reached the remote area of Galway it was just unfriendly industry, trade area and when I finally reached the centre it was impersonal and commercialised.

Next bad thing: I chose the wrong hostel. I'm not sure if there would have been a right one, but this one was just bad for my needs. Because it was late and I was tiered I took the first one people in the town said it would be good and didn't tried out the two other hostels that were located in the same area – now I regret this. The staff was okay, but the travellers were mad: Brainless drunken teenagers, loud, heedless, only thinking about fun what meant alcohol and entertainment. So after a fast shower I escaped to the outside to have a warm meal, but there, too, all over noise and party guys. When I was in Limerick I also had a weird experience when Dave and I on our walk through the town passed a street where all the night life seems to be concentrated, and it was a real meat inspection. All the girls were wearing nearly nothing – all of them in extremely short miniskirts and tight shirts – it was just all over one type of girl.

Although the city of Galway still seemed to be a party town, there was one nice thing: It was zombie walk this night. I missed the original walk but there were still some zombies outside when I ate my tasty but expensive pizza in a fast food restaurant, and there I also met two drunken 18 year old teenagers, one of them spoke to me and was so extremely drunk that he wasn't able to control his body, the other one was also drunk as he said but able to communicate very articulate and behaved very adult. So I stayed with them for the next hour, seeing what young people do on a weekend. We ended up in a club were the music was to loud to talk. Not really reasonable.

Next morning in the hostel's bathroom I squeezed my forefinger with the toilet door, it hurt so bad, I was shouting and crying while putting my finger under cold water, but the other girls in the bathroom who were mainly occupied with doing her make up were just uncomfortable and trying to ignore what happened around them. I felt so lost in this situation, so alone, so much at the wrong place. When I was able to calm down a little bit one girl asked how I was and showed compassion. I thanked her for asking, but didn't thought about thanking for caring in general. It meant much to me.

PS: Fortunately the squeezing wasn't so bad, I was mostly shocked.

Bud, Jimmy and Asterix

2011-09-12T00:09:00.003+01:00

Friday, 9th of September. Someone had told me it would be worth it to visit the Aran Islands, so Carl called the ferry people in the morning if they would go to the islands and yes, they would go to Inisheer, the smallest and closest of the three islands. So I cycled the two kilometres up to the landing place and there I had to learn I better should have booked, they were full – but there was a little chance they could take me with them if I wait and maybe some people didn't come… In the end they picked me up, and I don't think they counted all the people.

I saw my first wild living dolphin! And how big he was! And all the people shouted "Aaah…!" and "Oooh…!". He seemed to be very used to the ferry traffic and swam around the ferry all the time when we were still close to the sea – they must have trained him somehow… The crossing was interesting. I was surprised the ship didn't tilt off, so much waves such wild sea– usually people go to amusements parks to feel like this. Once again I met nice people and hat nice chit-chat. One of them called me accidentally a tourist so I made sure that there's a difference between me and a tourist, although I was doing touristic stuff at the moment. Before entering the boat I had some silly experience, when a group of real tourists came to the ferry place, driven to this place in a small so called Safari bus, and when exiting one man shouted: "Adventure!" Adventure? Excuse me? What an adventure? Maybe an interesting nice trip, but what on earth is his definition of an adventure? In this sense I can be really arrogant to other people…

Inisheer is really small. I did the one half of this island in a horse cart. It was fun to experience the coachman. When I asked him what he offers he explained he would drive me around the island and explain everything, but what he does wasn't much about history or other typical sight seeing stuff, he just named everything we passed through – here's the school, this is a lovely playground, here I used to do fishing when I was a fisherman… But he was really lovely. He was constantly talking to his horse, called Bud, what is short for Budweiser, and he sang and hummed along traditional Irish songs all the time and also when he was talking it had a melody.

The other half of the island I did by foot. All this island is about stone walls, and these are maybe the main reason why to come to this place. But it's also somehow curious… The islands' geology is mainly karst limestone. So the Aran Islands are one of the finest examples of a Glacio-Karst landscape in the world. The other interesting thing is the wreckage of the MV Plassy, which was shipwrecked off Inisheer in the 1960s, but the islanders rescued the entire crew of eleven from the stricken vessel using a breeches buoy. Nevertheless all in all to come to this island wasn't better than most other places I had seen, but it was nice.

When crossing back I was so extremely tired and exhausted. This was very weird, because all this cycling all the time don't effect me, but walking for one or two hours… Maybe it was also the weather, the air, the crossing. On our way back I dozed. But I still wanted to go on cycling this day. It was 4:30 P.M. when I was back on my bike, and the weather had become really good! Bright sunshine, although somewhat sticky. But as I once again had no host for this night I could just cycle as long as I felt like it. And it was just great cycling, refreshing and new. After the first ten kilometres I met another cyclist, who stopped me and we talked from the first moment as we always had know each other. Jimmy is doing skateboarding for a living and when he wants to relax he does long distance cycling tours. I met him on his first day of touring, it was just a pity he cycled withershins. Jimmy is such a cute guy, I thought for a moment to take him with me for kissing and touching… We talked quite a while and hugged each other for goodbye. I would love to hear from him again.

Close to Derreen the R 477 was barred to traffic, a policeman made sure that no car passes, because in this area there is the film shooting of the new Asterix movie, but if you are a cyclist they let you pass. I don't like the life action adaptations of the Asterix comic books, but crossing the scenery was just great. First I passed the area were the staff is located, lots of signs guide to the catering, the place for the extras and so on, then lots of actors in their costumes passed me (one Norman acted like a Norman to me and shouted a very wild roar while looking very angry) and then I came to the shooting place, where I had to stop and be quiet, but had also some nice talk with some Romans and another French guy. And all were extremely friendly and invited me to stay, so I did for a while.

Inter alia the Cliffs of Moher

2011-09-11T18:56:00.002+01:00

Thursday, 8th of September. When I started in Limerick it was in between cloudy and clear – and it would go on like this for quite a while. I followed the route Dave had sketched for me yesterday, and after I had left Limerick the road was really lovely, such small asphaltic paths, no traffic, all the green… Once I passed a track, a tiny level crossing, but a man worked there who opened the barriers manually by moving them until they were parallel to the path and now bared the track.

Cycling wasn't so easy in the beginning, I felt tired. Last night I felt bad – for the first time since I'm in Ireland – full of self-doubt, doubt in general, lacking confidence, somehow constrained, somehow at the wrong place in this life. It took me some time to fall asleep. For the last two weeks I was just there, in present, feeling alive, full of energy, domiciled in myself with no need for other securities. But last night and still this morning I felt so homesick, so lost. I don't want to have to fulfill societies requirements. – I have no idea why I feel so bound sometimes, although I should know I'm not. But go on cycling felt good, feels good in general, it just helps to use the body, to move on, to make things change.

From time to time there was some misty rain and also not so misty rain but mostly for just some minutes. Just nice cycling. Once I saw a car lying upside down next to the street, maybe one or two metres lower, and it was weird to see this. I had to stop to make sure that it was just the car lying there and no accident with maybe wounded people. Other cars passed without noticing what could have been a sign there's no danger but also that all these people are ignorant, but I would have felt bad just ignoring, as I know it's so easy to close the eyes especially if all the others do so. Certainly whatever has happened was time ago. But I was also glad I didn't act gutless.

In Ennis I couldn't find the junction up to Miltown Malbay via R 474, so I ended up at N 85, also okay and nice, interesting landscape and only on first sight to much traffic. From Inagh I switched to the R 460, what was just great. Rough landscape, fir forests, not so hilly, although it was high – but wide! The road passes on the southernside of the Slievecallan mountain. It felt really wild, much nature, marginal houses – and somewhere in this wasteland placed next to this street there was a little church and a school and nothing else. Maybe this school was build at this place as a compromise to all the pupils, the midpoint of all the places where they come from…

While I was cycling this area actually the sun came out – it needs so less to make me happy. In Miltown Malbay, a cute little village, I followed the signs to the public library to use a free Internet access, but nobody had answered my couch request for this night. I went on cycling the N 67 close to the coast. In Lahinch I passed a golf course – once again. I didn't count how much golf courses I have seen – especially in England and Ireland, they seem to be extremely popular. The Irish ones are very open to visitors. Doing golf isn't something very exclusiveness, no sport only for the rich, but something everyone can try out just for fun – so it looks a little bit like middle class miniature golf players playing adults golf… But also this place seemed to be much more a natural steeplechase course than a professional site.

It went late but now I came closer to the Cliffs of Moher. I didn't follow the straight route along the R 478 but cycled some very local roads which offered me the non touristic side of this Moher area. I did some exhausting cycling by following the little paths which connect all the houses in this area and also had some nice talks with some locals, who haven't seen someone like me so often before. It was fun. Then I reached the cliffs or more precisely the traffic guiding system and the parking area, where all the tourists usually arrive with cars and buses. The Cliffs of Moher are definitely the most touristic place in Ireland. It was told to me one have to pay 6 € to see them, but I have no idea how this usually works. At the time I arrived there weren't much people there, so I just went on cycling as long as possible. The Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience closed anyway and I wasn't that interested in visiting as I try to avoid touristic stuff at all. Because of this tourism thing I also wasn't that impressed of the cliffs. Yes, it's high, yes, it's nice, yes, one should see it, but it wasn't the or even a climax of my tour. The most nice thing is to enter the "forbidden" area and look down the precipice – that's really high. What made me laugh (although it's surely not funny) were the signs where the Samaritans are asking if someone needs to talk, because it was first seeing the sign and then realizing why they are standing there – the usual tourists have other reasons to visit the Cliffs of Moher, what makes a funny contrast… At the cliffs I once again met Dean who showed his new couchsurfer around.

This day I ended up in a fantastic hostel ten kilometres behind the cliffs after cycling around 105 kilometres. The Aille River Hostel is a 300-year-old cottage lovingly renovated. And one can feel so much warmth and trust, all people there are so open hearted and open minded and interested, and Carl is the soul of it's all. If you are ever in this area, come to this hostel and feel at home!

Limerick

2011-09-08T03:47:00.005+01:00

Tuesday, 6th of September. This whole place Tarbert seems to go south. Lots of shops are closed but don't say anything about this fact. They look just like normal shops from outside. Most traffic comes from the crossing vehicles who are only passing through. I was still looking for an internet connection – no chance in this village, although there had been an internet café some time before (even some of the locals didn't know it was closed). The friendly woman in the pharmacy gave me the advise to go to Glin, because there in the library would be a internet computer for free, so I started to cycle six kilometres in the direction of Limerick – and what nice people I found there! This library is just lovely. A small old stone built house, and inside mainly just one open room, some books and games (probably less books as we have at our home, and definitely less games…) and two nice computers. The friendly librarian was so broad-minded to my needs and so interested in my touring and blogging, it was such a nice and warm atmosphere and it was fun to talk a while. Many thanks!

Meanwhile Kate and Dave had send their address data. When the library closed at 2 P.M. I started speed cycling up to Limerick – I had an average of 24,3 km/h from the moment I started cycling this day until I reached Limerick (nearly 60 kilometres). During the cycling I wondered why I felt so very warm, and then I realized the sun had shown up again! This day was still a mixture of clouds, rain and sun, but it's so exhilarant when its clear, warm and bright. And I even had following wind from time to time.

I arrived early at Kate's and Dave's home. Kate was doing her home made felt clothes and accessory. She is a freelancer and all around the house you can see lots of different pieces in varied designs. While she went on working, Dave showed me around the town – Limerick by night. As a real cyclist I tried to turn on my light, as we left the house… (does anyone remember The third policeman by Flan O'Brian?)

Dave knows a lot about history stuff, but for me the contemporary image of this town was much more interesting. I wasn't so sure about if it would be worth it to come to this place. Some people said it's uninteresting, others (non locals) liked it. The reputation of this town isn't so good (mainly caused by some trouble in the 80's). Now I'm glad about deciding to come to Limerick, because it's not so typical (or what I would call typical from my previous experience). Its character seems to be much more used and industrial. And inside of this some very old churches and castles…

Dave and I ended up in a nice pub (their local), where to my big surprise he ordered a German white beer. He definitely has to come to Bamberg and taste all our local white beers, which are so much better then all these industrial beers from the big companies. I went on trying new brands of stout. We had some good talk about profession, contentedness, self-fulfilment and the need for sabbaticals. We found some parallels between our relationships in the fact that one can give the other one the freedom to be creative without financial bounds. My head and my heart are still mulling over what I like or want to do or to be or don't like or want to do or to be… Moments of insight and scruple take turns.

I also spend one day resting. Doing some improvements on the bike, install the new light and so on. Because of some troubles with the electricity a very nice electrician was in Kate's and Dave's house who gave me some useful material to make the grips softer. All at all just nice and relaxing. Nevertheless it was once again 4 A.M. when I ended writing and working on the computer…

How to go on?

2011-09-08T02:23:00.002+01:00

Monday, 5th of September. I spent a nice and exhilarant evening with Ciaran. He seemed to be full of energy (which acted steering at me), open and friendly and an interesting personality although he was very tired and busy at the same time. It's a pity we didn't had more time for talking and maybe do some outdoor activities together. But we had to say goodbye the next morning, and because the ferry to Skellig Michael Monastery didn't go (they said they would start to think about crossing the sea not before Friday and this day it was Monday) I went on cycling the coast on the Ring of Kerry.

It was still cloudy and misty but no rain for the first 17 kilometres, then regularly changes between misty rain, normal rain and no rain and all possible combinations of these types. Originally I had planed to cycle the Dingle peninsula, but with all this rain and mist where one is not able to see anything in some distance I cancelled this plan.

I generally wasn't so sure about where to go to this day and especially where to stay this night. At the moment it's difficult to find hosts, it happens often that I don't get a response, and it's not so easy to plan the stages, too. Some days before I had got an answer from my first unspecific request I had sent when I was still in Margate, so I had a general couch offer in Limerick, but Kate and Dave hadn't answered if they would be okay with my concrete time schedule and I also had no contact information. So I decided to cycle up to Tarbert, where from a ferry shorten the way up to the Cliffs of Moher. When being there I could still decide where to go to next.

View Larger Map

In Killorglin I found an Aldi supermarket but had to learn that the range of items differs a lot from what I knew from Germany, but I found a great black long sleeved compression sports underwear shirt, that now I'm wearing most of the time – it's unbelievable how warm and dry this peace of clothing is keeping me. In a 2 € shop I bought a nice little torch, and I also visited a friendly bicycle shop and bought new handle grips and some battery-driven lights. Once again I cycled a hill (the Slieve Mish Mountains – I really like it when the uphill I have cycled has a name…) without really noticing before reaching the top. I crossed Tralee and Listowel, it became dark, it was still or once again raining, it was cold, but I in my functional clothing and rain protection felt warm and comfortable. The wind was okay today, but I still have some respect for suddenly appearing squalls…

When arriving in Tarbert I first looked for the ferry – I had decided to cross the Shannon if still one would go this day, but it didn't, so I looked for a Bed & Breakfast and found an interesting so called Hotel/B&B which has ended up as a scruffy hostel, where I payed 15 € for the night and stayed with three other girls in a six bed room. When the hostel warden opened the door she first had a “What can I do for you?”-smile on her face which stopped immediately when she saw me within my wet clothes – then she hurried to bring me into the house and cared about drying my rain clothes (after three days of rain drying my clothes becomes a serious problem, but up to now I managed to have them dry enough).

Borderline experiences on the Ring of Kerry

2011-09-07T14:59:00.482+01:00

Sunday, 4th of September. Today's stage started with bright sunshine. Close before Kenmare one can see this nice waterfalls, that are leastwise partly man-made, but nevertheless (or maybe therefore) very nice.

I had been in Kenmare the day before, too. After the Crossroad Music Session Dean, a friend of him and I had been there, visiting a music shop, where a very nice guy not only repaired the peg of my guitar, he also optimized my strings and the bridge – and all for free. He seemed to be a very impassioned musician and it was fun to see him working with an instrument. Many thanks to Soundz of Muzic!

I also was familiar with the first ten Ring of Kerry kilometres from yesterday's Crossroad Music Session (even though you can't compare a car ride with cycling…), but up to Tahilla I had no idea why everybody is saying one have to see the Ring of Kerry. But then it became very interesting, and when I first reached the open sea (if you can say so) again, it was just great force of nature – stormy, powerful breaker, and then big rain started (all together a very atmospherical composition, my compliments to nature). The rain was much intense but ended after about 15 minutes and the sun dried my clothes pretty fast. Forget whatever I've said about all weathers days in the past – this was before I was familiar with the Irish weather. During the stage from Oxford up to Mitcheldean surely there were all kinds of weather, but one after another and evenly spread about the whole day. In Ireland the weather can change within minutes. After the big rain and the sunshine I had misty rain with clouds, sunshine with rain, rain with calms, storm with sunshine… But in the end the weather decided to be cloudy, rainy and very stormy (but no photo can show).

From Saneem, that seems to be a very touristic place (much sightseeing buses were standing there and also much people were on the street despite the bad weather), up to Castlecove, where to have a break for some salted food I had decided, it was pretty exertive to cycle within all these intense rain and it also became quite hilly so I celebrated every completed half of the last five kilometres to motivate myself – it wasn't that much about being exhausted but you have to have faith within this landscape. The friendly woman at An Siopa Dubh had nothing warm to eat but she offered to prepare a sandwich for me, that also helped.

Sometimes the rain stopped for a while, sometimes I even recognized this, sometimes I didn't recognize the rain had started again. One can become very stoic. There was also constantly uphill what I didn't really noticed within all this wind and all this rain who pattered not only on me but into my face while I was doing my cycling routine. From Cathair Dónall up to the highest point of Ring of Kerry the storm was so extreme, especially when the winding road met the open coast side! It was really hard to keep the faith, all this storm attacks just felt like if someone tries to distress you, to put you down by pushing you around again and again. I wasn't so sure about how to act with this phenomenon. It's not a thing where one can say just stop fighting it – the storm doesn't care about it. close to the highest point of Ring of Kerry it blew me from my bike – one heavy squall came and pushed me to the left, but I could stave off and by doing so or maybe doing a little bit to much the squall caught me again, this time to the other side, and knocked me and my bike over. I'm not really sure what happened, in the end my bike was laying on the side with its front in opponent direction and I was lying on my back. Nothing happened to me, I just hurried to put my bike and all my stuff that loosened from the bike away from the street. Fortunately there was no traffic at this moment, otherwise it would have been really dangerous. One car that had passed me immediately before had stopped in some distance, but when the driver saw I seemed to be okay he went on.

View Larger Map

After this I once was sitting next to the street and crying. You feel so helpless because it's nothing what's within your powers. I wasn't exhausted, you can't say I was unalert or did some other mistake (beside cycling within this weather), the storm was just so much more powerful than I. After a while I went on, pushing the bike carefully, and after the next turn not only I was outside the stormy area I also reached the top, and from now on I rolled downhill, but extremely carefully and totally aware of this life-threatening situation. Now my bike has some more scratches, the Ganesha clinger, whom I had tied on my handle bar extension, peeled away, but I found it on the street.

Down in Waterville maybe five kilometres later I had a break and found a nice hostel and also much nicer backpackers. I was full of energy and had some nice chit-chat, two hot chocolates with marshmallows (my first time), some chips for free because one guy attained them for unravel a mystery (he will study philosophy and mechanical engineering – I love this combination…). And then I went back outside to cycle, full of positive energy while all the others were so happy to be inside a warm, protected house. I just felt fine.

Waterville isn't that cosy as most of the other Irish towns and places I have seen so far, especially not on such a rainy and stormy day, but a real bleakly seaside town, affronting the elements. Meanwhile it went dark and I had some problems with my front light that works a little bit irregular (my back light seem to work not at all). Shortly after my speedo computer went mad by showing no speed or the wrong speed (and sometimes the right speed, but one can't trust). This is a thing what really frustrated and concerned me, it undercuts my inner balance. Surely the display of the completed kilometres is sometimes important for orientation, for example when you have to catch a side road in a special distance, but what concerned me much more was the fact that my cycling doesn't seem to count if it's not measured. It galls me that this effects me so much. (After a while my speedo computer seemed to be okay again, but I couldn't see that much, too.)

To find my tonight's host Ciaran I had to take a cross road one or two kilometres before Cahersiveen. But with more and more darkness surrounding it's not that easy to read the signs – once again I missed having a torch. So I was standing at one cross road and tried to read my map by using the crossing cars' headlight. When one car slowed down to turn off I signed them to stop so I could asked for some help and in the end the car driver offered me a lift. Today's stage had 80 kilometres.

Notes about everyday live in Ireland

2011-09-06T13:15:00.002+01:00

Saturday, 3rd of September. Sometimes I'm crossing towns that are signed as Fair Trade Town. I was curious what this could be. Does all the shops only offer fair trade products?

But no. Being a Fair Trade Town just means the town must meet these five criteria (taken from Wikipedia):

Local council passes a resolution supporting Fairtrade, and agrees to serve Fairtrade tea and coffee at its meetings and in its offices and canteens.
A range of (at least two) Fairtrade products is readily available in the area’s shops and local cafés/catering establishments.
Fairtrade products are used by a number of local work places (estate agents, hairdressers etc) and community organisations (churches, schools etc)
Attract media coverage and popular support for the campaign.
A local Fairtrade steering group is convened to ensure continued commitment to its Fairtrade Town status.

Several towns in Ireland are Fair Trade Towns. Although it's surely mostly about PR. – At least it's a start.

Crossroad Music Session

2011-09-04T03:29:00.004+01:00

Saturday, 3rd of September. Sitting in a circle with lots of other musicians playing traditional Irish instruments like fiddles, accordions, whistles, drums and other rhythm instruments… I haven't been into something like this ever before. Wow. Stunning. Sometimes all the people play together, sometimes just one person offers a song and maybe some others get in. First I was to shy to join the other musicians, but later I took part. I played Hannes Wader's famous German folk song Heute hier morgen dort with lots of temporarily forgotten lines – but who cares? The applause was an amazing welcome into the group. And then I was able to join the others. Later some people did traditional dances. I love these easy dances, so full of movement, rhythm and drive, and even the ten year old can do them. When I played Hymn by Barcley James Harvest one of the guys shouted that I definitely have to be a German, because Barclay James Harvest was only well known in the part of England, where he came from, and extremely famous in Germany. Also interesting – to be indicated as a German by playing English songs…

Ireland opens my heart, opens my mind, opens my soul. It's not competition, it's just showing your skills to take part, to share. Lebensfreude.
This journey isn't about collecting experiences, it's about freedom.

Some amazing perceptions of nature

2011-09-04T02:43:00.001+01:00

Friday, 2nd of September. It was 1:30 P.M. when I left the boat. Easy cycling like every day, good to be on the road again. While being on my way, a car passed, and outside the backmost window Marek smiled at and waved to me. Funny coincidence to see him again. Today's stage was planed with 75 kilometres and ended up with 105 kilometres, because I missed a sign in Ballydehob and didn't realize this until I asked someone in Schull (there's a kink on my map, so this Schull area was on the back side which I couldn't see because I had thought to be in the other side's area). But I didn't want to turn back, especially because I liked the place I was now and wanted to go on – who matter's about kilometres? In the end I was so glad I made a detour because it was such a great landscape, such a lovely road, just so nice and exhilarant. After 70 kilometres I had a short break in Bantry, and then the other great part of this day's journey began.

It had been cloudy the hole day with some sunshine from time to time, some wind – just nature. Then some drizzling rain started, but so misty – such thing doesn't feel like rain, it's just refreshing. If this is the famous Irish rain, then I love it. I decided not to dress more rain protection than my raincoat, which was generally a good idea, you definitely don't need rain pants – but I had to learn this day that anyway you need some protection for the shoes (and maybe another warm jacket)… Cycling the coast between Ballylickey and Glengarriff was just great outlook, all these colours and structure within the hazy environment – just great. Then the very hilly part of this day's stage started, as I cycled the Caha Mountains. I was on my own, nearly no passing cars, I wasn't able to see anything in some distance because of all this haze. And shortly after I also couldn't see that much because it went dark.

It went pretty cold, but with the misty rain outside, which had become heavier meanwhile, and the sweating inside I didn't want to stop and grub deep in one of my bags, I just tried to stay warm by going on with fast cycling. When the road finally got downhill, I cycled through an amazing tunnel, just a hole in the hill with all these surrounding mountain stones. And my bike light illuminated the scene. Fast downhill through the rainy night, I felt colder and colder, but finally I reached Dean's house, that wasn't easy to find in the darkness. There I had a bath, but it took some time until I felt some warmth inside of me again. But what an amazing day.

PS:
I had my first little accident today, if you can say so. I failed the asphalt road, so my wheel touched the ground next to the road, so I lost balance when trying to put something out of my little handle bar bag. But I had only 10 or 15 km/h, so nothing happened apart from my bike turned over and the handle bar was twisted (and I now have a bruise).

Staying on the boat

2011-09-02T03:42:00.004+01:00

Thursday, 1st of September. Now I'm on the boat with Marek and Anne. Just the right place to be. I stay here for three nights.

Yesterday Anne, Marek, Cecilia (a German artist friend of them) and I visited their friend James to see a documentary about David Hockney, whom I knew before, but didn't deal with and didn't like from seeing his earlier work. But this documentary was just great and now I admire this artist. Awesome colours. And the way how Hockney is talking about his art is meaningful to me.

“Sanne is also a real artist, an illustrator”, so Anne introduced me to David. I don't like this being an artist attitude. To me being an artist sounds like an excuse for being selfish or self-involved, arrogant, incomprehensible to normal people, but thereby accepted as something special. To me art doesn't work this way – but maybe I'm not talking about art. I don't mean art as a judgement, but art as a term for creative stuff like music, too. To me art is about having insight. I'm using art to express myself, to share who I am and how I see. I don't want to explain anything (maybe except technique) or enunciating a meaning or talking about the important contribution for contemporary art (I also don't like art market). It's just me. So actually it's not about art or me being an artist, it's about being myself, feeling myself, feeling freedom.

For the last years it felt to me that when friends who used to see me as an artist, didn't seem to see me, it felt much more like a scheme they put me into, although I am sure, they meant this as an esteem. To me it meant being forced to a standard or an approach, whom to comply with I didn't feel able. Now I don't care about what anybody says, as long I can do my drawings (but I have to admit it feels good that people like my stuff).

Tonight (after having a wonderful little boat trip to the harbour where I saw a seal) I had an intensive talk with Marek about my live story and why I am on this journey, with many side trips to related topics like sexuality, relationship, honesty, changes in education systems all over Europe, (no longer so) new social movements, thinking and acting, humanism, constructivism, so called reality, needs and bounds, depression, doing meaningful things and staying in the present. I like Marek very much. I hope to stay in touch and to get to know him much closer. He's deep, honest and very dear. Anne is just like the sunshine. I thank them for giving me all this freedom and let me stay here in this unique atmosphere within this small world on its own. Wish you all the best to make the boat able to go back to the sea. I admire your work.

Back to where I once belonged

2011-09-02T02:54:00.002+01:00

Thursday, 1nd of September. Something very important has happened. First evidence was that I had no scruple or uneasiness or unease when Patti asked me to draw a seahorse on the bathroom door. It was just: Oh, yes, why not, sounds interesting… And also by doing the painting I just felt great like I used to do during my studies – just doing, no judgement. And also when Patti asked me about my opinion how to paint their living room and where to place some things it was just fun and having ideas and being able to explain some design concepts and how they work (psychology of perception, ambiance, rules about painting, colour, structure…) and just feeling that I rule them, I know how they work, and I flourished, I became more and more enthusiastic and then I realized I have skills, I'm gifted. Probably I'm loosing the bounds which held me the last years.

To me drawing is so much about seeing the world. I can see so much, I descry so much details, and by seeing like this, everything is meaningful, bunches out, is no longer just an item or a something in a room (and even this would be more as most people realize). I can't describe what hor how I perceive. It's just so intense, I am so fraught with this experience, it takes my breath away.

Right now I'm sitting on the deck of this boat, leaning onto the hatchway of my cabin (which is Marek's cabin he left to me), looking at this cove which is my home for the moment, listening to Van Morrison's Astral weeks album and other music I brought with me on my USB flash drive. My only problem is, that eventually it will become dark and time doesn't stand still.

The amazing cyclist did a new record in long distance cycling!

2011-09-01T14:44:00.002+01:00

Tuesday, 30th of August. I did a new record in long distance cycling: 167.5 kilometres – this maybe could be not only a long distance record for this tour but also in my cycling history, but I'm not sure about that. The first 50 kilometres I cycled the N 25 road up to Cork, not that much interesting because of the street's character, but I did extremely fast cycling! I had an average of 23.6 km/h (that's most likely also my personal record in general related to long(er) distance average). And even at the end of the day I still had an average of 19 km/h. I don't want to boast, but this is nearly unbelievable to me, too. Altogether it took me 8 hours and 45 minutes pure cycling.

I had a nice break in Cork, sitting in a pub, drinking some cappuccino and eating yesterday's roll while discovering a new favourite band – Fleet Foxes – by listening to their Album Helplessness Blues. And I had also a nice talk with two man sitting next to me who were interested in my cycling (one of them is a journalist, so maybe I become popular now…)

When leaving Cork I lost my way, bound to the N 25, which cost me 10 extra kilometres at all. And the periodic hooting of the car drivers on this motorway like three lane road doesn't made it better. (We disagreed about how much space I was allowed to take.) When I finally found the R 600 the first five kilometres were heavy uphill, so it took me 65 kilometres until the landscape was enjoyable. This also meant it went to be hilly and I had advertise winds – which curiously affected only me. The plants, bushes and trees held it was windless.

Nearly the whole day it was cloudy (and thereby cool), and it looks surely funny when nevertheless I am wearing sun glasses because of wind protection – "It's ~~dark~~ twilight… and we're wearing sunglasses". This day it constantly happened that I thought to be slow and automatically changed down, to use the smallest of the three front sprocket, but was still ten km/h to fast for doing so.

After 112 kilometres I had and definitely needed a long break and some salty, warm things to eat. This exhausted feeling came all of a sudden over me. I found Grainne's Bar in Timoleague, which was quite the right choice (even though there hasn't been an alternative since the last ten kilometres…). This pub had been the Award Winner of Best Irish Traditional Pub as the Dining Pub of the Year 2001, 2004 and 2005. And Grainne is a really nice woman.

Back on my bike the sun came out. From Clonakity I called Marek, my host for this night (and also the next days). A nice butcher lady lent me her mobile phone (she offered it by herself, when I asked for a public phone – it's really not easy to find public telephones, but there are so much lovely people in this world…). Then it became dark outside.

Among Clonakity and Skippereen I cycled through some very dark areas. No lamps, no civilization, just my little bike light. Dark road, much darker trees and bushes surrounding me on both sides, the idea of a blurred light blue far away over the horizon. I felt I was cycling uphill, and later that I was in some height, but had no orientation at all (so I was unable to see signs, too). Kind of borderline experience. Very intensive, especially when you stop and listen to the silence and look at the stars. – So much stars! So bright! It kind of frightened me to stand in this absolute darkness.

There were also cars who passed respectively came towards me from time to time – and about 50 percent of them didn't turn off their driving beam … But it was nice how the lights of the cars behind me made the street's cat sights (placed in the road) reflecting, so you could see how the road turns. Among Skippereen and Baltimore it was once again just dark, but had another character. Smaller road, more winding, close to the sea (which I couldn't really see but feel), also some cold from the bottom and ground fog, that one could only see when a car was passing. And once again this unbelievable starry sky. So bright I could see the milky way, and all the stars appeared in three dimension – and I could also see the lines between the stars which make the constellations.

When I reached the border of Baltimore (without noticing) someone called my name, and out of the dark Marek appeared, who has waited for me after coming back from a meeting. It was 10:30 P.M. Walking through the night on a small path up to the little scruffy boat where Marek is living at a few months ago together with Anne, who is staying at this place for years. Food, warmth, harbour.

Sightseeing in Tramore and than beeming up to Youghal

2011-08-31T19:23:00.002+01:00

Monday, 29th of August. Instead of going straight on my bike after the doctor thing was done, I stayed for some food, some talk, some Internet, and then we (the four of us) had a sightseeing trip. Mark showed us around with the car and we stopped at some nice places to go and look around. And it was quite worth it. I especially like the Metal Man, a large cast-metal figure pointing seawards, set on top of one of three pillars, which was erected in 1823 to warn seafarers away from dangerous shallow waters. But I call him Elvis, and he has such a cute ass… By visiting this place I also did one of the points of interest which are shown on my map….

It was a good thing to see something more than the house with its great outlook and the streets we used when going to the doctor, the supermarket and the pub. I'm generally not so much into walking around and doing touristy stuff, beside my host would like to show me around. To me staying is much more about relaxing, spending time with myself, being with my hosts, especially when they turn to become friends. Just staying is part of this journey inwards – why try to get further impressions and experiences, when you also need time to digest what you have experienced and thought and felt while cycling?

When I finally thought about actual leaving, I suddenly realized how late it was (half past 5), so there was no way to arrive at my next couchsurfing host's place in Youghal (70 kilometres away) within admissible time. So Mark gave me a lift with his car up to Dungarvan, where we passed the Eden Garden Center (!!!). The remaining 30 kilometres I cycled within 1.5 hours (the first five kilometres uphill and the rest downhill by trend). Arriving in Youghal around 8:30 P.M. I had some problems to find Lobsang's place as he didn't live at the number he had given to me (or I thought he had given to me). But a very nice man lived there with whom I had a nice chat about Germany and travelling, and he had an idea about which place probably could be meant and he even guided me. It was still not easy to contact Lobsang, as there was no reaction when I rang the door bell and his telephone was also dead. But shouting his name finally helped.

Lobsang was very nice, he made some egg based sushi for me, strove to give me the best time while offering food, Internet and everything one could probably need to feel very comfortable, although he had a bad hangover. Therefore he excused himself to lay down in a dark room, but later he asked for some guitar music, so we had a nice relaxed evening. He is also an extremely good musician, playing in a tradition eastern style and he also owns lots of traditional eastern instruments. I would have loved to listen to him much more.

Back to stereo!

2011-08-29T12:54:00.004+01:00

Monday, 29th of August. This morning my ear got cleaned – what a difference! What big change in the hearing experience! Back to stereo! (There's still a redness inside, so they gave me some drops to cure, but it feels so much better now.) The ear irrigation wasn't that uncomfortable as other people had said it could be, but it was downright comfortable. And another very nice thing: Once again I didn't had to wait, we were in the waiting room for maybe ten minutes (Mark was with me to give me a lift and some company. I will miss him and Patti…).

Mark and Patti spoiled me so much… I think they really like their seahorse… – and I also think we care a great deal for each other. As they know about me loving cakes and biscuits they brought this one yesterday, just to make me happy – look, it smiled at me!

Yesterday evening another couchsurfer arrived and we had an nice late lunch together (I cooked a vegetarian casserole which was okay, but not as good as it could have been as it wasn't fully done, but we were hungry…) I'm curious how this being very familiar with each other and do lot's of jokes and banter with each other, what Mark, Patti and I did, acted to Katharina. After lunch and a delicious dessert Katharina made of fresh pineapple, strawberries and grapes, she, Mark and Patti went to the Bluegrass festival we planed to join since the day I arrived but never did the past days, but I was so tired I stayed at home and went to bed really early.

Katharina is a very nice, very polite person, especially when coming in at first time, when one still tries to find out how things work at the host's home. But she became very warm and enthusiastic quite fast. From talking to each other I think she's an very intelligent and open minded person. And she causes a new cognition: I did know, that as a German native speaker without that much practice in English usage I often say or write German sentences, that means sentences which are word by word translation from German into English. But I didn't know, that this can also happen in the other direction! Normally I speak a mixture of English and German when I meet other Germans (it depends just on what comes first to my mind), but today for the first time I did speak German sentences which were word by word translations from English into German! German sentences with an English grammar. Just unbelievable. Very curious experience.

I had such a great time while staying with Mark and Patti. Thank you so much to make me part of the family. It's a pity your home isn't around the next corner – but otherwise I wouldn't want you to live at another place as you do, so close to the sea and with this fantastic outlook. I like the way, Patti and Mark are with each other. He is on first sight more quiet, somehow calm and maybe also supinely (Patti called him a procrastinator) and Patti is much more energetic and talkative and in that way also aggressive (that's how she called herself). I know such relationships which are often much more about domination and repression, but with Patti and Mark you can feel so much love, so much care for each other, and of course both have a big sense of humour which makes it easy to handle daily routine and get on because this humour takes the edge off something. Surely they still have to take it seriously, and it's my impression that they do. I hope their relationship will go on like this and that they still will be able to complement each another in the way they do now: She's giving him more energy and direction and he calms her down, whereby she is able to be more softer. I would like to hear much more about Patti's past relationship which from the few facts I have heard seemed to be very destructive. I'm glad they found each other.

Enjoing the sunrise

2011-08-28T16:43:00.001+01:00

Sunday, 28th of August. Today I woke up at 7 A.M. because I had to pee and wanted to go straight back to bed, but then this great sunrise started. So I stayed up. Therefore right now I am so tired, I could immediately fall asleep.

To my great surprise…

2011-08-28T03:05:00.033+01:00

Sunday, 28th of August. To my and all the others great surprise I'm still with Mark and Patti and will stay with them in Tramore until Monday, so I am able to paint a seahorse on their bathroom door, which is an honour and a pleasure to me, and also to see the doctor once again to let him clean my ear.

Since some days I had and have problems with my right ear. It was somehow odd since I started cycling, I forgot to protect my ear from wind during the first days, then one evening I wasn't so sure if the cotton wool I usually use for protection was all removed. Since then I used a little part of tissue for ear protection. After having a shower in Oxford at my couchsurfing host's place (all hail, Alison!) my right ear felt completely sucked with water which caused much pressure and an awkward listening experience. And it didn't clear out (I had this full of water feeling the days before, too, but not in this intensity and just for some minutes). In Mitcheldean my ear stated to hurt and went on doing this for the next few days, sometimes heavy and very painful, sometimes just somewhat or occasionally not a bit. But constantly there was this ear pressure so I started to worry about that and in Llangadog after talking with Jane I decided to see a doctor as far as I would be in Ireland. The nice young (and attractive) doctor we visited in Tramore on Friday declared, that my ear was full of wax, which has to be removed but first has to become softer. Now I cure my ear before falling asleep by inserting 1 ml of olive oil with an injection.

Yesterday Patti asked me if I could paint a seahorse onto the toilet door. She had some colours at home, because she and Mark are planing to paint the walls. They are living in this house just for several month and wanted to take the time to let things simmer. So there is still much work to do with the house, although it doesn't look like that. It just appears like a cosy home.

Certificated

2011-08-28T01:17:00.002+01:00

Sunday, 29th of August. My companion in life Klaus made me a certificate about arriving in Ireland. Thank you very much! During my absence he is blogging, too, so I can see how he is doing.

Collecting Points of Interest in Ireland…

2011-08-27T02:01:00.004+01:00

Saturday, 27th of August. Sometimes people I meet make suggestions for great places in Ireland I should have seen. For example

Franzi mentioned Coral Beach close to Carraroe
people from Wales and Ireland have said the Ring of Kerry is most worth to see and cycle
Matt, whom I met at Rosslare Harbour where he offered me a place to sleep, said I shouldn't miss the Skellig Michael Monastery
very much people rhapsodised about Cliffs of Moher
Allan is of the opinion I have to cycle the northern part of Ireland, because it's the best (but not very much people know)

Further suggestions are welcome!
Please write a commentary…

Just being there

2011-08-27T01:55:00.006+01:00

First stage: 25th August, 75 km from Rosslare up to Tramore, 4 hours (only cycling). View Larger Map

Saturday, 27th of August. Meanwhile I stay since two nights at Mark's and Patti's place a nice house with an amazing unbelievable outlook. Today was a very relaxed day, I spent much time at the computer like they also did, while also having some chit-chat from time to time. In the evening they cooked a delicious meal and after that we played the guitar for a while and sang together. It's a good place to stay and to relax. From the living room window you look straight onto the sea and also onto a small amusement park, the second one I've ever seen at a coast.

Finally Ireland…!

2011-08-27T01:24:00.004+01:00

Thursday, 25th of August. This ferry from Fishguard Harbour railway station up to Rosslare Harbour was right how a ferry should be. Quite small (compared to my other ferry experience downright tiny). Many travelling pedestrians. The car deck looked much more like a small parking garage with nooks and crannies, not available for trucks (this Stena ferry goes three times a day up to Ireland, I took the express line, I suppose the slower lines are for trucks, too, as I saw some trucks waiting in the harbour yesterday). It's so much better than the last ferry! The ferry's windows are made to afford a good outlook, you are really on a boat, not within one of these synthetic autonomous universes on its own. Most space is used to offer different areas to sit and chat. And… you are able to go outside!

It was an extreme and intense up and down on this ferry, although the staff said it's quite normal. Nevertheless all of us passengers had very funny walks and you could hear some laughs about this and the rocking ship at all – maybe this amusement was also caused by lots of alcohol… – "[Pirates] drink lots of rum and after that they stagger and when the ship is rocking as well it evens out…". Other people appeared to be sea sick, sometimes I wasn't so sure about me, too, but I did it well already.

I really like this ferry company which seems to care a lot about their passengers and they cared perfectly about the bikes, too (there was one more bicyclist at the ferry who started in London and will now cycle through Ireland for two weeks), it just felt like great service.

Even the crossing was cheaper as I had thought from looking at the internet – quite the contrary to the other company DFDS Seaways, who charged my nearly double price. They reasoned this because of no online booking. (Okay, by total numbers it's not such a big difference: 39€ instead of 21.50€ for me and my bike to do the 63 kilometres from Dunkerque up to Dover in two hours, and 34€ – or 28£ – instead of 38€ for the 106 kilometres from Fishguard up to Rosslare, also in two hours.) I bought a nice traveller's map in the ferry's shop about Ireland which had a fair price (and so I was able to get rid of my last English money). This meant I didn't had to think about this anymore and was able to know how to navigate from the first moment in Ireland.

When we reached the harbour I first thought: oh, we already arrived (it was such a quick crossing), not till then I thought: Now I am in Ireland! I had a stop at the harbour to correct my luggage, when a guy come up to me, asking about my tour, and then he offered me a bed for the night in Curraglass because he did much hitch hiking in the past and was familiar with the needs a traveller has. I already have a host in this area so I had no usage, but I had a nice talk with Matt and his girlfriend Kylie who I met, too, and I invited them to join my blog and to stay with Klaus and me in Bamberg if they ever come to Germany again. I would be glad to hear about them again. Thanks for the great welcome in Ireland!

Even the way how Ireland received me was so much nicer in comparison to England who even didn't received me. But in Ireland there wasn't this heavy traffic at the harbour, instead of that there were likeable signs who remembered anyone about the left-hand driving in three languages (English, French and German). From the first moment I was so enthusiastic and thrilled about being in Ireland. I cycled the 75 kilometres up to my this day's host Mark and his wife Patti within four hours, just flew through this great landscape and felt happy. Small roads with nearly no traffic – my main image of Ireland is about freedom. I'm so glad to be here.

PS:
When I had to pee I used a place behind some bushes – and was amazed when I revolved to see this herd of young cows who were so curious about me that they all had come to the gate. I love cows for being so interested and observant. When I started cycling again, they followed me doing gallop as long as possible. Cows like to play and are anything but dull.

Last stage and last night in Great Britain

2011-08-26T13:02:00.004+01:00

Wednesday, 24th of August. I started in Llangadog with sunshine at 9 A.M., but this sunshine was just at Jane's place and resumed in the region I cycled yesterday, but in the direction I had to cycle now it was overclouded – big, dark and heaving clouds all over there. And you know you have no chance to escape from that…

First I crossed Llandeilo, a nice little town which is placed around a hill – it starts at the hill's bottom and it ends at the bottom on the other side of this hill. And I had the pleasure to cycle this twice, because I overlooked my route branched off immediate at the boundaries. Shortly after that I reached the rain. And what a rain. It rained cats and dogs. And it was extremely cold, too, so for the first time during my tour I needed an extra pullover. It rained really bad. Rain from above (as usual), rain from the side (especially when cars passed), rain from below (because the streets had turned into lakes). Occasionally I thought about hitchhiking, but otherwise this wasn't the best route to do so (once again good ole A40) and also there was no place to stay and ask some truckers. I cycled one hour through this extreme, intensive rain, then another half an hour just through usual rain. Close to Carmarthen the rain stopped and some shafts of sunlight showed up. And in Carmarthen I suddenly realized that I was no longer able to cycle with usual speed. I haven't noticed before this had been an exhausting.

So I had a break and my first fish and chips – and now I finally know, what this actually is. When I was young I imagined it as something like French fries with kind of fish fingers or fish nuggets, served in a paper cone (which is a practice I couldn't understand. In Belgium fries were originally served in a paper cone, but now this changes. Bart told me the paper cone thing was the best, because the grease can accumulate at the bottom). Later I didn't thought about it any more, so I never looked up. My fish and chips looked like these you can see in the photo, but were served on a plate together with different packed sauces.

Then cycling went on and the weather was okay now. The route wasn't as interesting as the day before and it wasn't that hilly, so much more cycling to reach today's goal, the coast. All in all I cycled 125 kilometres this day, and I made a new speed record: 64.5km/h. In the afternoon the weather became really sunny. I had a nice break at a quiet resting place, the lady in a take-away van had closed, but anyway she sold me a cappuccino, we had a nice chat about my tour, and she donated me a small pack of this delicious Welsh cakes. I had a really nice break while sitting in the sun and feeling good.

While approaching the coast I felt exited – so close to the sea, so close to Ireland. The last 20 or 30 kilometres it was once again very hilly – so once again the landscape became very interesting – and I looked forward to see the sea which maybe would appear behind every lift. And then it did.

Fishguard is great, lovely, a real seaside town. First I crossed the town to have a look at the ferry harbour and see how it works. Then I looked for a place to sleep and found a lovely old hotel, that was run by an older lady (Cartref Hotel). Very fair price and even a small water boiler next to a box including some tea bags plus sugar and milk packages in my room – I suppose other guests usually don't use them as much as I did… Later I tasted a Horlicks malt, what seems to be very popular especially in Wales as a night drink (I don't know why). I also went out to enjoy the coast, the town and the sundown and had a tasty Welsh stout and a nice little meal in a pub, where they gave me a wooden spoon so the waiter could find my table.

PS:
Meanwhile I have learned Cartref is Welsh and means home…

Lovely Llangadog

2011-08-26T03:22:00.004+01:00

Llangadog, Wales. 22th–24th of August. One day to rest. Get an impression of Walsh people. No diffidence at all. Everything works fine.

During the first night I had an interesting talk with Jane about couchsurfing experiences, especially not so good experiences (which are seldom but do happen). I never had a bad experience (at most weird, non-personal requests), but Jane has had and we talked about how to act with these things and their relation to different (said and unsaid) expectations. Jane didn't wrote negative or even neutral references, in this case she didn't wrote a reference at all, so we talked about the reasons and if it's good to act like this – a negative or a neutral reference doesn't mean the other one is a bad person or I want to inflict damage on somebody. Just try to be fair and tell what didn't work, so others are able to get an own idea of something respectively someone. (Meanwhile I had another talk about this topic, and the other person also decided better not to write a reference then a neutral or negative reference – if you can't say anything positive about someone better say nothing. But this doesn't help the community.)

Jane is an interesting, open woman, also somehow weird in a positive sense – easygoing and gridlocked at the same time… ;-) She is very kind and always willing to open her heart and soul. It's very easy to deal with her if you are generally interested in other people's life and character. It's worth it to spar with her.

I spent a very relaxed day together with her, having some walks through the lovely landscape. I also made friendship with her cat and dogs, especially "Fraggle Dog". Thanks for some time to rest without caring about past or future.

I ♥ Wales

2011-08-23T03:50:00.011+01:00

Monday, 22th of August. 130 kilometres of great cycling, great unbelievable landscape – I love Wales. The nature, the smell of all this green, the structure, the hills… I think it's the best one can do if one wants to cycle through Ireland to cross Wales first. Just the language is weird, I mean the signs and all these names. I have no idea how they can be spelled, maybe if you have a laryngitis… (to proof my theory, doesn't even this word looks like a Welsh word?). All of a sudden I didn't understand nothing, but fortunately most of the signs and names are bilingual.

It was good to rest at Deborah's place yesterday. It was a really nice garden party with interesting and interested people, all of them so curious to learn more about my tour, the backgrounds of my tour and my life story at all. I think (felt) some of them really liked me, I felt very welcome. It's a good thing to be hugged or patted. During this party I became a chocolate-chilli ice-cream addict but was also able to get over it (it's just a question of how long and how much, and the latest version of the ice cream was definitely too mild – I can't believe I am saying this, but only chocolate without chilli isn't enough).

Today (now it's 2:30 A.M. but I haven't slept, therefore the new day hasn't started…) I was on the road before 10 A.M., still within Forest of Dean (A4136) which means still hilly. I made a 11% uphill (even though I needed one or another rest). I had some problems with my lungs, maybe because of the weather. The hole day it was bright sunshine, best weather for cycling. From Monmouth up to Abergavenny I cycled the B4233 – what a lovely, beautiful little road, nearly an asphaltic path. Very hilly, very green. It even smelled extremely green. You know about the beautiful outlook, but not often you are able to see it, because the road path is lined with high hedge and bushes, all of them so bulky. The good thing when you cycle such a hilly road where only every five or ten minutes a car passes you are able to cycle switchback.

Up from Abergavenny I cycled the A40. I cycled lots of hills! Not only constantly ups and downs but really uphill, so you can feel the height, the wide, the wideness, which is so great to see. Such an interesting landscape… I think I can say I cycled mountains! And it was easy cycling! Definitely a good day. I met two racing cyclists while cycling, Dave and Tom, and had some nice chit-chat, did some slipstreaming (it doesn't really help when the route is just hilly, but I was motivated to do some fast cycling for a while). I saw army men who jogged uphill while carrying a big rucksack. I go on seeing lovely old VW buses. Car drivers still greet me with their hooter, too (and even other cyclists greet). I saw a scooter who surely had some Harley Davidson relatives, as he had loads of extra mirrors on both sides of the front. Never before I have seen so many sheep. And the last ten kilometres up to Llandovery it was all slight downhill, so I was able to do easy cycling with 24 up to 36 km/h.

In Llandovery I had to learn, that my host's place isn't there but in the next village Llangadog, but who cares about another ten kilometres? When I arrived at 7:30 P.M. Jane wasn't at home (she had told me this could happen). But her neighbour David cared for me, first he brought me a hot chocolate while I was sitting at the stairs of Jane's front door, half an hour later he invited me into his flat, Jane later said this was an honour, normally nearly nobody is allowed to come into his place. But we just had a nice chat, another hot chocolate and actually he offered me his couch in case Jane wouldn't come back home, but she did at 9 P.M. I will stay here for another day, so Jane and I can spend some time together.

An all weathers day

2011-08-21T14:08:00.020+01:00

Sunday, 21th of August. Yesterday I cycled 100 kilometres from Oxford up to Mitcheldean, that is close to Wales. It was an exhausting day, so today I stay for an extra day at my couchsurfing host's place, where a garden party will happen today. Deborah is preparing all the food while I am writing my blog on her computer (but I will also help her after writing…). It's just great here – great nature, great outlook, great garden and very great house with lots of personal design to discover.

I had an all weathers yesterday. It started with sunshine, so I was able to navigate by position of the sun (what I did also when I left London – and I did it pretty well!), then it went to be very cloudy and windy. I cycled A roads most of the day, which were really nice most of the time (mostly A40 road, then A436 when it splits up, and from Gloucester once again the A40 road. Then the very hilly part of that day's stage began when cycling the A4136 road).

Since I had left Oxford (and surely inside Oxford, too) in his area the people had (and of course still have) real stones at one's disposal to build houses. Therefore the main colour of the houses is a mixture of beige, ochre, grey and white. Very convenient. Once I cycled past a church with a sign in the front garden. While reading "an open meeting to discuss the future" I stopped, because it's a great idea and highly fascinating, to discuss the future (especially in a church). When reading the rest of the sign, it was only – but still – interesting, because it offers an insight into the actual proceedings.

I was in a bad mood during forenoon. Once again having no idea why am I doing this. Now it's kind of boring, just routine and somehow futile. Maybe this is normal change while doing long-run cycling. I didn't cycle more than two weeks without interruption before. But I also have a feeling of futile in general, about don't want to have any responsibilities at all and just doing nothing (especially no work). Then I think about quitting the tour. Otherwise I'm close to Ireland now, which is the main reason for this tour, and doing the French part of the tour will mean just going home. But I feel more and more depressed and desperate (close to cry while writing this). I am afraid about this, because I'm not able to classify.

It rained two times yesterday. But when I cycled the A4136 road the sun came out and also with the hilly landscape the route went to be much more challenging. This all together gave me a good feeling (good to know the surrounding can have such influence). When I claimed the main up-hill, the street stayed at this altitude while still doing some up and downs – and the outlook was just fantastic. And I had two great downhills with more than 60km/h (so now I have a new record with 62.4km/h). Then once again the rain came and at this time I was pretty exhausted. After five more kilometres I arrived at the lovely house of Deborah's.

It was a nice, relaxed evening. I tasted self made chocolate chilli ice-cream (the mild version), which was very interesting and the best chocolate ice I ever had. I went early to bed and slept quite long. Today it's a sunny day and I'm looking forward to see more of the surrounding area, to spend time with Deborah and meet new people at the garden party – once again I think it is good to have the guitar with me.

Deborah is very spirited, always laughing, she's – like me – so attached to little details to prettify the environment and to make the world a place where you can discover surprising, beautiful, interesting and special things all the time. It's good to be here.

PS:
I feel homesick and homeless and I really would need a long time hug and the possibility to cry while laying in ones arms.

PPS:
The garden party was very nice. Had some good talks and met much lovely people…

A bright sunshinin' day up to Oxford

2011-08-19T22:51:00.007+01:00

Friday, 19th of August. Woke up quite early from the warm sunray, so cycling was pleasant. Once again: People can't believe, other people do long distance cycling. I asked one man in Camden (or Barnet) about the direction up to Oxford and he asked back if I meant Oxford Street and when I negated he wanted to explain the route to the next railway station.

I cycled lots of bike paths and A roads – they are so different! In the village areas the A roads are just great. Cycled the first 50 kilometres very snugly, then I told myself to do some real cycling. A good, relaxed day, where I was constantly surprised how easy all these kilometres were done, suddenly I reached kilometre 60, also suddenly kilometre 70… although I didn't do anything. I just felt somewhat weary, but there have to be some side effects from the last view days… At kilometre 80 some problems with my left calf started. I got off my bike and suddenly for no reasons my muscle was pretty hard and aching. One will see how this feels tomorrow. Apart from that I'm somehow uninterested in gathering new impressions during the cycling. It's good to be involved with something during the day, but on the other hand it's kind of always the same respectively I'm not able to inspire myself.

From London (Camden) up to Oxford I cycled 110 kilometres this day. Had a warm welcome at my couchsurfing host's place. Alison had made some tasty food and we had some nice chat about politics and education and social system in England, Scotland, Germany and Australia, talked about Australia at all, 'cause she is a big Australia fan and wants to go to this country after finishing her PHD. We also talked about long time bicycle tours as she is very experienced in that, too. It's not always easy to understand her Scottish accent, but she is able to speak common English, too… When it went dark she showed my around. Oxford (that means the University area) is so lovely, so many nice old buildings, so much young people, so much life. And the Oxford urban planner know how to work with light.

London Calling

2011-08-18T18:45:00.023+01:00

Thursday, 17th of August. Being in London. I arrived at Sunday (Monday), 15th August, 2 A.M. and will leave tomorrow morning, Friday, 18th August. Worth it all the time.

After staying at Dagnis' and Dagmara's place on the first day to have a long sleep, to do some computer stuff and just to relax, I went to Inner London, but after the first four kilometres the old tyre hole break up again. So I switched to public traffic. (I like the tube of London. It's placed so deep under the town…) Later I brought my bike back home and as I had to carry the bike's front it was pretty exhausting – one of the moments where I'm not totally glad about having a steel frame… Dagnis was so glad about being allowed to fix my bike, as he loves to do mechanical things but normally don't has the opportunity to do it. He was sad when he wasn't able to find something to repair.

To be a pedestrian in Inner London is great. Now there are lots of signs, and you are moving like one flow. Nobody waits longer then necessary at a traffic light, the green and red signs are much more an offer and there's no singled person who suddenly crosses the road, it's a great working mass communication. And nobody is disturbed or mad about this traffic light usage. And all these people, even if they move fast without any waiting, are still very friendly. Whenever I asked one of them for an information, same thing happened: If they didn't knew the answer they themselves asked another person, to be able to tell me instead of sending me to the other guy…

I like this town, I wouldn't have thought this could happen, as I had give a damn about London while planning my route. I just thought, it's on my way, so it would be weird not to see and to stay for a while. But it's just great. Nice atmosphere, much structure. London just has style. So great colours, the red buses (that sadly are no longer this originally old ones), all these colourful alternative markets, somehow flower power is still alive. And another funny thing: I start to think, I become able to understand English movies much better – right now I'm in such a movie. It's easy for me to discover unusual sights and details – so I hope the photo I took from Picadilly Circus isn't that much touristy.

Camden, where Dagnis and Dagmara are living, was definitely the right choice, especially for this Stable's Market (and also Camden High Street)! I get an idea what aspects of old Passerelle in Hannover I miss so much, where now there is no longer a Passerelle but a Niki-de-Saint-Phalle-Promenade. I feel pretty good in this town, this country. (But sometimes this feeling pops up about having no – reachable – home. Then I start to loose balance – that’s kind of scary.)

Everywhere in London you can see the the promotion for Conan the barbarian remake. I have no idea, why there has to be a remake as the old one still works very well and is also that much connected to young Arnold Schwarzenegger. They even don’t mention the name of new Conan. But it's in 3D.

The other day I really cycled through London, a totally different experience, pretty hard to have some orientation plus extreme much traffic, so much vehicles, and all this standing still while waiting for green traffic light. There are not so much cyclists in London traffic, but those who are there most of them have a racing bike. And we all cycle fairly risky, but nobody cares about that. In Germany they would constantly tot and shout at you how dare you to do such things (and I think it's mainly this reaction what makes the situation much more dangerous).

This day I visited Hyde Park, Regent’s Park and Notting Hill with its
lovely Portobello Road. And I also saw this Traveller's Bookshop which was archetype for the cute Hugh Grant's shop in the movie Notting Hill. Another place I visit because of a movie. (Did I mention that in Brugge there’s a guy who offers In Bruges guiding tours?) Meanwhile I have a pretty good idea of some area's map (and I am also totally used to cycling left hand for quite a while. Now I can’t understand why I had such weird feelings the first time). In Regent’s Park I got the first free hug in my life! A boy and a girl were running around calling out crossing people if anybody would like to have a free hug. Older people normally ignored that or went away, but I was so glad about – both of them were affected I get off the bike.

Staying with Dagnis and Dagmara was just great. All the days we had interesting talk about relationship and love attachment and also other stuff or we just relaxed together while sharing some thoughts sometimes. I gave some juggling lesson and we made some great music, really good playing on my guitar so both were really hooked, they danced, they made some rhythm and other escorting sounds, they even sang although both of them claimed they are not able to sing before – and it sounded fantastic. Just great atmosphere, cosy and intensely. Dagnis and Dagmara are such a lovely, warm, cute and attractive couple.

Last words:

…Who said London would be expensive? Things I normally buy have same price or are cheaper as in Germany.
…Since Tuesday my guitar is once again a six string guitar. It's an interesting sound when played. Different but good. Just after this all time playing the last few days my fingertips start to hurt.
When I visited London (Hyde Park, Notting Hill, Regent's Park) I cycled 42 kilometres, and I also reached the 1.000 kilometres survey point
…All over this country there are so many old two-coloured VW-busses (V1 and V2) still driving, that’s so nice! Some of them are so old, they actually have a splited front shield.
…Just for the statistics. Yesterday evening some rain felt down – the first time I saw rain in whole England. Today is just a rainy day. Main reason, why I'm still here.

An addition related to Martin's commentary

Up to London in just one day

2011-08-18T00:14:00.003+01:00

Monday, 15h of August. Still no aching muscles, but I am pretty battered, as yesterday I cycled the whole distance Margate–London (Camden) all at once. Here is closest what Google maps is able to show about my route:

View Larger Map

Originally I planed this distance in two stages, but I lost my host in Gravesend, therefore I cycled through. From Margate to Herne Bay I cycled the lovely coast (hard to find a route as many paths used to end suddenly), then I tried the A2 for 10 kilometres, what started as a nice road (like German Landstrasse) and later changed its character into a motor road) , so I tried to find a route close to the sea, signposted (big problem, because signing was bad), and not being the A2 (most signs try to lead you back to A2). I started in Margate at 12 o'clock, reached London at 0 o'clock, but needed nearly 2 hours to find my route up to Camden and at least got help from my host Dagnis, who leaded me from Camden High Street up to his place.

All at all 150 kilometres – and the whole day constantly up and down – nobody had told me, that this area is so hilly! Because it was Sunday and I still wasn't able to change money or to find a bank and my fruit inventories were used up, I took al lot of sultanas from Allan's kitchen and found fortunately some apple trees during the cycling. I started cycling in a bad mood, thin-skinned and somehow depressed, hit shape rock bottom at 5 P.M., was no longer sure about why am I doing this – wherefore? Thought about going back home immediately because of losing sense and structure. Cycled extremely slow (my bike computer says, I still had an average of 15 km/h. Maybe it wasn't that bad as it felt) and cycled for 12 hours and 15 minutes this day.

Then I arrived at Dagnis' and Dagmara's home. And what a welcome. Dagnis had waited for me, even both had to go to work early the next day, actually Dagmara got up the bed, and both warmed up a delicious soup and prepared a slice of bread. So lovely! So unbelievable kind and helpful and generous! Surely, I was completely exhausted but still able to help myself, but the built me up with food and warmth. Thank you so much.

Having a time out in Margate

2011-08-17T23:33:00.014+01:00

Wednesday, 13th of August. Long sleeping. Allan was gone and would come home not so early. As he had some appointments this day I had the day for my own. A break and some strange feelings inside. I was pretty nervous during forenoon, out of centre, confused, tense. Close to cry and come apart at the seams. Did not really new what this implied or why it was happening. I decided to stay in the flat for once – I was not really interested in outside experiences or new impressions at all. But I wasn't really sure what would be the (so called) right thing to do. It was so hard to relax, to calm down, just to be. And I wasn't sure if this was a good sign (because I was realizing something I normally don't notice) or if it would have been better to go outside and be able to come over this feelings. I cried somewhat, just to let go. Then I felt better.

Some thoughts about the reason why I'm doing this. I had some good talks with some of my hosts (or friends of hosts) who were able to see behind the adventure part of my journey and therefore could see some parallels to their own life and desires. I met also a middle aged woman in North Rhine-Westphalia who asked with a mixture of incomprehension or lack of understanding and curiosity:"Und wozu dat janze?!" And asking for a goal is totally the wrong approach. I wanted to stay on my own. I wanted lo leave my usual life context. I even don't want to have an "usual life context" (will be continued).

I went to the library and got a internet computer guest account for one hour, then an extra hour and then an extra half hour – and all for free. My Ireland plans start to take shape – I think I will cycle the coast clockwise and end up in Dublin and then probably crossing the country up to ferry harbour close to Cork, all in all around 1.500 kilometres. No strict plan but a mental image. I have gotten some nice replies to my saying hello to the Irish world – hi there, I will come to Ireland and stay for about a month. If you would like to get to know me, I will come to your place. Please answer so that I can plan my route.

Then I took a walk along the coast. Here in Margate they have one of these small amusement parks which are popular at the English coast. To me this looks somehow strange – but no so weird as all these casinos with lots of slot machines and other vending machines and robots, I only knew from Terminator 2 or Tron. German amusement halls have a totally different character, and you have to be at least 18 years old to enter.

I had a great sundown sitting on a wall in front of Allans house and also doing some Tai chi. A special moment. I was really thrilled

When Allan came back, we visited a pub were live music is played and we came for this special band Allan is friend with. The Zen Bicycle Band, playing a "free form flowing stream of connectivity between three players". To me it sounded jazzy – and very, very good. Eventually the right moment to do some also jazzy sketches. Allan and I had an intensive talk about our understanding of friendship, and I also did some drawings, which were signed by the musicians – the liked my work.

From France up to England

2011-08-16T03:15:00.056+01:00

Friday, 12th of August. Slept quite long, spent some time in the internet and had a nice chat with Elise, so it was 12:30 when I left Elise's and Julien's place. 20 kilometres left up to the ferry harbour, cycled the road Julien had shown me yesterday on Google streetview. Great cycling among the dyke – proper dike, but also arduous (called Dig du Breack). No tourists, only some fishermen. Arrived harbour at 2 P.M. after 775 kilometres since I started in Bamberg, that's the time the ferry goes – damn, but then I learned that checking in needs lots of time anyway. While waiting to enter the ferry I saw some people playing boules.

It's unbelievable how many cars and trucks fit into this ferry! And I was the only cyclist (so I was prominent – many people called out to me, if they identified me, the amazing cyclist). As I had a look at the interiour I felt immediately like being inside Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. People of all ages and sizes (that means height and width), myriad restaurants, casinos and gambling machines for all ages… all offering dissipation and entertainment by spending ones money. Furthermore public address announcement every few minutes, either friendly and impersonal like a hitchhiker's door or so extremely enthusiastic and British. Normal and strange at the same time. Kind of surrealistic. As you can see, I'm not really used to such settings. In my conception you are able to go outside onto deck of the ship.

I had a nice chat with an English lady – thank you for spending some time with me! She told me useful details about England (time zone – the ferry company fooled me as it wrote departure: 4 P.M., arrival: 5 P.M. pretending that the passage would only last one hour…, Great Britain road types and some more). England exerts itself for appearing likeable. When we came within eyeshot, we had a bright side to White Cliffs of Dover.

When I arrived in Dover first I had problems by following the bicycle guiding line at the harbour, then suddenly I realized that it's left-hand traffic in this land which made me totally confused. It went even worse, when I tried to find my route within all this traffic in town, my stomach felt very weird, just knowing I was doing wrong with being on the left. It took me some time to discover how this left hand cycling works, at first I didn't had a behaviour pattern about how to turn to one's right without ending at the right side. It really frightened me and I was close to cry, as I had to act in a way, I knew it is wrong – not even wrong but also extremely dangerous. In my normal life context. It also felt very strange, like being in a mirrored world (and in this way only two-dimensional), which wasn't the – so called – real one, so anything else could appear as maybe being not quite real, too. A weird feeling about when everything is losing its matter and structure and coherence.

Leaving Dover I had a very exhausting cycling upon the hill leading to Dover Castle. Please follow the (not so exhausting) route up to Dover Castle on Google streetmap, by following A254 (maybe you first have to revolve and look in the converse direction) respectively Castle Hill Road and Constable's Road… – What do these cycle path signs mean? Why do they always start and end?

View Larger Map
When you reach the point where Connaught Road goes to the left, have a look to the left and enjoy this great outlook all over Dover! Believe me, it was really high angle. When I tried to cross road and cycle upper road to the right, it once – and only this time! – happened to me, that I ended up at the right side, and while realizing, some fast cars were coming towards me (notice the windy road), it was quite shocking, but not that bad as this constantly feeling of doing or being wrong, to act against the best of my knowledge. I am pretty sure this wasn't about missing faculty of abstraction but about can't trust myself , my knowing, my feelings, my body signs. Shortly after I was able to cool down and inure to this usage.

I like England and the English East coast. I like this old fashioned house building style. It was somehow hilly but easy to cycle, and – big surprise – there was no wind at all. Sometimes I cycled the coast. I cycled through Deal (which is located at the coast), Sandwich (Sandwich ist absolutely great, absolutely worth to come back!) and Ramesgade up to Margate. Great landscape and a beautiful sundown… – They must have another sun as we have at the continent, so bright, it just moved me away.

One of my bike's back end wheel spokes did break, I'm not really sure what to do. Repairing would probably cost so much, it would be easier to buy a new rim, but in that case I could also wait till the defect enlarges oneself and shows some impact, what it isn't doing right now.

I arrived at today's couchsurfing host Allan's place after sundown (I had cycled around 45 kilometres from Dover), and he offered me a bubble bath – what a great pleasure! I felt extremely good at Allan'S place and actually also before. I desired to stay any longer. When talking about, Allan and I agreed, that we would like to spend some more time together.

We spend the evening, or let's better say, the night with tasting much alcohol from all over the world countries, each bottle with its own history. Meaningful experiences about Allan's life. Each sample was accompanied by a song I played on my (right now five string) guitar, which was anyhow connected to the country, some ingredients or any other connection I was able to make (sometimes just a one word connection). I sang and translated Griechischer Wein from popular Austrian singer Udo Jürgens as we tasted Greek wine, I sang Hörst du die Regenwürmer husten? as we tasted original Tequila with worm… It was a remarkable night, magical atmosphere. It was close to 2 A.M when we went to bed, to me that meant I went to my Greek styled room with fine outlook at the coast.

The beauty, the ugly and back to normal

2011-08-12T10:24:00.050+01:00

Thursday, 11th of August. Leaving lovely Brugge while the sun is shining – I saw a swarm of doves just standing in the air and also flying backwards (caused through the heavy wind this day I think) – and cycling the first 25 kilometres along the very nice Kanaal Brugge-Oostende, which is mostly used by motor yachts. While I was cycling in direction north-west, the usual adverse wind caught me diagonal.

In Oostende I reached the sea. I love the sea. On the other hand the Belgium coast is pretty boring, but tries to stick up by being extremely stormy, Elise and Julien, my tonight's hosts, told me, the wind had 27–53 km/h, justifiably so you can say it was stormy (tomorrow it's probably better, it's said it will be 13–24 km/h). While I was still able to cycle around 20 km/h beneath the canal, I now had to slow down to 8 to 12 km/h, what I did for 20 kilometres from Oostende up to Westende (at the Albertkanaal it was 17 to 21 km/h). It was quite hard not to be blown away. At the end my face laced with grains of sand. The ugly houses, kind of high-riser with the charm of a building made with precast concrete slabs after all offered some wind protection.

I don't understand the Belgians. Like in Germany, too, they have places with caravans. In Germany there are many bowers within allotment garden, mostly placed at town border, often close to train tracks and also motor ways. But they are very green with much planting, a place for once own to relax. There are also places for static caravans, which are placed into the green, often into a recreation area. Usually nice places (if you are okay with the bourgeois middle-class character). But in Belgium they have places with static caravans, all of them same type, standing extremely close next to each other without any place for doing some personal arrangements. And they are usually placed beside the most highly frequented road. Why do they do this? Have they no sense for beauty and cosy settings?

The Belgian north looks shabby. It is reminiscent of Romania, where Klaus and I had been some years ago and also some parts in the North German Plain – uninteresting houses on a broken street with even worse bicycle paths. It turned to get better when I reached the Belgium/French frontier. Today's goal was Dunkerque, which I reached after 85 kilometres.

I had a warm welcome at Elise's and Julien's home. They are so friendly, relaxed and interested in a broad range. We had some dedicated talk about social and education system in France and Germany, including a side trip to politics, effective and useless development assistance in Third World Countries, being parents (I and their little one and a half year old son Simon immediately made friendship) and some more. They were so considerate, we had a great supper with an even better cake, Julien showed me the route to the harbour while moving the whole kilometres way on Google streetview… Elise and Julien, please come to visit me in Bamberg and make me able to be such a great host as you two are!

Addition to Brugges / Belgian and Facebook

2011-08-12T00:44:00.005+01:00

Wednesday, 10th of August. At 8:30 P.M. all tourists were gone, the leftover people looked much more like locals, just pleasant night life. The paths along the canals were just that silent and lost like the were suggestive in the movie In Bruges – one of the reasons why I had to come to this town. By the way – as it was written in the best tourist information map I've ever read: "1892. The popular book Bruges la Morte describes the city as a dark, poor and ugly place. Locals are not happy with this, but tourists see some romance in it, and start visiting Bruges more and more. […] 2009. The movie In Bruges wins an award for best scenario. Quote: 'If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't.' So just like in 1892, somebody calls Bruges a shithole, which attracts only more tourists."

At my second night in Brugge where I had this peaceful night along along the canals I also found places, where they played live music. Country, rock and electric music within this medieval masonry… Brugge has also many horse-drawn carriages for sightseeing tours like Vienna, too, but as Brugge has a totally different character as Vienna, the horse-drawn carriages also have. And Brugge is an expensive place to eat. And they serve their white beer in the wrong glasses, but with peanuts. In the breakfast room of my youth hostel hey have cups with smurfs printed.

Facebook is extremely popular in Belgium. wherever I am I sound this word out of the chatter of the generally young people. Bart is also a big Facebook fan, because it's so easy to stay in contact with all your friends and for organizing stuff. (Even when we were in a bar where Bart asked for having the next couchsurfing meeting there, they arranged to do the details via Facebook, as the bar had also a Facebook page.) Bart has also a Google+ account (but didn't really grappled with it right now). But he don't like it, he thinks it's much to complicated – why the hell all these circles ?!

In Bruges…

2011-08-10T18:31:00.017+01:00

Wednesday, 10th of August. Brugge is so great! I arrived yesterday night at 10:30/11 P.M. (after 95 kilometres of cycling) and now I'm in a nice youth hostel. This town is so lovely and relaxing – just all these tourist are disturbing… I don't feel like one of them. I don't want to take a boat trip through the canals and I'm not interested in making photos. It's unbelievable how much boats are there and all of them full with people (as one can see in this photo someone else shot…)

After spending much time on the internet working on my blog while Bart was at work, it was 4 P.M. when I left Antwerp yesterday. It's funny to ask somebody: "I want to cycle to Brugge, in what direction do I have to go?" – he will meet you with disbelief. First I had to cross a river. There are several tunnels for bicyclists and pedestrians, the elevator goes 31 metres down.

In this elevator I had a conversation with a cycling retiree, who come back from a cycling tour to Portugal quite recently. I asked him for a bike path to Brugge, and he invited me to follow him, as the route I had to take was also his way home, so I had some nice companion for the next 5 kilometres. Then I cycled a bike path he had shown to me nearby the arterial highway, which meant heavy traffic noise, but this stopped after 20 kilometres, so it was nice and easy to cycle and, best of all, the most direct route. After 50 kilometres I had a cappuccino break in Zelzate. I always forget that the Belgians have their own understanding of what's a cappuccino. They also offer some creamy thing, once I had something what could have been vanilla butter (very good to eat separated!) once something that could have been egg liqueur. Until I approached Brugge with 25 kilometres left everyone I asked for the route to get sure I didn't miss something showed the same reaction: meeting someone with disbelief, complete amazement, repeating the word Brugge in different languages and pronunciation – and at least they informed me about how much kilometres Brugge is away from where I was now (and each time the mentioned a much to small number!).

After Antwerp hasn't been that good, I expected nothing from Brugge. And than it impressed me totally, because I arrived at one of the town gates, Kruispoort – and there was such a great warm light, so lovely, so calm… And – what a fortunate coincidence! – I found myself just in the youth hostel's street.

What a welcome. Some guys at the connected pup were immediately curious about my guitar, another one wanted to invite me for a glass of wine. But I first wanted to unload my stuff to the 10 persons bedroom. When I came back, the guys were gone, but I found my glass of wine on a feeder pillar. So I went with my glass along the street, and joined a nice small Turkish diner, where I had a lasagne and shortly companion, too, because it turned out, that the Turkish owner was able to speak German. He had learned it in school and worked about ten years in Ankara, where he'd practised a lot, but had never been to Germany. He invited me for another glass of wine, we had nice talk, he complimented my eyes, then tried to hold my hand, so I had to made plain to him, this was to much, and we went on with talking. We hugged for good bye, and he once again tried to made it a closer hug, I eluded from, but altogether it was e very nice, interesting, strange night. I had a very late shower and some very good sleep.

Hobbes has said, he no longer wants to travel inside a bag, and he's a big tiger, so today we visit town together. We greet Klaus, Nilsbär, Kleiner Bär and Henry!

Antwerp

2011-08-10T18:27:00.016+01:00

Antwerp, 7th to 9th August. After I met Bart yesterday we went to a music event. Right now everywhere in Antwerp is celebrating, because it's Zomer van Antwerpen and therefore there are sunflowers everywhere. I love sunflowers. :-)

Bart hadn't to work on Monday to be able to regenerate from weekends festival experiences. Monday evening he volunteered at an event of Zomer van Antwerpen (because of all this volunteering most of the events are for free). Meanwhile I worked on my blog. Earlier this day he showed me around (but it wasn't that good as my first unforgettable impressions together with Wim).

Bart is very experienced to couchsurfing, he opened all his flat to me, being much tolerant in any way (I spend very much time at his computer. Thank you again, Bart). He demonstrated absolutely no suspiciousness, I hope I was able to show I earn so much trust. I don't think he cares about any risk and surely has a good gut instinct. Bart is very companionable and very active in organizing stuff, especially for the couchsurfing community. He cares about economy and was very helpful (so I was able to wash once again). I regret we didn't have private talking. I'm not sure he was somehow interested in me and my personality.

Bart is a big beer fan. Finally I could upload the Schlenkerla Rauchbier from Bamberg (and also two printed T-shirts I had made for my dear couchsurfer Tomas, who was also hosted by Bart shortly before. Bart will send the shirts and some Belgium beer to Tomas). Now I'm eventually able to put my rucksack in one of my paniers.

To Antwerp

2011-08-10T17:40:00.008+01:00

Sunday, 7th of August. I decided to cycle the Albertkanaal, and as my little Google maps cantle, where on the backside I had written down all the names of the towns I had to pass by using an ink pen, was so much afflicted with yesterday's rain I needed some help from a local. He sent me to Beringen where the canal passes. There I lost my new sunglasses.

Right now I have lost (respectively forgotten):

the good one of my 1 litre aluminium drinking bottles by leaving it after fixing the chain (I bought a new one in Bedburg, only 750 ml, but also with a drinking straw)
one cotton bag with fruits during cycling and one cotton bag I used for collecting my laundry, which I left at Franzi's home, were I was able to use a washing machine (Octavian gave me two new one he didn't need)
my water proofed windbreaker – but fortunately some car drivers adverted to that by honking the horn, so it's actually almost lost
a nut slice which felt off the bag while I cycled downhill, holding the bag between my left hand and the handelbar
my bicycle gloves, which I left at the toilette of a café, but realized it then I went on my bike

Things I forget to pack at home:

a hairbrush (I bought one in Sittard)
the camera cable to be able to use the photos on a computer (up to now I was often fortunate that my hosts had a card reader)

The bicycler's rules do no longer work: I had constantly wind from the west, that means adverse winds! – regardless how large the forthcoming cyclist's group was. This canal has a different character as my local Main–Danube Canal, bigger, much industry beneath and many people do water skying.

After 30 kilometres on the canal path I decided to try another route. So I reached Geel, where lots of young people broke up from a raggae festival. Much of funny cars (painted and/or old), also interesting smelling smoke. Bart, my today's host in Antwerp, told me later that this was the festival he had visited, while he wasn't able to host me the day before.

Because it was still windy while using the street I turned back to the canal.
Once a forthcoming racing cyclist made the thumbs up sign (regarding the wind plus my package, I think). This was one of the few communicative situations in Belgium. Greeting isn't common there – normally you don't get a reaction when you are greeting. Greeting forthcoming people (especially bicyclists) is one of my hobbies: In Germany they normally answer the greeting and you often get a smile, in the Netherlands they smile at you a priori and you have to be fast to be the first one to greet someone. But in Belgium there's just nothing – not even some irritation, what also would be nice. I really like the people from the Netherlands, other than the Belgium people (nevertheless they are cooperative and friendly when you're searching for the road and so on).

After 105 kilometres I reached Antwerp. First impression was disappointing. Big streets, much traffic, allover industry. But than I met a racing cyclist which stopped while I was asking a woman how to cross a bridge which wasn't allowed for bicycle. He offered to lead my to my host's home, and not only that, it was great to chat. He had seen me on the canal when cycling the other direction, and he was so kind, he choose a route through the historic part of Antwerp and made a small tourist guiding. Thank you so much, Wim, I would love to here from you again!

Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium

2011-08-10T15:31:00.009+01:00

Friday, 5th of August. I took the countryside highway for the most of the time up to Geilenkirchen, and I had lots of wind. Slowly I realized that there could be a connection between this and all these windmills in the Netherlands… In Geilenkirchen I had a break and annoyed a saleswoman in a butcher shop as I bought just one slice of salami, which I needed for my cheese roll. In this town you can't be sure if you met a German person or one from the Netherlands, it's a mixed up chatter on the streets, while it's very close to the frontier. Up from North Rhine-Westphalia the house building style had changed, as in the Netherlands, too, they are all brick build, typical for all areas were they don't have rocks. The river Wurm crosses town where it's leaded below the town.

Now I navigated by a point of intersection based bicycle route system, which is also used in the Netherlands. So I left Germany while using nice little roads without traffic inside a beautiful landscape. Because Octavian, my today's couchsurfing host in Sittard, had still to work, I cycled criss-cross through nice little villages and nature – 25 kilometres extra, just for fun! So today's stage ended after 95 kilometres.

As I arrived in Sittard and tried to orient myself to find out how to reach Octavians home, I discovered I was just standing at the corner where his street branched off – I was so exited about that! Easy to find the house, difficult to ring the doorbell, because there wasn't a doorbell panel, but a little computer terminal. With the help of a local person I figured out how to use this. Since today I have to communicate in English.

Octavian was very nice and friendly. First thing we did yet before starting real conversation was juggling together. He is a settled character, but also very social, interested in a variety of things and with deep thoughts about many things. His flat is in a house where many young people from all over the world are living for a period. It's a very agile atmosphere, someone is knocking at the door and comes for a short visit at all hours (some people leave their door always ajar). Lotte and Lilly, I would be glad to hear from you!

Next day we visited an exhibition. Museum Het Domein Sittard showed the photographer Roger Ballen. Interesting to discuss his work. I like his earlier work from the 80's, but all in all he's much to manipulative and straining after effect. I found a poster of Bamberg (old town hall and dome) at one of his photos which was shot in a flat in Africa! After museum we went to historic town centre, eating outside and had much nice conversation. I put one's foot into one's mouth when I asked for the change when I bought cyclist's sunglasses. It was 19.99 Euro but the seller wanted 20 which irritated me so much that I asked for the left cent. Octavian later explained to me, that it's very common in the Netherlands to round up – nobody cares about just one cent! (Me, too! But I was too surprised to ignore. Worst of all the seller searched ages for the cent and in the end because he couldn't found one he gave me a two cent coin.)

Unfortunately my guitar has a damage. I think it was a good idea to buy a rejected one for my tour… I'm still able to play, while turning the pin back to the original position, so it doesn't really matter.

I left Octavian at 6 P.M. because he had to do some work and my legs were so nervous. I had planed the next stage from Sittard up to Antwerp with 125 kilometres and had learned this would mean around 140 kilometres, so I was glad to be able to cycle a fare stage. I was really fast! I just had to cycle! (I do no longer care about average speed, because it depends so much on landscape structure, weather and if it's easy to find the route, but I'm really glad when I'm able to fly away…) I cycled through Susteren (NL), Masseik (B) and Bree. From 9 P.M. on I was looking for a place to sleep, I asked some villagers if I could stay at their roofed veranda, as I did more than ten years ago in Denmark, but there was no chance. In Denmark I never had problems with that and was always invited to sleep in a barn, a garage or a bower and sometimes even to share meal.

Some rain had started. In Peer there was a kind of street festival, bands were playing on truck's load floors, so there was nice music, great atmosphere, many people outside – and even a hotel! But it looked so unappealing, impersonal, way to stylish and at least expensive, that I decided to go on cycling – maugre the rain and the fact it had gotten dark. So I cycled through the night, wearing my rain gear (now I can say I am equipped perfectly) and reached Leopoldsburg after 60 kilometres, where I found a much more cosy hotel/restaurant/bar, with such a kind steward, who helped me with my stuff and even warmed up my half pizza, which was now presented like a real meal that I ate in my room, while watching some TV. It's so great to be in a country where's no dubbing!

From Germscheid up to Oppendorf/Bedburg

2011-08-09T01:18:00.008+01:00

Thursday, 4th of August. My first real cycling day! Because looking after my legs and knees for the last days, while my thigh felt very keen from time to time (and surely especially while doing exhausting cycling) I now felt able to cycle with power. (Still no muscle soreness at all.) While I wanted to follow the Rhine river, my first few kilometres were still somehow hilly (remember: edge of Westerwald). I was guerdoned with an 8…kilometres downhill upon a twisting road!

From Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia, up to Bornheim I cycled along the Rhine river. In Königswinter I took a ferry to switch sides and had a nice talk with an old lady who was also on a bicycling tour together with her more than 80 year old husband. She had travelled so much all across the world with her bike in earlier times, that I felt just like a newbie. She commended my bike as a very good one– I was so glad, because I love my old vehicle and think it's good quality, too.

Close to Bonn there was so much bicycling traffic (mixed up with promenaders). While the sun was shining so bright everybody was outside although it was Thursday early afternoon. I don't like these slowly Sunday drivers, often overweight, clinging to their handle bar and tottering as if they'd need all their concentration not tilting over. Excursionists!

To hear all the various dialects while cycling through different parts of Germany is funny. The dialect allows to transport an anyway individual part of the character. And once I needed an emergency toilet, so I asked a woman who was working in her garden. And she not only let me in but also gave me some freshly-picked plums while saying: "Vitamins!" in broken German (I think she was Vietnamese).

In Marten I had to climb a hill with my bike and then on the wide top navigate by looking at the position of the sun (that means the shadow) through a complex system of windy paths across a forest to find my way down to the little Erft river – did I mention that the bicycle guiding system in North Rhine-Westphalia is absolutely bad? Sometimes they write the name of a town on a sign, sometimes not, although you're just trying to follow. They don't try to guide you, it is much more a hide and seek – they don't put a sign when the surrounding area changes, they put it somewhere else, maybe as an award for guessing the right direction.

To cycle the Erft river was so pretty and therefore I was able to do the next reparation inside this very nice location. Once again I had trouble with my gearshift, the chain switched all the time up and down the gears while making bad noise. Now I saw why. Bless god I took a chain tool with me (and have had not listened to my boyfriend …).

Note: Klaus is the best companion in life I could imagine. Normally he knows nearly everything, is technical gifted (and also in many other ways) and he is the one person I want to spend my life and share my thoughts, my feelings and everything. You are great, I love you so much.

Although today's stage was planed with 80 kilometres it took me 105 (probably 10 to 15 kilometres is due to the subject of searching for the route). This was the first time I was able to reach today's couchsurfing host at the right time (I try to arrive between 6 and 8 P.M. and I caught 7 o'clock). And I came late enough only to see the the puddles and wet streets but not get wet myself, because the rain was over. What was left was some stormy weather.

It was the first time for Franzi to host (and she wasn't able to surf so far, too). Right now she has passed Abitur, is sweet 19 years old, still living with her mother until she'll hopefully starts to study teaching degree for secondary schools next semester. Franzi was so sweet-natured and willing to be a courteous host. And it sounds so nice when she's giggling! It makes me smiling when I remember it. I had a gorgeous evening together with her, her mother and her mother's boyfriend, and let's not forget the two dogs! We talked about education and the educational system. It's just such an open, living house, where people – and not only couchsurfers! – can come and sometimes stay for a while. Franzi, visit me and Klaus in Bamberg!

From Hüttenstadt up to Germscheid – and once again a train part…

2011-08-08T21:29:00.008+01:00

Wednesday, 3th of August. I left Susanne at 11 A.M. shortly before it started to rain, wherefore I had another stop to search for my rain clothes. Naturally the rain stopped at the moment I had done my rain clothes. But since it was still some cold I kept it on. My first goal for this day was Wetzlar because of its wonderful historic city centre. It's a straight road which leads to this small town. There was a bike path next to the street. My heart didn't misgave me, when the path left the road – bike paths do such things sometimes, perhaps when the street planers don't want you to cycle upon a hill. This path was really winding and went on to veer away from the road. But I went on, because the landscape was so nice and I trusted in the fact that the path had to lead to somewhere.

After maybe one kilometre with slight down-grade the bike path mutated into a path of asphalt tile, then into a cart track, then into a muddy cart track, then into a muddy seldom used upward cart track … I started to push my bike, but I was still curious. Finally the so-called path ended as a overgrown thing, but at this time I could fortunately hear the cars riding on the road. The last maybe 50 metres I unloaded my bike and carried first my stuff and than my bike across the forest. Altogether it took me two hours, but I was so proud of myself that I wasn't frustrated or something like that, but just able to handle the situation. I was completely all in a sweat. My spats had been very useful; otherwise my shoes and feet would have been totally wet, too. But my clothes had been really dirty from the mud.

The historic centre of Wetzlar is actually as nice and well worth seeing as Susanne had told me. It has a Dom with only one finished tower, then there hadn't been enough money to build the other one…

Best of all: now I followed a bike path along the Lahn river. I bought two bicycle tubes in a bicycle store, and as I started to answer the question whereto I'm cycling: "through Belgium and …" the mechanic cut me off saying: “Ah … – that kind of trip.” As I had some problems with my gearshift I asked if he could take a look and in the end he fixed it for free “to sponsor the trip”. Very much thanks to Armin from bykx Radstudio in Solms-Oberbiel! Cycling along the Lahn was just great. But sadly after 50 cycled kilometres I had to switch to train, when arriving in Weilburg at 6 A.M. – there was no later connection from another station available and otherwise I would have arrived in Germscheid eventually at midnight. Maybe it wasn't the worst decision, because shortly after it started to rain once again. This day I decided to send some of my stuff back home, so I took advantage of the time during the train ride to sort out. In Limburg I had to change trains – it seemed to be the wrong time for travelling with the bike … Once again I had to carry my bike.

Olli, my today's host, picked me up at Altenkirchen train station and we drove with his car to his home in Germscheid, Rhineland-Palatinate. (Once again: Thanks to him and also the other couchsurfing hosts who helped me so much with my tour.) Olli is a friendly and relaxed guy. After school he made a motor bicycle tour, which was planed as an one year trip up to Australia and ended up as a two year tour up to New Zealand. Then he started to breed Galloway cows. He commemorated Dave, a dear friend of mine, who is so open and tender but so hard to reach inside.

When we attained the 150 year old farm house in a small village at the edge of Westerwald there was a bonfire and some friends and neighbours who celebrated hay harvest with eating and drinking together. I felt so welcome and had a very nice evening with some chit-chat. And Olli has such a lovely outgoing young daughter! I have also to thank Olli for agreeing to send my stuff back home. Cheers!

From Wartmannsroth up to Schlüchtern – and up to Gießen by train …

2011-08-08T18:02:00.015+01:00

Tuesday, 2th of August. After Uwe and I have had some breakfast he offered me his computer for writing my blog and check messages – and therefore suddenly it was 2 o'clock P.M., when I left Wartmannsroth in Lower Franconia, Bavaria. (Trying to avoid this “suddenly time has gone”-thing is the reason, why it took some time till I went on with my blog. My apologize. In punishment of that I now have to write with a French keyboard…)

The weather wasn't just good – it was hot! From Wartmannsroth my way led me straight up to Völkersleier, a small village which is build on an inclined plane with probably a 45 degree angle – unable to cycle with all my luggage and very hard to push the bike, but no problem at all as I was fresh and unspent. And the day went on like this, as I cycled the Rhön Mountains area. I had some amazing downhill drive where I was able (and that means it was a calculable risk) to reach maximum speed over 60 km/h, but also some heavy uphill grades. But it was fun, and as I am cycling for the cycling (and also for the adventure) everything is just okay – come what may.

Next thing that came was a flat tyre. If your boyfriend says to you, you don't need a spare tyre on your tour, don't believe him like I did! The hole in my bicycle tube was a cleft, not easy to repair but I managed. But unexpected I was not able to inflate the tube. While I was still trying first a car stopped to offer some help, then two mountain bikers, who were also not able to inflate while using their own air pump, and at least a couple on a tandem-like bicycle (recumbent bike ahead and normal bike behind) and they fortunately had a air pump which worked. Many thanks to Britta and Wolfgang! – And also thanks for the nice conversation… Hope you are alright at your trip through Germany.

All things considered the mishap took me one hour and with all my hill caused slowness now it was close to evening. I decided to change to train, but in Stirbfritz (what a great name!) I would have had to wait for a long time, so I went on – pushing my bike on a high-angle road (7 or 8 degree the sign said), where I had to stop every five minutes gasping for breath. It was so exhausting I felt nausea. I was glad that the situation didn't depressed me but I had a bad conscience because of my couchsurfing host for this night. I want to be a better couchsurfer than I was able by this time. But I had called her and she was insightfully.

By and by I reached Schlüchtern (Hesse, Germany). The Schlüchtern people built the railway station outside the small town on top of a hill. And they build only stairs to reach the platforms. Once again, while seeing me, people offered help and while realizing the weight they didn't want to lower one's guard. (So I assume. It was really much weight.)

In the train I met another cyclist who was training for the Alpenmarathon. After a better change in Hanau I reached Gießen, where Susanne, my host for this night, picked me up at 9:30 P.M. and we went by car to her home in Hüttenstadt. I was her first chouchsurfer, but she had surfed several times during her trip to USA, she just had come back the night before and still felt the jet lag.

She welcomed me with a delicious chanterelle strudel and as I told her about the background of my journey, we had a good private talk about how to live, how to work and how to love, and the compromises we were willing or not willing to accept. For both of us our touring was about learning to be able to come in touch with own requirements and having the distance for getting new perspectives. All this felt so good. Thank you, Susanne for some time to bethink.

I cycled 42 kilometres that day. For some reason that's not that bad, I think …

First day, first host

2011-08-02T11:04:00.012+01:00

Tuesday, 2nd of August.I started in Bamberg on 1th August at 12 o'clock. It had went that late because I still have had to complete some stuff – and shortly after I broke open I remembered that I had forgotten to fetch some important orders from the chemist's shop, so I had to turn back. The weather was fine, the cycling, too. Up to Schweinfurt I took the Main river route I also had cycled some weeks before. After 20 kilometres an over 60 year old man joint me. He was curious about my guitar packed on the bicycle, so I had some company to talk to. He had dropped in to Bamberg for lunch and was now on his way back – altogether about 130 kilometres!

In Schweinfurt – after 65 kilometres of cycling – I lost my way several times – bad signposting in a heavy traffic area. Shortly after cycling went very hard – every climb was a challenge and I really slowed down. Once I had to take a break, and when I felt to be able to go on a nice bicyclist came away, asked if he could help and showed me a short cut… he even escorted me!

Time went on, I supposed to arrive at Uwe's place – my first couchsurfing host who expected me in Wartmannsroth – much earlier. After all I called Uwe when finishing 100 kilometres, but still owning 15 kilometres, and he picked me up in Euerdorf.

I was the first couchsurfer of Uwe and his wife Gerlinde, as they live in a very small village in the middle of nowhere. They gave me such a great welcome, were so much courteous! It felt like home to me, like being part of the family – a remote relative, which wasn't seen for a longer time. They were very much helpful and offered much more as one can expect from a dear host.

We spend a very nice evening, ate together (Uwe is a great cook, trained as cook a long time ago). We had nice talks about several topics – their family life (they have a 16 year old son), profession, music (I played some guitar), table top games, travelling experiences and living in other countries where we had been – and life in general. It was very relaxed and cosy.

Today's route goes from Wartmannsroth up to Hüttenberg. Google said it should be 115 kilometres, but it will be much more, as I now know Google thought about yesterday's route it should be less then 100 kilometres… So probably I will take some distance by train.

Today the sun is shining, too, and I have some sunburn from yesterday.

The last night at home

2011-07-31T21:22:00.013+01:00

Sunday, 31 of July. The last night at home (and unfortunately some bad kind of headache. :-/)
I start to realize that tomorrow I will start into a big adventure…

I tested to pack all things I want to take with me today. It seems to work.

The bike's prepared!

2011-07-29T13:43:00.002+01:00

Friday, 29th of July. Three days left…
The bike's reparation is done, some parts replaced.

To and through Ireland...

2011-07-23T12:21:00.018+01:00

Saturday, 23th of July. On August 1th I will start my three month bicycle tour to and through Ireland – and probably back home via France.
I wanna stay over at couchsurfing hosts most of the time (and sometimes stay for a while), hope to get to know interesting people, opinions, ways of life.
Here's the planned route to Ireland:

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