Über die Brücke

New site

2008-06-19T02:41:00.004+02:00

Since I'm not in Germany anymore ... and since I've not been updating this site ...

I've got a new one up and running at:

... changed my mind on the new site. I'm keeping this name, just moving it (and making the English spelling correct).

http://ueberdiebruecke.wordpress.com/

Back in Germany

2007-11-30T23:23:00.000+01:00

Back in Germany for the first time since leaving in March, I'm thinking ... how could I have put up with the smoking here for 8 months?

I don't remember it being all that bad, but maybe now after living in relatively smoke-free Ohio it seems worse. I was at a trade show this past week, and at every entrance from one hall to the next, or any doorway leading outside, you had to run the gauntlet of smokers. I swear my clothes smelled like smoke by the end of the day.

My teammate Tris had sent me an internet link about the problem of obesity in the US. He said Americans are eating themselves to death. Looking at the people here in Germany, the contrast is pretty stark. While the Germans may on the whole be thin, they are perhaps smoking themselves to death. I'm not sure which is worse.

It's especially disturbing to me to see the young people smoking in such large numbers.

At some point, the smoking restrictions we now have in the US, and that are present in many other countries, will eventually come to Germany. From my perspective, that will make Germany a better place.

***

At the moment I'm in Nürnberg. I stayed here after the trade show because they have one of the biggest Christmas markets in Germany, and it seemed worth checking out. Unfortunately because it is such a big event it draws a huge crowd.

After a day of walking around the old part of the city, I went down to the opening of the Weinachtsmarkt. Imagine trying to fight the crowd rushing to the men's room at halftime of a football game. Couple that with live cigarettes in peoples' hands, which becomes quite deadly in close quarters.

The atmosphere is wonderful -- food, spiced wine, people in a festive mood. If there were only about 1/2 of those festive people it would be great.

An hour's worth was enough for me. Craving a little peace, I found a nice Italian restaurant on a quiet side street, where I had one of my favorite meals: beef carpaccio, pizza with prosciutto and mushrooms, and a couple glasses of wine. Guess I'd had enough German for the day.

Opportunities to speak

2007-06-01T13:49:00.000+02:00

Living in the U.S., going about your daily affairs, how often would you think you could use a foreign language? I suppose if you lived in Miami or San Diego you could use Spanish quite often. What about Italian, or French, or … German? How often would you be able to use those languages?

You might be surprised.

As I wrote previously, my friend and colleague from Germany was here recently. We attended several work meetings and then got together a few times after work. It would have been easy – for me – to just speak English. It probably would have been easy for Viktor too, since his English is close to perfect and he wouldn’t have to suffer through my mistakes in German.

But we just started speaking German, just like we did in Germany. It was difficult for me at first, having been away from hearing and speaking German every day. I was having trouble getting the right sounds to come out of my mouth. But before too long I felt reasonably comfortable again. Encouraging.

The following week I had a work trip to California. One of the people I met had coincidentally lived and worked in Düsseldorf for several years. He had married a German woman, and spoke fluent German -- though with a California accent.

So one night at dinner, there we were, standing in the bar in San Jose speaking German – a comical scene, and something I never would have imagined.

On the way back home, at one of the airport shops in Houston, I noticed the cashier had an accent that sounded German. I asked, and yes, she was from Germany. We had a short conversation, as the line of puzzled customers started to grow behind me.

In Chagrin Falls, just a couple miles from where we live, there is store called the Ski & Sport Haus. The spelling of “Haus” might lead one to think that someone there has at least some knowledge of German. I stopped in the store not too long ago, and one of the women working there had an accent. She was one of the owners (or from the owners’ family), and she told me she was from Austria – which was then apparent from her accent when speaking German.

I had 4 years of Spanish in high school, and another semester in college, but never felt I was very fluent. When I think back on this, not once did I ever have the opportunity to speak it, as I did in these little interactions in German. I wonder now, was it that I didn’t have the opportunity or was it more that I didn’t look for the opportunity?

Many people have told me, if you want to learn the language, you have to be willing to try it – to speak it and to make mistakes. There is a saying in German, “Übung macht den Meister“. Literally that means „practice makes the master“. People said this to me on many occasions when I would apologize for my many mistakes. I wonder what my Spanish would be like had I followed that advice.

Foreign in Cleveland

2007-05-28T15:46:00.000+02:00

It’s an odd feeling to be sitting in a restaurant in Cleveland speaking German, surrounded by people dressed for the Indians game that day. Or standing in front of the Rolling Stones exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

My friend and colleague Viktor was in the U.S., and we had gone downtown to visit the Rock Hall and get something to eat.

In Germany, I was self-conscious that my German gave me away as a non-native speaker. Here I could sense people around us turning their heads and noticing that we weren’t speaking English. I imagined what they might be thinking – that we were foreign tourists out sightseeing. It seemed a bit comical -- and fun-- to be a foreign tourist in the place where you live.

I had asked Viktor what he might want to do, and offered some suggestions such as the Indians game, or visiting museums at University Circle. I was surprised when he said he wanted to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It turns out he had played bass in a band when he was younger, and he was pretty knowledgeable about bands from the 60’s and 70’s.

I suppose it would be natural to go to a Beethoven festival in Germany, or to a Mozart exhibit in Salzburg. So it shouldn’t have been too surprising to visit the Rock Hall in Cleveland.

We took the train (the “Rapid”) from the Rock Hall to the Tower City complex to get something to eat. Not having done this in Cleveland before, I realized that I knew more about taking the train in Germany. I had no idea how often the trains ran, how much they cost, and where to get a ticket. We played tourist again, and asked some other people waiting on the mostly-deserted platform.

The difference between here and Germany was striking, as there was no ticket machine, no timetable for the train posted, and no display that told you when the next train would depart. We had to pay the driver on the train – something that would create a certain delay during busy times.

On the short trip we noticed the driver continuously chatting with one of the attendants, beneath a sign that said “No unnecessary talking with driver.”

Viktor turned and said, in German, “That must be necessary talking”.

Here was a cool benefit of a foreign language: being able to talk about someone and not have them understand.

Souvenirs from Germany

2007-05-18T14:04:00.001+02:00

After an 8-month stay in Germany, you might reasonably assume I’d accumulated souvenirs and other German stuff to bring back home. But I resisted the temptation to buy a bunch of stuff that would just collect dust on a shelf.

I did come home with a couple of functional items: 2 beer glasses from Belgium, and my GPS unit.

Each brand and style of beer in Germany (Belgium, too) seems to have its own special glass. If you go into a bar or restaurant, and order two different beers, you’ll get a different glass each time. So ‘collecting’ beer glasses could get completely out of control.

Driving back to Düsseldorf after a work trip to Brussels, I stopped in the Belgian equivalent of Wal-Mart. I wandered around a bit, and found an entire aisle of Belgian beer. I’ve been told there are over 900 different beers in Belgium, and it seemed this store had a good percentage of them (that is only a slight exaggeration).

Belgian beers seem to be often served in more of a goblet than a beer glass. This store had a package of Leffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leffe), which I like, along with 2 Leffe glasses. I figured this would be my beer souvenir. It’s possible to find Leffe in the U.S., so I figured I’d be able to use the glasses for their intended purpose.

The GPS unit was less of a souvenir. Since my car in Germany had a built-in GPS, I’d gotten used to having one. It saved me many times trying to find my way along streets that changed direction seemingly at random.

I bought this particular GPS unit because it has maps of both the U.S. and Europe. I’ve written previously about my experience buying this in the Düsseldorf airport and trying to get a VAT rebate, with no success.

On my way out of Germany, in the Köln-Bonn airport, I tried one last time. I went to the customs office, showed them my receipt and passport, and asked about getting the tax rebate. As in Düsseldorf, they said no, I’d been in Germany too long. But in contrast to the agent in Düsseldorf, they were quite friendly and apologetic. It occurred to me that this confirmed the perception that people from Köln are friendlier than those from Düsseldorf, who can have, shall we say, a bit of an attitude.

Back in the U.S., I’ve kept the German voice on the GPS unit – one of those little ways to keep some exposure to German. There are actually 4 German voices to choose from: Katrin, Stefan, Lisa, and Werner. I’ve got Katrin giving me directions. It’s comical at times to hear the attempts (computer-generated) at pronouncing U.S. road and city names. “Interstate 480 West” just doesn’t sound right in German. Neither does “fahren Sie auf die Autobahn”, when I am only able to legally drive 65mph.

Losing German

2007-05-01T13:45:00.000+02:00

After 8 months away in Germany, I became pretty comfortable hearing and speaking German. I wasn’t fluent enough that people would mistake me for a native speaker – well actually people did, but they weren’t native speakers either.

Although I wasn’t completely fluent, the longer I was in Germany, the better I became at navigating what I did and didn’t know. I could hear a long stream of German, and from that mess pick out enough to understand the basics then use what I knew to say something back, or ask for clarification. And I always had the option of saying I didn’t understand.

Since returning to the U.S., I’d been wondering how quickly I might lose what I’d learned.

Viktor, my friend and colleague from Germany, called the other day. I hadn’t talked with him in a couple of weeks, and when he called and started speaking German it was a shock. I had to listen very closely and struggled with how to answer. I felt self-conscious speaking German and was starting to sweat.

After a few minutes my comfort level started to improve, but it was obvious and a bit discouraging to recognize that after just a month my German had already started to decline.

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising – if you hear a language every day you’re bound to absorb something. And if you use it every day, even just a little, you’re bound to improve.

The little realization I had is how much easier it is when everyone around you is speaking the language. You don’t have to make the effort to immerse yourself in it – it’s all around you. You’d have to make an effort to avoid it.

It would take a fair amount of effort and diligence to get even a portion of the language exposure I had while in Germany. I would need to: listen to German stations via Internet radio while at work (www.dw-world.de), listen to German-language podcasts while in the car (www.schlaflosinmuenchen.com is a good one), tape the daily Deutsche Welle show on the SCOLA cable channel, read German newspapers. This is all reasonably doable, but without the imminent need to use it on a daily basis, it’s easy to get lazy.

I liked to ask people in Germany about learning English. More than one person told me that learning English in Germany was quite different when they knew they would need to go to the US or England and use it every day.

That’s the other realization: the motivation to make the extra effort with the language comes easier when you have a compelling reason.

Ugly and dreary

2007-04-11T14:51:00.000+02:00

I don’t want to bash the place where I live. But I guess I’m going to do it anyway.

It seems so dreary here. In part that's because it’s winter again: almost 3 feet of snow over the weekend, in my backyard at least. The roads are dirty with salt and cinders. Trees are still without leaves.

But it’s more than that.

A few weeks ago, my first weekend back home, I drove down to Mansfield for a bike race. On the way there, driving down I-71, it occurred to me how unattractive things seemed. I passed the big outlet mall, the sprawling truck stops, junkyards you can see from the highway.

Mansfield was lots of concrete and ugly 50’s-style houses, with other areas of bulldozed farmland sprouting new “McMansions”. None of it was attractive.

Now there are certainly aspects of Germany that are dreary: the heavy industry in the Rurhgebiet north of Düsseldorf, open mines, graffiti in the city. But it never seemed very far to the next open space or town center with a pedestrian area. Even heavily populated areas were broken up by green space. This is something I miss about Germany, though I don’t miss the heavy traffic the goes along with the population.

It’s particularly disturbing how we seem to be paving over more and more green space in this area, despite an overall decline in population. People then wonder why there are problems with storm water runoff after heavy rain.

I’m sure the weather here is affecting how things seem right now. I’m hoping things will look different when the sun and green return. But even the sun and green won’t stop yet another redundant cluster of Home Depot-Petsmart-Bed, Bath, and Beyond from being built.

More bad driving

2007-04-05T04:03:00.000+02:00

I don't know what was worse, driving in Mass or driving yesterday from Cleveland to Ann Arbor, Michigan and back.

Though German drivers are certainly aggressive, they are at least predictable. You almost never see someone pass on the right on the Autobahn (since it is illegal), and you don't see drivers going slow in the fast lane. Slower traffic stays right. Faster traffic passes on the left.

On the way up to Ann Arbor, I found myself getting more and more annoyed at the people who just drive in the left lane without passing. I saw one car get on the turnpike and immediately cross 2 lanes to drive 60mph in the passing lane. All the way to Michigan I suppose.

It is a very simple concept: stay right, pass left. Why don't people get this?

It was even worse in Michigan -- both the drivers and the condition of the roads (though at least the speed limit is higher).

They also had more the interesting road hazard reports: basketball hoop in the right lane on I-75 (disgruntled Ohio State fan?); refigerator door in the center lane on route 23.

Mass. confusion

2007-04-02T03:04:00.000+02:00

This past week I was in Massachusetts for a few days. It was the first time I've traveled anywhere in the US, outside of home, in more than a year.

There was something oddly disorienting about the trip. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, then realized I was somehow expecting things to be "foreign" -- as in European. Over the last year, anytime I traveled I was a foreigner.

And here I was, back in the land of English (although accented), familiar food, familiar customs (like getting the check in a restaurant without asking for it).

It was, in a way, foreign. Just not in the way I'd gotten used to.

We lived in Massachusetts for a few years, back in the mid-80's. One morning I got up early and drove through the 2 different neighborhoods where we lived. I expected everything to seem familiar ... but it didn't. I recognized the houses where we lived and a few landmarks, but mostly it seemed unfamiliar. Business had changed, new houses had gone up, roundabouts had become big intersections, there was now a WalMart (doesn't that always seem to be the case?).

I drove along in the rush hour traffic -- Mass. drivers seemingly much more dangerous and unpredictable than anything in Germany -- thinking again how what we expect is rarely what we find.

Are you from England?

2007-03-25T16:14:00.000+02:00

When I first arrived in Germany, I was so self-conscious about being foreign. I would walk down the street thinking that somehow everyone knew I was here from the U.S. It felt as though I was wearing a big sign advertising where I was from.

I recognized there was something a bit neurotic about this. I asked my German teacher if he thought people would easily recognize that I wasn’t from Germany. He said yes, but it didn’t have anything to do with how I looked or dressed. He said there’s something intangible that people would pick up on.

After a few months of living in Germany and walking down the same streets every day, after the newness and strangeness had started to fade, I didn’t feel so self-consciously foreign.

But then I would start to talk with someone, and immediately they knew I wasn’t a native. This was never a problem; if anything people were even friendlier when they found out I wasn’t from Germany.

After asking if I spoke English, people almost always asked if I was from England. I suppose that makes sense: English … England. And of course England is much closer to Germany than the U.S. People were often surprised when I said I was from the U.S. Here I was thinking it was so obvious where I was from, and people really didn’t know.

This happened in Spain and Italy too – people assuming I was from England.

And then in Italy and France I encountered people who thought I was German.

In a restaurant in Girona, Spain they asked whether I wanted a menu in Spanish or Catalan. They were surprised when I asked if they had an English menu – which they had, but which was not very well translated. One of the desserts was “scum of milk with fruit”. I almost tried it, just out of curiosity but I was already beyond having eaten enough.

One of my favorite encounters happened my first week in Germany. While out for a bike ride an older woman walking on a farm path stopped me. She was complaining how someone had run over the reflectors on the edge of the path. She spoke no English and my German was just starting to come along. I was wearing my team Torelli kit, riding my Torelli bike, and she asked if I was a bike racer from Italy. I thought for a moment about playing along and saying yes. But I did know how to say in German, “no, but I can wish.” We talked for quite a while -- mostly her talking, as she complained about the current state of affairs in Germany with all of the foreigners. She didn't seem to have a problem with me though -- I think because I was learning German -- and as I rode off she wished me best of luck during my stay.

Deutsch outside of Deutschland

2007-03-19T13:14:00.000+01:00

I never considered that learning German would be all that useful outside of Germany.

But there are other German-speaking countries besides Germany, even if their German is not always the same as the one I understand. In September I went to Austria to see the World Championship road races. My German was useful at the hotel desk, and with waiters at restaurants. Then while trying to navigate the race course I stopped to ask for directions from a policeman. After a moment of confusion I quickly realized what he spoke wasn’t the German I knew. He could understand my Hochdeutsch, but when he spoke it was in the Austrian dialect. I imagine it was similar to what would happen if a German who learned English in, say, Cleveland had traveled to Arkansas for the first time and spoke with a real local. Fortunately I had a map – pointing works in any language.

Traveling from Germany, it was not surprising that other travelers would be speaking German. Coming back to the U.S. at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I found myself in the interesting position of helping the person seated next to me fill out the U.S. customs form. They each spoke decent English, but I know from filling out official forms in Germany that “official language” is not so simple. How do you explain in simple terms in German the meaning of, “have you ever taken a child whose parent is a U.S. citizen out of the country?”

I didn’t think I’d be speaking German in France though. Sitting at breakfast the first morning I was in Cannes, the waiter came by and asked me in German what I wanted to drink. Without thinking I answered him in German, before realizing, “hey, we’re in France.”

He had noticed the German newspaper I was reading. He said he was from Turkey, but had lived in Germany (in Düsseldorf in fact) for quite a few years and spoke fluent German. The rest of the week every time he saw me he would speak German.

Just a few weeks later in Italy, I was surprised to see many signs in shops written in both Italian and German. I’m sure this is because of tourism. There were several occasions where people thought I was a tourist from Germany. One afternoon I stopped in a combination wine store / restaurant, and when I didn’t understand Italian the owner started speaking to me in German. On several occasions people apologized for not speaking better English or German.

One morning at the hotel I heard German coming from the TV in another room. A team from Südtirol was also staying at the hotel. Südtirol is a region in the border area between Italy and Austria. It was still winter there, so these guys had also come to Tuscany for some decent weather and good training. They spoke German, Italian, and of course the Austrian dialect. Listening to them at dinner, they seemed to speak mostly in Austrian. But to the waiter they spoke Italian, and we had a few brief conversations in German.

Europe is appealing in this way: the mixture of languages and dialects, relative compactness of the countries, blending of the border areas, pockets of different language within a single country. It makes for interesting cultural textures that change so quickly from place to place.

I’m still in awe of people who can switch between multiple languages so easily. Learning one foreign language has been hard enough. People have told me that it gets easier, each new language you pick up. Easy for them to say now. I'm not sure I would have the stamina to test it personally.

Doorways and other things

2007-03-14T23:58:00.000+01:00

For some reason in Italy I was always wanting to stop and take pictures of various doorways. There was something compelling about the old buildings, the doorways, and the way they often had window baskets or flower pots out front. Many of the little shops clearly had living spaces up above or next to the shop. I wondered what these old buildings looked like inside, who lived in them, and how does one come to live in or own such a place?

Back home now from Italy, I find myself missing the morning ritual of cappuccino, croissants and prosciutto with a wedge of cheese. Espresso in the afternoon. Wine and olive oil at dinner.

There is something about espresso in Italy. I remember this from the being there previously. I'd never really liked espresso all that much, but this was different -- rich, and with a creamy froth on top. It seemed every little bar or cafe knew how to make espresso well. I was told it had something to do with the type of coffee they use, something with the water, and the skill of the 'barista' who made the espresso.

I also learned that one just doesn't have cappuccino after breakfast. They say it's not good to have all that milk sitting in your stomach. After breakfast, you either have macchiato -- espresso with just a stain of milk, or you have espresso. Otherwise they look at you strangely, or in some cases even give you a hard time.

At the hotel restaurant one night, one of the teams was eating dinner at a big table. After dinner one of the guys ordered a cappuccino and a large groan came up from the rest of the guys at the table.

I was also fond of how the Italians seemed to linger over a long lunch or dinner. Instead of having all the food brought out at once, it's common to have a multi-course meal with antipasti, then a pasta dish, then a meat dish, then a salad or cheese, then a dessert. The portions weren't huge though, so I never felt like I was overdoing it (of course it helps when you are free to ride the bike for a good part of the day).

I was noticing one day at lunch how every person, at every table, had a glass of wine. This was mostly "table wine", so not quite as strong as what you might get in a more expensive bottle. There was one family with a couple of small children, and I noticed how they added a little wine to the water that the maybe 8-year-old girl was drinking.

After 10 days there, Germany seemed like a long time ago.

This was a good transition -- leaving Germany, then something completely different, then coming back home.

Now I'm looking to get my espresso machine cleaned up, so I can try to make something resembling Italian espresso. Oh, and then there's the 4 bottles of olive oil and 4 bottles of wine that resulted in my suitcase weighing 25 kilos (55 lbs).

Tuscan hill towns

2007-03-14T02:05:00.000+01:00

The sight of a town up high on a hill is one of the lasting images I have of Tuscany. Everywhere I rode there seemed to be several hilltop towns along the route. These towns were all very old -- I'm sure that in the middle ages it was important to have the town strategically located up high.

There was something intriguing about seeing one of these towns off in the distance, and then having the road eventually start climbing, often with switchbacks, all the way up to the top. Always a good workout too. In this area of Tuscany, the mountains weren't too big -- maybe 600 meters at most. But that's high enough to require some significant effort to climb, and high enough to have some fantastic views at the top.

In the area close to where I was staying, there was Casale Marittimo, Monteverde Marittimo, Sassetta, Suvereto, Massa Marittimo, and others. These were not really tourist towns -- people seemed to live and work there, and they were not big tourist destinations.

Then a little farther away were bigger tourist areas such as San Gimignano and Montalcino. These towns were interesting, and had some of the classic views that you might see on a postcard. But to me they seemed somewhat overdone in their efforts to be a "destination".

On one of the rides, I took an unplanned detour to climb up to a town called Sassa. The climb was difficult, and when I got to the top I found this tiny little town, seemingly perched on the edge of a cliff, with very old cobbled streets and stone buildings. There were no shops or restaurants that I could see. Just a few houses where people lived. There were a few people standing outside, talking or walking the dog. I felt as though I had intruded in someone's backyard. I felt funny taking picutres ... but couldn't resist.

Rain day

2007-03-08T19:23:00.000+01:00

Before deciding to come to Italy, I was talking to my boss about it, and said I was afraid it might be too rainy this time of year. He said, “ah, but Tuscany is beautiful when it rains.”

When I woke up to the sound of rain I figured I would get the chance to see if he was right.

I debated on going out and riding, but looked to be the kind of soaking rain that would not let up any time soon. So instead I grabbed my raincoat and guide book and set out for Volterra, which I had driven through the other day and which looked interesting.

Along the way I bought another two bottles of olive oil, meaning I may have to leave behind still more clothes.

Volterra is another very old, well-preserved hilltop town. From the valley floor the road climbs for 10km, with many switchbacks. Many of the drivers here seem to look ahead and if they see no oncoming traffic do not hesitate crossing the center line through the sharp turns. There was a small truck in front of me, and in my little car I could not keep up with him.

Once at the top, there are great views across the valley. Even in the rain, with the clouds very low (see picture above), the views are worth stopping to take in.

I spent a few hours walking around on wet, cobbled streets. I thought about going in one of the museums, or the old cathedral, but honestly it was more interesting to walk around the streets, looking in the shop window and watching the people.

I’ve noticed this before: often you will see 2 or 3 people just standing on a corner, or in front of a shop, talking and gesturing. As I walked through the town it seemed comical – on every corner there would be a few people standing and talking. I was thinking back to what the guy at the car rental place said: “no one wants to work today”.

I found a little café called “Web and Wine” – a combination wine bar and Internet café. It was too early for wine, but I stopped in and ate lunch, while using the first reliable Internet connection I’ve had here.

It was looking like the rain had eased up, so I drove back to the hotel, thinking I might be able to ride. As I was getting ready, it started to come down hard again. Finally, with about 2 hours of daylight left, the rain seemed to let up. I put on as many warm clothes as I had and rode in the drizzle, eventually becoming completely wet. I did find an insanely steep climb just around the corner from the hotel that goes up to Castagneto Carducci. Even more insane was the number of cars that were using it.

I did come to appreciate the best thing about the rain. Next morning, when it had stopped and the sun had come out again, things were even greener than they were the day before. I'm sure the grape and olive farmers were happy.

Hot springs and vino

2007-03-06T17:38:00.000+01:00

If I could, I would ride every day. But I know that you need rest days too. My body was sore in odd places from riding a strange bike, so when I read in my guide book about some hot springs not too far from here, it seemed a good idea for a rest day.

I decided to head for a town called Bagno Vignoni. It looked to be a 2-hour drive, and was also not far from Montalcino, which is known for a particular type of very good wine (Brunello) produced only in that region.

Arriving in Bagno Vignoni, I was surprised to find an extremely charming, very small town, mostly deserted at this time of year. There is a large pool in the town center, surrounded by old stone buildings. They don’t allow bathing in the pool anymore – I can imagine it would make the town center a mess, especially during the high season.

To use the hot springs, you must go to the local hotel (and pay), where the hot water flows into a large pool. Just like the rest of town, the pool was mostly deserted. The water was very hot where it poured into the pool, and then a little cooler farther away. I soaked for a while and enjoyed the views out over the valley.

I left to eat lunch, outside at a small restaurant just in view of old pool. I had an excellent meal of polenta baked with cheeses and tomatoes, and broiled pork tenderloin wrapped in pancetta and served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar – simple but made very well.

After lunch I came back to the pool and soaked for another hour. It was incredibly quiet and peaceful. I felt as though I had been extremely lucky in finding this place, at this time of year, without any of the tourist crowds that are surely here in summer.

On the way back home I stopped in Montalcino and sampled the wine at one of the many wine bars. Being so relaxed, I couldn’t resist paying way too much for a bottle of one of the good Brunellos – something I wouldn't do under normal circumstances. I may have to ditch some clothes to make sure there is room in my suitcase for a well-protected bottle of wine.

Cycling paradise

2007-03-04T18:35:00.000+01:00

This is a great area for cyclists. It hurts me to say this, but in terms of enjoyment I think my first three rides here equaled 7 months of riding in Germany.

The roads are mostly quiet and the scenery is beautiful – I have to resist the urge to stop every few miles to take pictures. There are lots of hills, some difficult but also many that are long but with a gentle grade. You can ride all day without seeing a traffic light. And then there is the food at the end of the ride.

Apparently other people think this way too. There are 3 different teams staying at my hotel: 2 junior teams from Italy, and a group from Südtirol – a region with parts in both Italy and Austria.

Paolo Bettini, who won the World Championship road race back in September, comes from La California which is just a few kilometers from here. You can see his picture on a road sign as you come into town.

Every day I’ve seen large teams out on the road training. They’ll be riding in a big group, with a team car following, taking up the entire lane on the road. But the other drivers don’t seem bothered. Other times I’ve seen teams out motor pacing, where riders will be following closely behind the car, which is normally driving 25mph or more.

It’s not hard to understand how Italy ranks as one of the top countries in international cycling. Seeing 2 junior teams here training – with team managers, sponsors, cars, and bikes – it’s apparent that there is a good support system. But it’s even more telling that they can train on the roads without drivers (or police) giving them a hard time. It seems they’re actually encouraged to be out on the roads.

I’m reminded of the time when 3 of us were pulled over by the police on a quiet Sunday morning, on a quiet country road, because we were riding 2 abreast and had delayed the local mayor for about 5 seconds.

Out riding the other day, one of the teams passed me, and I took it as an opportunity to get some free training. They were doing an exercise where guys were going out around the team car, one by one, then catching up to the guys ahead. I made a big effort and caught up to the car, then rode behind it for a while after the driver waved at me. Then I went around the car and caught up to the tail end of the group.

The car pulled ahead then turned around to go back for a few guys who had been left behind. The driver waved again as he passed. The group turned around too, while I was faced with a 4km climb up to one of the towns on my way back to the hotel. I just kept thinking: more free calories for dinner.

A normal day in Italy

2007-03-04T18:22:00.000+01:00

My first encounter in Italy goes like this: I walk up to the rental car desk to pick up my car. After messing with the computer the guy says the software is not working, and he will have to do everything by hand. When the time comes to get the credit card authorization, no one will answer the phone. “No one wants to work here”, he sighs. There is a sign on the window that says to throw the keys on the floor if no one is there.

This says so much about how different Italy seems compared to Germany (or the U.S. for that matter).

My car is missing a hubcap, the clutch pedal squeaks every time it’s pressed, and the seatbelt indicator beeps even though the belt is fastened.

Right away I notice the difference in driving: lack of turn signal usage, passing without regard to road markings that disallow it, edging the car out into traffic and leaving it there though oncoming traffic must swerve.

I’m reminded again that the afternoon siesta is very much honored – with many stores and businesses closing somewhere between 1:30 – 3:30.

I’d made some arrangements to rent a bike – I hoped. After a brief phone conversation 2 weeks earlier, I hadn’t been able to reach the bike shop. The phone number appeared to no longer work and emails went unanswered. I was a little worried,

On my way to the hotel I stop by the bike shop. It’s being remodeled and is completely gutted. But the owner happens to be there watching the work, and says he can bring me a bike later in the afternoon. I pick up the bike, a very nice Colnago -- not something you’d normally see for a rental. I don’t fill out any forms, sign anything, or give a deposit. I guess that means I can take it home with me.

I’m thinking of two very different books I’ve read about Italy: “Under The Tuscan Sun”, by Francis Mayes, and “Italian Neighbors”, by Tim Parks. While the first is more poetic (ignore that it was made into a bad film), Tim Parks’ book captures so much more of how things are -- the absurdity, chaos, contradiction, and at the same time the importance of stopping to enjoy life. (Parks also wrote a very enjoyable book, “A Season with Verona”, about a season spent with other fans – often quite obnoxious -- supporting the Verona soccer team.)

This trip I think is a good transition to life in the U.S. I’ll try to take some piece of it back with me.

Tuscan vacation

2007-03-03T18:02:00.000+01:00

I take back what I said about wanting to live in Girona. I really want to live in Tuscany.

I wanted to take a little vacation at the end of my stay in Germany – somewhere I could spend a week or so riding. After visiting Girona, I thought it would be there. Then I went to France, and the food was so good I thought maybe that would be the place.

But I hadn’t been to Italy since I’ve been here, and had never been to Tuscany. Riding and eating in Tuscany had a nice sound to it.

About a month ago I read where the Lampre professional cycling team held a training camp in a place called Castagneto Carducci (shown in the picture above). I figured if this was where they chose to hold a camp, then the area must be good for riding. Without much more than that to go on, I found a hotel that seemed to cater to cyclists, and booked a cheap flight to Pisa.

It was a good decision.

The area is beautiful – green and lush even in early March. The roads seem quiet. There are vineyards and olive groves everywhere – meaning there is locally produced wine and olive oil. Some initial sampling indicates both are very good.

I now have to make sure I put in enough kilometers in the saddle to make up for the calories I’m sure to take in.

Leaving Oberkassel

2007-03-03T17:58:00.000+01:00

I had one last work meeting, 2 hours away in Frankfurt. This meeting was with a group of engineers from different companies, part of an ongoing series we’ve been doing for the last couple of years.

We had met in May, when I was here looking at apartments, then again in September. With a common event such as this to compare, I can gauge how far my German has progressed: not quite as much as I’d hoped, but more than I had feared.

Last May, I struggled to keep up with even simple conversations, and fumbled with trying to say things. This time I was able to carry on a conversation, talking with one guy about his recent skiing trip to Italy, telling him how I was going there also, to do some cycling. I made a joke when he asked if my wife was coming. I said no, I was taking my other wife -- mein Fahrrad (bicycle).

I had an early flight the next morning, and thought about staying in a hotel near the airport. But I wanted to have one last night in Oberkassel. I walked to the grocery and bought some Rostbratwurst that I could cook on the small electric grill I had bought. This was one of the little things that made me feel at home when I first got here.

The movers had come the previous day to pack up all my things. The apartment seemed empty and more like a hotel room than somewhere I had lived. It was good to come back and see it not as mine anymore.

Anxious about waking up on time for the early flight, I couldn’t sleep. So finally I just got up at 3:30 AM and made coffee. I went through the apartment yet again, somewhat obsessive-compulsively, to make sure I hadn’t left anything. In a nightstand drawer I found a money-pouch I had brought with about $50 and a few blank personal checks from home.

Finally I unhooked the apartment key from my key ring and left it on the counter. My car was parked right in front of the apartment – the night before the parking gods had smiled on me and left that space open. I drove off for the last time, leaving Oberkassel over the Rheinkniebrücke.

Counting down the days

2007-02-26T16:23:00.000+01:00

For a while I’ve this always-present sense of my time here counting down. It started maybe a week after returning from the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. I suddenly became aware of the imminence of leaving. It reminds me of the last-days-of-vacation feeling, when you realize something good is coming to an end.

I find it interesting to notice the change in perspective from when I first arrived. Take something simple like walking to the bakery. At first the sense was, “wow, this is where I’m going to be able to buy all this great stuff.” Over the weeks this transformed into simply a walk to the bakery to buy bread. And now it’s, “I’m going to miss walking here.”

It’s been this way with so many things: eating at the cafeteria at work, riding the train around town, walking through the neighborhood, riding on now-familiar roads, getting my hair cut. Everything is new, then things blend into the background, then suddenly it’s at the end and I notice all these things I’ll miss.

When I came here in July it seemed like there was so much time, and in a flash it has passed. Isn’t it always this way?

On Sunday I visited my friend and co-worker Viktor. He had invited me out to breakfast – something called a “Bergisches Kaffeetafel”. This is a custom local to the “Bergisches Land” – the hilly area that begins just to the east of our office. We ate waffles, milk rice, different kinds of sweet breads with preserves and sour cream, and drank coffee served in a special type of coffee pot.

Afterwards we visited the Schloss Burg -- the local castle -- then went back to Viktor’s for tea and more cake. It was very sad when it was time to leave. He and his wife have been very nice to me.

I walked through the neighborhood in Oberkassel, to mail a letter and buy coffee cream. Church bells rang off in the distance. I love how the streets are narrow and lined with houses, one attached to the next. The tram went by. At the bakery a line of people spilled out the door. I just had to stop and buy a another baguette and piece of poppy seed cake

Not a tourist

2007-02-24T09:57:00.000+01:00

Walking through the airport in Düsseldorf this week, I noticed some GPS units in an electronic store. I had been thinking about buying one, and the unit I wanted was on sale for a good price. The clerk then told me I would get a refund on the Value-Added Tax (VAT) because I had a U.S. passport.

This was a great deal so I bought it. Or rather I tried to. The first hurdle was to get the credit card company to accept the transaction – it triggered the security flag as an 'unusual transaction'.

The clerk then gave be the refund paperwork and said I must to go the customs office around the corner to get it stamped.

The customs office is staffed by people in drab olive-green uniforms, vaguely military-looking. In contrast the local police dress in a uniform that makes them appear more friendly and welcoming. Interesting that the bureaucrats dress in a manner more threatening than the police.

Whether it is the uniform or the job itself, the woman at the customs desk was not very nice. She was actually quite mean. She leafed through my passport and said sternly, in German, “This is meant for tourists. You are not a tourist”.

Apparently you must be in the country for less than 90 days to be able to take advantage of the VAT refund. She put a big stamp on the rebate form saying ‘denied’.

In coming to Germany to work, I was looking for the experience of not being a tourist. I wanted to get a sense for what it is like to actually live here. I’ve now been told without question that is the case. I get to pay the tax just like anyone else.

After being refused at the customs office, I wanted to return the GPS, and I still needed to get my luggage, but now I was now outside the security area. After some hassling with the airport security people, I went back to the store. The clerk, wanting to make the sale, discounted the price even more, to within a couple of Euros of the tax refund. So not everyone in Germany is completely inflexible.

In the end this was an even better deal. It only cost me an hour and a half and a bit of aggravation. And I can now say with certainty, I am not a tourist.

A proper English pint

2007-02-22T21:45:00.000+01:00

While in Milton Keynes I met with my colleague, Richard, with whom I’d spent several car-sick days last August.

On the way to the office, I chatted with the cab driver. He told me he was from Somalia, but that he had also worked in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. He spoke English, German, and Dutch in addition to his native language. He’d been in England for 9 years and said this was his home now.

I told Richard about my experience the day before, and said I wanted to find a “proper” English pint. My boss over here, who is from England, had previously told me only to drink beer that required muscle to pour. That is, you should drink the local beer that is dispensed from the keg by pumping the tap at the bar to create the pressure. There is even a society dedicated to preserving "real ale".

Richard suggested we go to a pub called the Crown, in Stony Stratford – technically part of Milton Keynes, but there long before the new development. We tried one of the local India Pale Ales – good but not good enough to remember the name.

We left the Crown and walked for a bit, passing The Cock pub and then The Bull pub. Richard said these pubs are the origin of the term “cock and bull story”. I was a bit skeptical, but a quick check on Wikipedia confirmed it.

We then stopped in a pub called the Plough and ordered pints of something called “Well’s Bombardier” – a very tasty local English ale. They were showing Champions’ League (soccer) games on television, and the pub was filling with up with fans -- mostly from the Celtic club who were playing AC Milan. We wanted to stay and watch, but after two pints we needed to eat some dinner or we wouldn't be standing long enough to watch soccer.

Richard had chosen an excellent Indian restaurant housed in an old monastery building. He'd told me before how Indian food is hugely popular in England. He said nowadays the traditional Sunday dinner in England is to go out and eat Indian food. This isn’t something new – he said it's been that way as long as he can remember.

We drove back to the hotel, my impression of the area changed. I was thinking about this juxtaposition of old and new: Stony Stratford and Milton Keynes, English ale and Indian food, Somalian cab drivers and long-time residents.

And I figured out why I had gotten carsick before. Every time we approached one of the ever-present roundabouts, my body was expecting to go counter-clockwise then was disoriented when we suddenly went the opposite direction.

Just like at home

2007-02-21T22:07:00.000+01:00

If someone told you they were visiting Milton Keynes, England, you’d likely have an image of a quaint English town with curving roads, cottages, and a pub on the main street.

Unfortunately Milton Keynes is closer to Westlake, Ohio. It’s a relatively new, planned community, with development starting in the 1960s. I was told it was built to help address the housing shortage in London.

Roads are laid out in a grid pattern, which makes it easier to find your way, but it doesn’t have the same character as the old towns. Along with those roads comes the sort of development we’re used to seeing in the U.S. Leaving the train station, I quickly spotted a Toys ‘R Us, McDonald’s, and KFC.

I was really trying not to pass judgment too quickly. I thought I would go out and walk around and find a place to eat and have a real English beer. I asked at the hotel desk, and the receptionist told me there was really no place where I could walk, except for the restaurant in the parking lot – a Bob Evans-looking sort of place.

I asked about walking to the town center. She looked at me like no one had ever considered that before. She said I could walk, but the roads were not very good for walking, being built for cars and all. I asked how far it was, and she said 1 or 2 kilometers.

Now even 2 km is really nothing to walk, so I set out on foot. She obviously had no concept of distance. After walking for 30 minutes, covering probably 3 km, I could not see the city center. The path I was walking on twisted and curved, following below the road level, making it impossible to have a sense of where I was.

I stopped a runner and asked. He pointed to a large illuminated ferris wheel in the distance. It didn’t appear to be too far off. But the size of the ferris wheel made it appear to be closer than it was. It took me another 30 minutes, more meandering on paths leading to nowhere, and a lot of cursing at the hotel receptionist before I got to the center.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the type of shopping mall you would see in … Westlake. A large external parking lot surrounding stores and fast foot joints like … KFC and Subway.

I found a restaurant that looked somewhat promising. I was looking forward to a pint of English Ale, and was disappointed to find out they offered only 3 types of bottled beer, none of them English.

I had brought a book with me, “Notes from a Small Island”, by Bill Bryson. I had read most of it but never finished the last 50 or so pages. I remembered he had written something about Milton Keynes. I leafed through the book and found it. Among other things he writes:

“ … clearly only a total idiot could possibly have thought that Milton Keynes would be a paradise for pedestrians. It was no wonder I hadn’t passed a single person on foot all morning.”

My dislike for this place was affirmed.

After a completely unsatisfying dinner that still cost 20 pounds (close to $40), I faced the 6 kilometer walk back to the hotel. It had started to rain and I had no umbrella or raincoat. I was at least motivated to do the “fast walking” thing and surely burned off every one of those unsatisfying calories I had consumed.

More Cannes impressions

2007-02-18T10:49:00.000+01:00

I had told a few people I was a little afraid to go to France. I had heard so many stories from people about the French being rude, and I had no real desire to experience that. But as with most things, what you imagine is not close to what actually happens.

My first impression of Cannes was not too favorable. Yes, there are too many ugly buildings. There is too much traffic, with loud and smelly scooters buzzing around everywhere.

But if you venture away from the main streets you find nice little bakeries, cafes, and restaurants. And they definitely know how to do food well. Every meal we had, even in the hotel restaurant, was great. One meal was a 3-hour, multi-course affair.

The last night a co-worker and I started out walking, hoping to find a restaurant away from the waterfront -- something not too touristy. We turned down a side street and stopped to look at a menu. A couple walked past and said it was delicious. We figured a local recommendation was a good sign. We found ourselves in a small restaurant with an open kitchen and tables placed close together. Within 10 minutes the place was full. The food was simple but very well-prepared, with intense flavors: ravioli with lamb and cheese, veal with morels, dessert of fresh white cheese with black cherry preserves.

Coming back to Germany, the food seems incredibly boring.

Venture a little farther out from the traffic of Cannes, and there are beautiful views of the Mediterranean, and possibilities to ride or hike in the mountains.

But to visit in summer I was told would be madness because of the crowds.

On the flight to Düsseldorf, I sat next to a woman who was moving from Nice back to Germany. I asked if she liked it in France. She said Nice was too loud, too chaotic, and too dirty. She loved the food, loved the weather, loved the mountains and the sea together in the same setting. But she did not like the chaos of Nice.

She talked, in polite terms, about how people do not clean up after their dogs. That was something I noticed in Cannes also. So many people walking so many little foo-foo dogs, and no one seems to clean up after them. There are little sanitary bags hanging from poles but no one appears to use them. I saw a number of unlucky people stopping to scrape a pile off the bottoms of their shoes.

I suppose after a while, if you live somewhere, you get used to things like this. You just learn to be light on your feet and to watch your step.

Riding like a local

2007-02-17T22:58:00.000+01:00

The ride my first day in Cannes kicked my slight cold into full gear. I spent the next 3 days sniffling and sneezing my way through work meetings. It was worth it though. And once the work meetings were finished, I was feeling well enough to ride again.

When I get on a bike and ride in a strange place, I immediately feel more connected to where I am, and less like a tourist. For me it’s a more enjoyable way of getting to see things and talk to people -- better than going to designated tourist sites.

The bike also gives me an immediate connection with the local cyclists. Take the guy who rented me the bike for example. Instead of me being a demanding tourist, we start from the position of having something in common. We can talk about cycling, about racing, about the differences in riding in the U.S. and where he lives. He’s willing to pull out a map and point out some places off the beaten path.

He suggested a route to get some mountain scenery in contrast to the first ride. I started at the coast and rode inland. After about 10km, I turned off on a single lane road that looked to be part of the national forest. This was a great decision – there was no traffic and the road climbed for maybe 8km, all the way to a peak at around 2000 ft.

At the top, in one direction there was a view to the Mediterranean. In the opposite direction was a view down to a valley below and more mountains in the distance.

Most of the ride went like this: climbing or descending, narrow roads, some of the trees already starting to bloom.

With about 30 minutes left to ride, I started to run out of gas – it had been a long day with a lot of climbing and not enough to eat. Going up a small hill a guy going the same direction rode past me and said ‘bonjour’. I sped up a little and moved in behind him. He could see from the shadows I was following on his wheel, and he started to point out the little holes and other obstacles.

As we approached the point where I had parked the car and started the ride, I rode alongside and said thanks, I needed that. He laughed, then reached out and shook my hand, in that way that you do when you’re on a bike – one guy with the left hand and the other with the right.

My last morning in Cannes I got up early to get one last ride in. I took the road along the coast again, and felt as though I had joined what must be a Saturday ritual. It seems all the local bike clubs or groups of riders come out and ride on this road. I saw riders of all shapes, sizes and ages. There were old guys on old-school racing bikes, people on touring bikes, local racers tearing up the hills.

The best part was stopping for coffee and pastry at the end of the ride. I'm sure that is a local ritual too.

Riding out of Cannes

2007-02-17T20:53:00.000+01:00

Before leaving for Cannes, I tried unsuccessfully to find somewhere to rent a road bike. I talked to a local colleague, who also said it would be difficult. Scooter – no problem. City bike – for sure. Mountain bike – probably. Road bike – not likely.

I stood in front of my suitcase trying to decide whether to bring any of my bike stuff. It didn’t seem worth the bother. But I know how I am. If even the slimmest chance of riding somehow materialized, I would regret not having my stuff. So I quickly packed some bike clothes, helmet, pedals and glasses.

Arriving in Nice, it suddenly felt like spring – sunny and mild, with lots of green, palm trees, plants blooming. It would be great to get out and ride.

I walked around after dinner, and just around the corner from the hotel found a shop that rented scooters, motorcycles, and city bikes. Through the window I could see a road bike – a Gitane – hanging on the wall.

Next morning I walked over to the shop, and sure enough, he had a road bike in my size. I congratulated myself for bringing my gear, before realizing I had hadn’t considered it would be this warm. It was too cold for shorts, but too warm to heavy tights and a winter jersey – which is what I had brought. I opted to be overdressed than to be cold.

It still appeared to be winter for the local riders. They were dressed similarly to me – only I was sweating and they weren't. I actually saw someone wearing a face mask – something we would wear when it was 30 degrees (F) out.

The guy at the shop recommended I ride out from Cannes and follow the road along the coast. Once out of the traffic and police blockades in Cannes, the road was beautiful – twisting climbs and descents with views of the Mediterranean, reddish cliffs, mountains rising up from the coast, views back to Cannes, and at times glimpses of the snowy Alps way off in the distance.

Before I’d left I mentioned to the guy at the bike shop that I hoped it wouldn’t rain today. He said, “Oh, it will not rain today.” I had read that this area has 300 sunny days a year. It hadn’t rained in a month. That was enough to jinx me.

It rained the last 40 minutes of the ride – lightly, but enough to get fairly wet. But it was warm enough that I didn’t mind

On the way back to the shop I stopped at a café for a sandwich, Coke, and coffee. When the bill came and showed 10 Euro, I was ready to take back what I said about it being expensive here. But then the waitress handed me the separate tab for the coffee – which was another 4 Euro. Then I noticed the Coke had also cost 4 Euro. So I stick by my original assertion -- be prepared for your wallet to rapidly become thinner.

Back at the shop, the guy apologized for saying it would not rain – he knew the power of the jinx. I told him it was OK -- it was not my bike, so I did not have to clean off the road grit. I realized, if I had someone to clean my bike after it rained, I would never hesitate to ride.

How would you like this view?

More different worlds

2007-02-14T23:33:00.000+01:00

In a week I’ve gone from the middle of nowhere in snowy Sweden to Cannes, France, on the French Riviera.

My first impression of Cannes is heavy traffic, too much development, too many ugly buildings crammed into too small a space, and 4 Euros if you dare to drink one of the Cokes from the hotel room mini-bar.

The hotel where we are staying seems tired – like something built in the 1950’s and with the exception of the lobby, never updated. My room has one of the oldest radios I’ve ever seen. Why it is still there, since it doesn’t even work, is a mystery.

I try to remind myself that this is the home of the Cannes Film Festival, and in summer a destination for the rich and famous. Yet it feels to me like the overdeveloped oceanfront in Florida. It amazes me that we ruin a place like this with development. The very thing that draws us here – the ocean and the beautiful surroundings – is spoiled by the development.

I decide to go walk to find something to eat. Walking along the seaside promenade, the sunset across the bay and over the hills is gorgeous. I now have a sense of why people are attracted to this place. The water, even in February, has patches of blueness so brilliant it almost seems artificial.

I stop for dinner at a restaurant along the waterfront. The recent trip to Copenhagen has prepared me well for the shocking price of eating.

This week there is huge event in Cannes – a meeting of heads of state from a group of African nations. There are police everywhere – in cars, on foot, on motorcycles (BMWs), on mountain bikes. The street along the seaside is lined with barriers. On the way to and from dinner I walk past a line of diplomats’ cars that goes on for half a mile. There are drivers and what I assume are security guards all milling around, smoking, chatting, and talking on cell phones. I wonder, what is the ‘shop talk’ among diplomats’ security guards?

Different worlds

2007-02-10T10:05:00.000+01:00

This past week I made a work trip to Sweden – flying into Copenhagen then driving.

In a short 1 hour and 15 minute flight I’m transported to an entirely different world – different language, different money, different food, different-looking people. Even things like different types of plumbing fixtures in the hotels. This is such a contrast to home, where a one hour flight gets me to Cincinnati.

We drive from Copenhagen, over the Oresund bridge (http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/oresund/) that links Denmark and Sweden. The bridge was completed only 7 years ago, is 16 km long, and has the longest cable-stayed span of any bridge in the world.

The drive to our destination in Sweden takes 3 hours. It’s the first real sight of snow for me this year. It’s cold and the countryside seems bleak, but there is a beauty about it – the snow, trees, open spaces, gently rolling hills. We see a group of kids playing a game called “bandy”, which looks like field hockey only on ice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandy).

At dinner with some of our Swedish colleagues, we talk about some familiar topics: football (soccer), football (the Super Bowl, they had seen who won), how they feel they are taxi drivers for their children’s activities.

At 5:30 AM we’re awakened by trucks outside the hotel and workers setting up for an outdoor market on top of the snow. They tell me there is a saying in Sweden that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing.

We are visiting a customer – an aluminum manufacturer with a new plant in a town whose name I can’t even remember. It seems like nowhere. This is a puzzle to me, that there are these places that seem like other universes. We have no idea they exist until we stumble on them. They’re inhabited by people whose lives carry on in parallel to ours, without us having any knowledge of each other. Somehow people got there and decided to stay. Someone decided they should build an aluminum plant. At this moment someone in that town is likely sweeping snow off the sidewalk.

The guys at the plant are friendly and welcoming – I get the feeling they are genuinely happy to have us visit. The environment is casual - a very different feeling from Germany. We eat in the cafeteria, and yes, they eat pickled herring in Sweden (I was not in the mood).

Our last night, in Copenhagen, the hostess at the restaurant is named Gunhild. She speaks perfect English, first with a perfect British accent when talking to my boss who is British, then later with an American accent when talking to me. I don’t know if this was conscious or not. She says she lived in Sweden then went to the U.K., to Thailand, back to Sweden to a British school, to New York, then back to Sweden. If someone asked you to picture a beautiful Scandinavian girl, it would be her: fine blond hair, delicate features, fair complexion.

It would be enough to make you want to live with the cold, the lack of daylight, and the herring.

Why not Cleveland

2007-02-04T22:25:00.000+01:00

Here’s a picture I think we’d like to see in Cleveland:

Saturday evening, I left my apartment and walked 5 minutes to catch the tram over to the Düsseldorf Altstadt (the old center of the city). On the way I stopped and bought a newspaper. I waited 4 minutes for the tram to arrive. The tram went across one the bridges, with views of the Rhine and the city. In less than 5 minutes I was in the city center.

I walked around for a while, went in a few stores then stopped to take a few pictures of the sunset over the river. My apartment is in this direction, just over the bridge.

I wanted to eat dinner somewhere I hadn’t been. Just in the Altstadt area, there are probably 50 restaurants all within walking distance.

The weather was nice so after dinner I decided to walk back home. I walked along the Rhine promenade, then back over the bridge, stopping to take a picture of the moon over the city and watch the barges go down the river. It took about 30 minutes to get home.

Why can’t we do this in Cleveland? We have a lake that looks as big as an ocean. We have a river that flows through the city. We have a downtown area.

They’re all mostly dismal, with the exception of a few select sights (mostly the sports facilities). We take little advantage of the lakefront and river. Downtown is mostly deserted after dark, except for a few localized areas beyond which people don’t feel safe.

How did things get to be the way they are? I don’t suppose there is a simple answer for a process that started long ago. Does it go back to the automobile and the development of a road system that allowed and encouraged people to move ever farther from the city?

Why has this same phenomenon not occurred here in Düsseldorf, for example?

Does it have something to do with a difference in our ways of looking at things like our cities? Is it that the cities in Europe are just so much older?

I wonder if anyone who studies these sorts of things has good answers. More importantly, is there any hope for us to change it? Even if there is, I’m not hopeful it could happen in my lifetime.

Finding new roads

2007-02-03T22:40:00.000+01:00

The number of weekends I have left here is dwindling. What should you do when you realize there’s not much time?

I thought maybe I should go somewhere I haven’t been. There’s that feeling I should be “making the most” of the time I have here. But with the trip I had last weekend, and work travel coming up, I wasn’t up for driving or finding a place to stay.

I was also thinking, some of the best times I’ve had here were not going and seeing tourist sites, but just getting out and finding some new roads to ride on. So I threw the bike in the care and drove for just 20 minutes – just enough to get outside the area where I normally ride (yes, Autobahn speeds help here).

This is one of the things I’ll miss about being here.

I don’t get tired of riding on new roads, through the many small towns along the way to nowhere in particular. I don’t get tired of:

… riding through the open-air market on Saturday morning

… seeing people walking to shop, and riding bikes loaded with groceries.

… narrow roads with brick houses just a few feet off the street

… a field of wind turbines

… every village with its own little church

… church bells ringing on the hour

... the crazy names of some of the towns (how'd you like to give your address on the phone for one of these?)

… stopping for coffee at a café

There is a different feel to the countryside here. There is something quite charming about the little villages that you see so often, each with its own center, always with a bakery or café – and probably a bar too. There's something about this that seems to make sense. Without the sprawl of concrete things seem to be on more of a human scale.

Trying to speak

2007-02-02T09:05:00.000+01:00

In trying to learn German, at least one thing has become clear: you can’t learn the language if you don’t try to use it.

That means you have to be willing to make a lot of mistakes. You say the wrong word or put words in the wrong order. Hopefully you don’t say something obscene my mistake.

After a while it can become discouraging. I go through stages of being frustrated at muddling through what is surely bad German, struggling for a word I don’t know, or struggling to say something in terms that I do know.

When I think back to Spanish classes in high school, it occurs to me that we didn’t try so much to actually use the language. We learned vocabulary, phrases, verb conjugations, and grammar, but we never seemed to practice conversation. I remember feeling reluctant to try to speak Spanish. The foreign words sounded strange coming out of my mouth, and I was never willing to sound silly making a mistake.

As I was in Spain last weekend and still remembered some basic phrases, I thought would try to use what I could. One problem is that Girona is in the region called Catalonia, and they speak Catalan as the primary language. But many people, if not most, seemed to speak Spanish also, and many seemed to speak English.

Another problem: if you speak a little Spanish (or Catalan – I bought a dictionary), people will assume you know a lot more. So you say something simple and get back a flurry from which you can pick out about every 10th word. Then I feel like I tricked them into saying all this stuff, only to ask them to repeat it again in English. I can at least say that in Spanish though.

While in Spain something rather obvious occurred to me. If I were a German coming to Spain, I might know 2 or even 3 languages, but I would likely not know Spanish. Since there’s no way we could know all the languages, wherever we might go, there’s really no sense in feeling inferior about it. You do your best to try to communicate – and communication is really what we’re after.

I’m thinking though, it would be interesting to try learning some Spanish again. Or maybe Italian …

Girona mountain ride

2007-01-29T19:46:00.000+01:00

I always feel a little bit nervous riding in a strange place -- never quite sure if I just took the correct turn, what the local customs are for things like stopping for red lights, how the drivers treat cyclists.

Finding a good route is often a challenge. If you ask a local person where is a good place to ride, they often will suggest a bike path that runs for maybe a few miles. They have no sense of how far you can go when you ride for several hours. So the trick is to talk to a local cyclist.

For Sunday's ride, I wanted to go towards the mountains. A little Internet searching led me to Michael Barry's (U.S. Postal - Discovery - now T-Moble) website. He's one of those pro riders based in Girona during the season, and he happened to have 2 suggested routes -- both involving some climbing.

I was prepared with 2 Snickers bars, a packet of Gu, and 2 full water bottles.

Here, as in Germany, roads aren't marked North-South-East-West, nor are they laid out in a grid pattern. They're marked by what town they lead to. This is great if you know that Llagostera is on the way to Tossa de Mar. If not, you're stopping a lot to look at maps. On the bike, this actually works out pretty well, since you only have to remember a few towns and not a bunch of turn-by-turn directions.

That's how it worked out for this ride. Once out of Girona, the road climbed gradually for maybe 10 miles, then more steeply. I pulled out the map a few times, just to make sure I was headed to the right town.

About halfway into the ride is the 9km (5.6 mile) climb to St Marti Sacalm -- a climb that many of the pros use as a test to measure their fitness. It's a bit early in the season for a climb that long (or for fitness tests), but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The view from the top was worth the sore knee later.

(I think that is the start of the Pyrenees way off in the distance)

Back in Girona after almost 4 hours on the road, I stopped in a tapas restaurant. I was ready to say, "I'll take one of everything" but showed a little restraint -- 3 tapas plates followed by an espresso. Great way to end the ride and the weekend.

Sunny in Girona

2007-01-27T20:03:00.000+01:00

I want to move to Girona (Spain).

That's my impression after one day here. Germany is great, don't get me wrong. But it's hard to compete with sunshine, mountains, the ocean, good restaurants, and great roads to ride on.

I was able to find a cheap flight on Ryanair for the weekend. Then found a place that would rent a road bike. The weather forecast called for sun with highs around 50.

Most people fly here then go on to Barcelona. But Girona is well known as a cycling area -- Lance Armstrong had an apartment here, and other pro riders come here to train and live during the season. I can tell why -- the riding is great and Girona is big enough to have lots of restaurants, but not overwhelmingly big.

The first ride today took me to the coast, then for maybe an hour and a half along the coastal road that was as spectacular as any road I've ridden on: views of the Mediterranean, seaside cliffs, constant climbing or decsending, and almost no traffic.

As much as I like Germany, this is a refreshing change -- from the gray weather, from the traffic, and also from the general atmosphere. It seems obvious that people are more easy-going here, at least in Girona, and that things move a bit more slowly. Many of the restaurants don't even open for dinner until 8 or 8:30.

P.S. to Jim Mullins: here's another one you were right on.

Anyone want to come join me first week in March?

Something about the cold

2007-01-25T22:15:00.000+01:00

I’ve written previously about “attitudes towards strangers”, and how it’s unusual for someone to wave or say hello while I’m out riding, whereas in the U.S. this is commonplace.

It has finally turned cold here. It’s been below freezing, and there is talk of some snow. It’s been dry so far, and I’ve been able to continue riding outside. I still see the people who are out riding to get somewhere – work, to the store, etc. They don’t seem to be discouraged by the cold. But they’re not usually going very far.

I’ve not seen so many recreational cyclists though. At home, when it’s cold and I see another rider, it’s usually someone fairly serious, often someone I know. So I wave, say hello, and acknowledge that there is someone else who is a little bit crazy to be out riding.

Strangely enough, it seems to be the case here too. In the last week of riding, I’ve been acknowledged by other cyclists more than in the entire previous 6 months combined. I’ve had guys wave, nod, even say hello on a couple of occasions.

Yesterday I was on my way back home, riding the path along the Rhine. There was a tailwind, and I was moving along pretty fast. I passed a mountain biker and nodded hello. He slipped in behind me --- I could hear the knobby tires on the pavement. Then I realized there was another rider too. The three of us rode for a while in a paceline at 23 mph dodging the walkers and runners.

The other rider rolled up alongside, and started up a conversation. He was riding a nice Colnago, asked if I raced, said he used to, said this is a bit fast for winter riding, said he was Canadian but grew up in Oberkassel where I’m living. We rode for just a little bit longer, to where he had to turn for home. I had to turn the other way, to cross the bridge. The mountain biker said “goodbye” (in English) and rode straight, with his knobby tires humming on the pavement as passed.

Going to the movies

2007-01-20T10:40:00.000+01:00

I’ve realized you can have more of a “cultural experience” from the seemingly small and trivial activities than going to a tourist attraction. Even something simple like going to see a movie is an interesting experience in itself – regardless of seeing the film.

At the theaters around here, you get an assigned seat when you buy your ticket. You can look at the seating plan and pick the one you want (during which time you may encounter the impatience of the cashier).

Now, I’ve wondered why go through so much trouble to assign seats? Surely the computer system to manage this was expensive. And then you’ve got to train the cashiers. And it makes the process go slower.

But it does allow the early comers to pick the better seats (encouraging you to get there a bit early and eat more of the theater snacks). And when the theater is full, it allows them to better manage filling the seats (so there’s not a single seat between different groups). Good German logic applied there.

Then of course you are allowed to buy beer and bring it into the theater. That is no surprise, as you can pretty much buy beer at any kind of event.

The previews and advertisements before the film seem to go on forever. Last time I looked at my watch and it was 25 minutes. The first time I went to a movie I realized that, when so many people came in just in time for the real start, they knew something I didn’t.

After the previews comes the strangest thing, something I've never understood. The curtain closes across the screen. Then there is a slight pause of a few seconds to maybe a minute. Then they open the curtain and start the film (with maybe one more preview).

I’m sure there is some logic behind this, but I've yet to figure out what it might be.

Storm aftermath

2007-01-19T09:51:00.000+01:00

Looking out the window, you wouldn't know there was a big storm yesterday. The sky is perfectly blue. The only clue is the sound of a chainsaw the next street over.

In typical German fashion, the street cleaning machine has already come by, and the street looks as clean as usual. Walking around the neighborhood here, the only evidence of the storm I saw was an abandoned umbrella that was turned inside-out.

I saw in reports that 5 people in Germany and 25 across Europe died as a result of the storm. Not surprising as I've seen pictures of a toppled crane, trees fallen on cars, trucks blown over. I read that the wind was measured at 118 mph.

Here's one report:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16687660/

With some additional pictures:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16696403/displaymode/1176/rstry/16687660/

I like this quote:
In Amsterdam, bicyclists who ventured out despite warnings from the fire department were blown over or, in some cases, blown backward.

I went out for a ride a little later, and saw many trees that were uprooted or that had broken off partway up the trunk. It was the most difficult flat-land ride I have ever done. The wind was still strong -- a constant 25, maybe 30 mph I would guess, with gusts. For those cyclists who can appreciate this, I was pedaling into the wind in a 39x19 gear (that's a low gear) on a perfectly flat road, and was going about as hard a pace as I could maintain.

Hurricane hits Deutschland

2007-01-18T21:29:00.000+01:00

I don't really watch too much TV news here (or much TV at all). I heard on the radio this morning that there would be high winds today, but I didn't appreciate that it would be an actual hurricane.

It wasn't until one of the maintenance guys came around to make sure all the blinds on the outside of the windows were raised all the way. He told me they were predicting wind speeds of up to 170 km/h (over 100 mph), though I think that was only the highest elevations.

It took me 1.5 hours to get home from work because of downed trees and accidents. The crazy part was trying to cross over the Rhine to get home. The Rheinkniebruecke, my usual way, was completely jammed and I could see the flashing police lights. I took a detour through town and to the next bridge. About halfway over, I could see they had the other direction blocked. It appeared as though some scaffolding had come loose.

I realized this as my car was stopped right underneath.

And then I noticed that people were walking on the sidewalk across the bridge. Now the winds were nowhere near 170 km/h but they were still way stronger than I would like when walking aross a bridge.

I got home and jumped on the trainer for a while, after which I was hungry and needed some food. Without thinking I headed out on foot to the grocery store, thinking the winds had died down some. Which they hadn't. When I started to see all the broken flower pots and tree limbs that had fallen I realized I should have brought my bike helmet.

But I did make it there and back OK. Bonus was that hardly anyone was in the store.

German Salsa

2007-01-16T21:47:00.000+01:00

Back in September someone at work asked me what I was going to do for fun once the weather turned and I couldn’t ride so much. I jokingly said maybe I would take dance lessons. I had no clue at the time I would actually be doing it.

I suspect that everyone secretly (or maybe it’s no secret) would like to be a great dancer. Even, or especially, those of us who are for the most part non-dancers. How can you watch someone who is a great dancer and not want to be able to move like that?

Back in November, on a whim, I went out with a group of people here to a Salsa night. They were having a beginner lesson followed by the regular dancing. I told the person organizing the event that I didn’t know anything about Salsa and I wasn’t really a good dancer.

She told me she was a big fan of doing things, “and not caring what other people thought of it.” She said she would never wear a bathing suit if she cared too much about what other people thought.

That was enough to give me the little push to go and do it.

Despite the beginner lesson I felt completely awkward and quite stupid. It was warm and I was sweating like crazy. But I got a few of the basics. Mostly though, I was watching the teacher and some of the others and thinking, “I have to learn how to do that.”

This is sort of a pattern with me. I can’t just ride my bike, I have to race and ride 8000 miles a year. I have 4 snowboards. I can’t just learn a little German, I have to live there.

Since November I’ve been to two different Salsa weekend classes, and am going to another this weekend. I was lucky enough to find a teacher here who is very good. The classes are in German, so I figure it’s another one of those situations where I get German lessons to go along with the real reason I’m there.

It’s also an opportunity to get out and do something with some local people – all of whom were quite friendly.

It’s also a chance to put aside some fear and do something I wouldn’t ordinarily do. I realized, just going and getting a lesson – getting that basic instruction on how to get started – was enough. It was that way with snowboarding too. And German. Bike racing I learned the hard way by crashing in my first race.

Learning German through film

2007-01-13T23:53:00.000+01:00

Most of the movies shown here are from America. Most all of them are dubbed in German. I don’t like the dubbed movies. There’s something wrong when you see German coming from Bill Murray or Johnny Depp. It just doesn’t work.

Sometimes we get movies in the original English and less often English with German subtitles. Someone told me that Germans generally don’t like reading subtitles and would rather have the dubbed versions.

I noticed the theater closest to me was showing “Babel” (Brad Pitt, Kate Blanchett), with subtitles. This movie would have been ruined had it been dubbed. It has several interconnected story lines, taking place in the U.S., Mexico, Morocco, and Japan, with the native languages spoken. To dub the entire film in German would be absurd.

It’s not one of those “easy” movies to see. But it’s quite powerful. And quite fitting for where I am right now, because one of the themes is how our perceived cultural differences come between us – language being one of those differences. So it was fitting also that the subtitles were in a foreign language. Even though I’ve learned a fair amount of German, I realize the perception of being different is still very much apparent.

It occurred to me that seeing films with German subtitles is a great learning tool. You see many of the same words over and over, and for me that commits them to memory. I learned the words for “rifle” (Gewehr), “bleed to death” (verbluten), and “shoot” (schießen) among quite a few others (you should get some sense of the intensity of the movie).

I figure getting a language lesson helped offset the 9 Euro (almost $12) ticket price.

What winter?

2007-01-11T23:43:00.000+01:00

The weather here has been dreadful. It reminds me of Cleveland in late March-early April: cool, grey, and rainy.

But it's not cold. And it's not snowing.

One day this week I rode in shorts and a jersey (with arm and knee warmers though). 60 degrees F on January 9!

I have all my snowboard gear here, thinking I would do some of that this winter. There might be snow in the mountains (7 hours to the south). But with the warm weather, who even thinks about it?

People around here are skiiing/snowboarding in the indoor ski hall in Neuss, about 10 minutes from here. That is something I may try, just for the curiosity factor.

I've seen a few nordic ski events on television, and they all appear to be using machine-made snow on the race courses.

I'm not complaining about this, because I would rather be out riding my bike. And from what I hear it's been pretty similar back in the U.S., which means I am gaining no advantage by being able to ride.

I guess I need to look for another edge: a training week in sunny Spain? Find out where Jens Voigt lives and infiltrate his training rides? Or Erik Zabel? Maybe talk to one of the old-school East Germans and ask about some "training tips"?

More on driving habits

2007-01-11T22:44:00.000+01:00

I had to drive to Brussels yesterday -- just a 2.5 hr drive from here.

As I've written previously, I'm at the point now where I really don't like driving far, because of traffic and construction. Sure enough, 15 minutes from home I hit the first traffic jam. It was only a 10 minute delay, so not a huge impact.

I then listened closely to the traffic reports, but didn't hear anything that sounded like it would affect me. Somehow I missed one, and not too far from the border, just as I chose one of the two possible routes, I ran into the back of a 6 kilometer jam. Then I heard it on the radio. It took 30 minutes to go the next 1.5 km to get to the next exit where I turned around and took the other highway.

This is where I would be totally stressed out if my car didn't have a navigation system.

Crossing the border into Belgium, it was as if someone had hit the "relax" button for the highway. In Belgium, the speed limit is 120km/h, and I was told to obey it because the fines are steep. It seems most everyone obeys it, except, I was told again, for Germans who have not yet had the pleasure of being ticketed.

The end effect is that as soon as you hit the border, the entire experience of driving changes. It is so much more relaxed, and so less stressful than driving in Germany. There are no cars coming up on your bumper, or flying by so fast that your car shudders.

I mentioned this to someone at work -- someone who is German -- and he laughed and agreed completely. He said, that is the German way. Everything is so compact, so aggressive, and so stressful. He said he loves to drive in the U.S. (except, I discovered, he had never driven in say Boston or Chicago.)

I did notice though that the Belgians don't seem to easily let you merge into another lane. In Germany it seems if you put your blinker on, the other car is prepared for you to go ahead and merge ... like now. Driving in Belgium, they seemed to go out of their way to not let you merge.

Then I wondered ... maybe I was getting a little payback because of my German license plate.

***

Further note:
While driving to / from work the last 2 days I was noticing again how the drivers here will so often wait until the absolute last minute to merge right to get off at their exit, especially at the Autobahn interchanges. They will drive 160 km/h in the left lane then just before the exit move over to the right, jamming on the brakes and squeezing in where there may be less than a car length. I guess saving a few seconds is worth the price of brake replacement.

(a small) Language milestone

2007-01-03T05:37:00.000+01:00

I have this picture in my head that someday I will walk into a German bar, order a beer, sit down, and have a regular conversation in German about yesterday’s football match (European, that is), or smoking bans (works for me), or speed limits on the Autobahn (not sure about that one).

Right now though, my attempts to speak German often center on my attempts to speak German. That’s true in more than one way.

My own self-consciousness and focus on getting the language right mean the communication sometimes comes second. When my attention is mostly on the language itself it’s easy to lose sight of the most important aspect, which is that I’m communicating with another person.

Often the conversation turns to my learning of German. Partly this is because people seem curious about it. Partly it’s because this is one of my stock set of things I can talk about – little conversation tidbits that I now know well, that relieve some of the pressure of getting the language right.

I want badly to get to the point where I can have a conversation without being self-conscious about it, and without having to talk about my learning of German. I know that for the most part this is a matter of time and practice, but I have a feeling it’s a matter of also letting go of mostly being concerned with saying things correctly.

I reached one small milestone a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t even realize this until after the fact. I had gone up to the coffee room where one of the guys in the office, who I’d not met before, started up a conversation with me. He somehow knew I was from the U.S., and he was asking about what my assignment was, what I did in the U.S., how long I was staying, etc. I asked him about what he did, how long he’d been at the company, etc.

It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized we’d had a normal conversation, that I hadn’t been nervous about it, and that we hadn’t talked mostly about my learning German. Now this was a 5 minute conversation of very limited scope, so I don’t want to make too big of a deal about it. It’s not like I was discussing German philosophers … but I suppose even they had to start with something small.

Attitudes towards strangers

2006-12-26T17:03:00.000+01:00

I went out for a ride the morning after arriving home for Christmas and was reminded immediately that I was here, and not in Germany.

I passed a jogger and she said good morning. I passed another rider and he waved. Strangers actually acknowledged my presence and were friendly.

This is something that puzzles me about Germany, at least where I am. I can walk down the street in the morning and pass people in the neighborhood, and it seems they make an effort to avoid eye contact or otherwise acknowledge I’m there.

It’s mostly the same when I pass other riders, although when I see another racer often a subtle nod is exchanged. Runners interestingly are a bit friendlier, sometimes actually speaking and saying “abend” (evening) or “morgen” (morning).

People have told me that Americans are generally more open and friendly than Germans. It’s not that people in Germany are unfriendly. Just recently I was having snow tires put on, and while waiting talked with a local guy who gave me his card and said to call if I ever wanted to go have a beer at the pub. Once people find out I’m from the U.S. they seem to become friendlier.

It’s the everyday encounters with strangers that often seem so remote and detached. To my sensibility it takes effort to be so detached.

I’ve heard it said that in contrast Americans may be more friendly but they are often superficially so. And that Germans tend to find this somewhat intrusive. This was given as one reason why Wal-Mart failed in Germany: people did not like the cheerful “greeters” at the door or the overly helpful salespeople.

I was in a store here in the U.S. just before Christmas, and suddenly became aware of the cashier’s “Hi how are you today” routine with everyone. She didn’t seem really interested – more of a habitual response.

Neither way seems particularly satisfying – forced remoteness or superficial friendliness. Perhaps I can be a rebel and follow the middle-way … being careful not to scare strangers in the neighborhood. I’m afraid they might think I’m like the eccentric guy I sometimes see outside the bakery who says random and unintelligible things to everyone who walks by.

Holiday travel torture

2006-12-23T16:05:00.000+01:00

First off let me say that I feel fortunate to be traveling to Germany. If I didn’t have that opportunity I wouldn’t be in a position to complain about it.

I find the whole process of airline travel unpleasant. The longer flights to and from Germany make it more unpleasant, and the holiday time just makes it worse as everyone seems overloaded with the extra traffic, limited time, and general stress.

There’s traffic, parking, the security process, lateness of flights, anxiety over missing flights, bad food, surly airport people (employees and travelers).

For me it starts with trying to select the optimal seat that will result in no one sitting next to me. On a long flight, to me this is the key determination in my level of discomfort. There’s nothing worse than having someone next to you whose body is spilling over into your seat while you try to fit within the 12 inches they graciously give you.

I look at the seat map on-line, up to the day of the flight, and move my assignment if needed. I think I’ve got the system down pretty well. I’ve been lucky lately, which means I’ve also gotten spoiled.

This time I was all set to have an open seat next to me, maybe even the whole row. Then along came Mom, Dad, and teenage brother and sister, headed for my row. Dad and son took the row in front of me, leaving the middle open (nice for them), while Mom and daughter decided to sit with me. It could be worse, I thought, since they at least fit in their seats.

Then after we took off, Dad, sitting in front of me, jammed his seat back as far as it would go, leaving me no chance of working on my laptop. It was a rather comical sight: I was squeezed into a tiny little space while the family of four was spread out in relative comfort. They turned and chatted, passed treats back and forth, while I banged my knees against the seat in front of me.

The food was bad, the movies were bad, and a 2-year-old in the next row yelled most of the way. The only thing that saved me was my iPod. Thanks to my friend Tris for showing me how to download some nice live Grateful Dead shows from like 1968 -- fitting music to settle in for a long flight.

Arrival in the U.S. was like the last trip at Thanksgiving: crowds of hurried travelers and prison-guard-like security people.

When I was at about my most cynical, I received a present from a very nice Continental employee. She boxed up and checked a bottle of wine, bought at the airport in Germany, which the security people in Newark wouldn’t let through. My attitude changed completely. I didn’t even mind that the next flight was an hour late and jammed with people carrying too many carry-on items to fit in the available space.

Flat tire karma

2006-12-21T10:34:00.000+01:00

Serious cyclists learn not talk about things like how long it’s been since you last had a flat tire. It’s a certain jinx. I don’t even like to think about it while out riding. Even thinking about it seems to bring on a flat.

And you don’t want to be tempting fate when it’s trying to prevent you from riding in the first place.

The day had started out with me slicing my lip somehow while shaving. I had to drive the whole way to work pressing a tissue on my lip to try to stop the bleeding. But then the sun came out, I had worked a lot the previous couple days, and I wanted to get in a ride before the 4:30PM darkness here.

Leaving work at 2:00 usually means no traffic. But this day, because I wanted to ride before dark, it was a mess. The last 2km to home took me 30 minutes because the bridge to Oberkassel was completely jammed with cars for reasons completely unknown.

I finally made it out on the road by 3:15, and thought I would just ride hard for what little time I had. Not too long into the ride I passed a guy who was changing a flat. He said something as I went by, which is unusual, so I turned and went back. His pump was not working, so I let him use mine. He was quite grateful.

I set off again, trying to calculate the route that would get me home before dark.

Then I made the mistake of thinking about helping the guy with the flat, and thinking that I had not had one flat tire in the 5 months I’d been in Germany. That’s a long time without a flat.

A couple miles later, I could feel my front tire getting soft. Since front flats don’t happen as often as rear flats, this particular wheel had not had a change in a very long time. As a result, the inner tube was fused to the tire, and I could not pull it loose. I had visions of walking home 10 miles in my bike shoes. That was enough to give me a Popeye-like burst of strength to pull the tube loose.

The tire was now deformed and had a flat spot I could feel on every rotation of the wheel. I hammered the rest of the way home, riding the last 10 or 15 minutes in the dark. Fortunately there was a bike path adjacent to the road, then streetlights close to home.

I’m going to carry 2 spare tubes with me for a while. As we know, these sorts of things happen in groups of three. Not that I’m superstitious or anything.

Low key Christmas

2006-12-17T23:18:00.000+01:00

I miss being home at Christmas-time, but I’m also appreciating how Christmas is not so in-your-face as it is at home. People don’t go crazy with Christmas lights and decorations, every other TV commercial isn’t Christmas advertising, and I don’t hear Christmas carols everywhere I go.

The upside is that I don’t have that feeling of Christmas overload … 3 days post-Thanksgiving. The downside is that the general atmosphere doesn’t seem quite as festive as at home. If we could only turn down the volume a bit. Unfortunately that seems unlikely, since each year we feel we must do that little bit more than last year.

There is one phenomenon that is big here: the Christmas markets. People told me, “You have to visit the Christmas markets.” They were given such a build-up it was almost impossible not to be let down.

I’ve been to three different markets: here in Düsseldorf, in Köln, and in Aachen. The first two were so overwhelmingly crowded with people, and so underwhelming full of kitschy stuff to buy, that I wasn’t interested in seeing any more.

I was wondering what the attraction was, besides being an excuse to drink outside, eat ½ meter long bratwursts, and shop at times when stores are normally closed.

Then my friend from work invited me to go with him and his wife to Aachen, where his 3 children are at the university.

Aachen is a very cool, and very old, town near the border of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands (it has 3 names, in German, French, and Dutch). We got there early on Sunday, so the market was not very crowded at first. It was also the first day that it’s been cold here, so it actually felt like winter. We walked around, drank hot chocolate and spiced wine, and tried many of the food samples people were offering.

We later went to eat lunch at one of the many student hangouts, where you can get a pizza for 4 Euro or in my case a half chicken with frites and a salad for 4.80. My friend’s kids were there, and I worked hard to understand as they all spoke at their normal speed.

I found myself having a quite a good time. I realized what was different from the other markets: here, I was simply enjoying being with friends. And that I’m guessing is one of the big attractions to going to the Christmas markets.

Stau auf der Autobahn

2006-12-11T21:59:00.000+01:00

Many people have asked me about driving on the Autobahn. Often people have this image of the Autobahn being a single 10-lane superhighway, with no speed limit, that cuts across the middle of Germany.

In actuality, it’s quite different. And right now, driving on the Autobahn is often completely absurd.

The Autobahn isn’t a single highway, but rather is a network of highways similar to the U.S. interstate highway system. It’s generally well-maintained, and there are frequent rest stops where you can buy gas as well as food (similar to what one finds on U.S. toll roads).

Yes, there are stretches of road where there is no speed limit. But these stretches don’t seem to last very long. It’s common to go from no speed limit down to 120km/h (about 75mph), then sometimes lower. Anywhere near a city there are usually speed limits of 80 -120km/h. Where I commonly drive, I rarely get to a stretch of road without limits.

Now for the absurdity of the situation.

The Autobahn seems to be operating near capacity in many places. That means even the smallest disturbance can cause a traffic stoppage. Driving home from the airport recently, we sat stopped in traffic for 30 minutes because a car was in the breakdown lane with a flat tire.

Because of the World Cup this summer, construction work was postponed until mid-July. It seems right now that every stretch of Autobahn is under construction. On one recent trip I started to keep track, and I did not go more than 40km on any stretch of Autobahn without going through a construction zone.

Rather than take away a lane of traffic, the construction zones generally have these insanely narrow lanes. I don’t think you could stick your elbow out an open window without hitting the car, or better yet truck, in the next lane.

A construction zone is a disturbance to the traffic flow. And because of the narrow lanes with no margin for error, they seem to often be the location of accidents. And that means monumental traffic jams.

I’ve learned a lot of German listening to the frequent traffic reports on the radio. A “Stau” is completely stopped traffic. “Stockender Verkehr” is literally stagnant traffic, also known as “stop and go” by one of the radio stations. Any weekday morning, there will be a list of at least 10 or more Staus or stockender Verkehr of 3km or more within a 40 mile radius. I’ve learned the words for: accident, detour, construction zone, wrong-way driver, lane closed, lane open, car on fire, Autobahn-completely-closed-because-of-accident-with-death-involved.

I’ve become a bit obsessed with listening to the traffic reports, because I just cannot stand to sit in traffic. On one 3 day driving trip for work, I swore I would never drive like that again, and would instead take the train and cabs even it if took longer. On that trip we heard a report of a 25km Stau (that’s over 15 miles) outside Munich.

Into this mix you can throw trucks that do not drive faster than 100km/h (62mph), even when they are passing another truck. There may be one truck going 98 with another passing at 100. A colleague at work says that is called an “elephant race”.

Because of all this, the absence of speed limits seems to have no effect on the overall travel time. You can drive 200km/h for stretches, but your average trip speed is the same as if you never exceeded100 km/h.

Unfortunately many of the German drivers don’t see it this way, and assert their right to drive as fast as they desire, whenever they desire. This seems to be particularly true for guys about my age in BMWs, Audis, Porsches, and Mercedes. They think nothing of continuing at 200km/h even though it is obvious just up ahead they will have to brake hard, which they do. Or they fly up the left lane then cut over 2 lanes just before their exit, where they have to jam on the brakes. I’m sure the auto workshops here do a great business in brake work.

If all of this sounds bad … well, it is. Actually it’s not a complete disaster. I do believe I’m much more aware of the traffic around me. And I’ve learned to always use my turn signals. That is just pure self-preservation.

Fast walking

2006-12-08T08:58:00.000+01:00

You’d think that with all the bike riding I do, a little walking wouldn’t be a problem. My legs may be in great riding shape, but riding shape doesn’t translate to walking. Something about the specialization that comes from so much riding.

I learned this the hard way once, a number of years ago when we took the kids to Disney World. After spending the first day walking, I had to soak my legs in an ice bath because my calves were so sore. Since then I swore I would keep myself in reasonable walking shape.

As I’ve mentioned before, people walk a lot in Germany. It’s not unusual to walk several kilometers carrying groceries or shopping bags. I know I walk way more than when I’m home. The main reason is that things are actually within walking distance. I’m able to walk to the store, to restaurants, to get my hair cut.

Not only do people here walk a lot, they also walk fast. When my daughter was here for a visit, we noticed a woman in front of us on the sidewalk who was pulling away from us. She had at least 20 years on me. We tried to walk faster but still couldn’t keep up. My daughter blamed it on her open-back shoes until we noticed the woman’s shoes were similar.

I think that when you’re walking a couple km or more, you don’t always have time to go at a leisurely pace.

Without really thinking about it, I’ve been walking faster too. When everyone around you is walking fast, you naturally follow along. When my wife came to visit, she asked, “Why are you walking so fast?”

And then when I came home to visit, while shopping in the grocery store she said, “You’re doing that fast walking thing again.” I had started pushing the cart and quickly left her behind.

But I’m still not the fastest person on the sidewalk. I’ve been passed by elderly women carrying groceries. The other night a guy walked briskly by me, lighting a cigarette as he passed – and I was in a bit of a hurry.

There is something satisfying about transporting yourself under your own power, and walking is about as basic as you can get. The best thing about walking is walking to buy food or go out to eat. I always feel justified in getting just that little bit more.

Big in the U.S.

2006-12-06T23:47:00.000+01:00

Everything seems bigger in the

U.S.

: bigger cars, roads, distances, meals.

Bigger people.

I hate to say that, but there is no denying it. I noticed it right away when I came home, and I notice the difference now that I am back in Germany again.

I’ve wondered why this is so. Curiously, I’ve been in several conversations where this topic has been brought up (and not by me).

When I came home for Thanksgiving, I was surprised to see that I’d not gained any weight since leaving in July.

First theory: people walk a lot more here. I know I walk a lot more. I walked home about 2 miles late one evening, behind a couple in their 60’s who covered the same distance at the same speed as me.

Yet at home we won’t even walk from the back row of the mall parking lot. Instead we drive around and around waiting for a space to open up. We are so used to driving right up to the door where we do any business (work, shopping, etc.)

In large part, I think this is an issue of convenience. In the U.S. it is convenient to drive and park, because we build these huge parking lots. In Germany, it is often so much of a hassle to park it’s easier to walk. Or when you do park, often it is still a long walk to get to where you’re going.

And then, I notice that going for a walk, in the evening or on a weekend afternoon, is simply a common thing to do.

Second theory: we just eat a lot. A couple weeks ago in the U.S. I was talking with a German guy who now lives in France. He said one difference is that where he lives, they typically eat a small breakfast, then nothing until lunch, and then a small dinner at 8 or 9 PM. They don’t eat in between.

As if his point needed further illustration, we were at a meeting where there was a constant flow of food: pastries in the morning, a large buffet lunch, cookies/cake/brownies in the afternoon.

Third theory: our junk food is really junky. McD, BK, Arby’s, etc. No more -- my dinner has not yet been digested.

The result: after 2 weeks at home I came back to Germany heavier than when I arrived. And this was in spite of the great weather and many miles on the bike.

Power of the familiar

2006-12-02T16:45:00.000+01:00

After 2 weeks in the U.S., the sense of strangeness has worn off.

I notice how easy things seem here. I’m able to get in the car and drive without consulting a map. I know where to go without thinking about it. I speak without having to stop and think about what words to use.

The first few weeks in Germany – maybe even longer – everything felt difficult. Even the simplest things such as buying a loaf of bread seemed difficult. I felt lost most of the time and was constantly stopping to look at maps. This was at the same time stimulating and tiring.

The sense of the familiar seems quite powerful. I’ve come to the conclusion that becoming comfortable with living in Germany is a simple matter of time and exposure. There’s nothing magical about it.

It now feels odd to be going back to Germany, and I’m curious about how it will seem when I arrive.

For unknown reasons, my flight to Newark seems to be about the only flight out of Cleveland that is significantly delayed. Maybe because of weather problems elsewhere, but I also suspect that the airlines like to blame weather because then they are not responsible for finding another flight.

If I take the flight, it’s possible I will miss the connecting flight to Cologne. I think that no matter which decision I make it will be the wrong one. If I take the flight, I’ll probably miss the connection and have to spend the night in Newark. If I don’t take it, I’ll probably come home to find out they delayed the flight in Newark.

This is like always picking what seems to be the slowest line at the grocery store.

I decide the safest option is to reschedule the flight. Surprisingly it works out this time. The flight leaves over 5 hours late and misses the connection to Germany. I would have spent about 20 hours in Newark.

I’ve now got two extra days home. Unfortunately I think I’ve used up my one good decision outcome.

Strangeness of being home

2006-11-24T16:18:00.000+01:00

Last time I visited home I felt as though I hadn’t really left. I’d been gone six or seven weeks but everything at home still seemed familiar. The leaves hadn’t yet started to change. The grass was green and needed to be cut. It was as though I’d been away on a trip for work just a little longer than usual.

This time it seems different.

Changing planes at the airport in Newark the overall scene seems so different: people speaking only English, shirts and hats from U.S. sports teams, people carrying coffee cups with cardboard sleeves, gigantic cups of Coke that match the people drinking them.

The TSA personnel at the security checkpoint are obnoxious and yell directives at the growing line of travelers. Such people in Germany are largely indifferent – I think it is requirement of the job -- but at least they are not obnoxious.

On the drive from the airport I notice yet another shopping center has been built, with yet another set of the same stores: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Petsmart. How many more of these does this area need?

I don’t mean this to sound negative. This is simply what seems most apparent.

The leaves are gone now, and the trees are just brown sticks. The grass has taken on the faded color of fall.

We stop at the grocery store. It seems huge to me now, brightly lit and with so much more stuff. This is something I miss. It is strange to see people pushing carts so loaded with food. It is strange for me to fill a cart with food. I never get more than I can carry in two bags. We go to the check-out line. The cashier is actually friendly. Out of reflex I’m about to start putting the groceries in a bag myself when one of the baggers comes over.

I find this whole process interesting. When I arrived in Germany, everything was strange and unfamiliar. I would walk 10 minutes to the store and be looking around at everything. I think that’s partly why we so easily recognize tourists. After a while though, a walk to the store was just a walk to the store. All the little details started to fade into the background as they became familiar.

Back at home after being away, the experience is similar. Many of those things that were part of the background are now very obvious.

I go for a trail run through the nearby West Woods park. It seems so quiet, and I don’t see another person. That never happens where I am in Germany. I go for a bike ride on one of my usual routes. These are roads I’ve ridden probably a thousand times, but now they seem fresh. For a moment, I’m a little disoriented and run a stop sign where there is cross-traffic.

There is also so much that seems so unattractive and out of balance: the sprawl, the parking lots, the huge vehicles, the endless stream of the same stores. I wonder how these things can be so overlooked.

Being able to see things from a different perspective is one of the opportunities of this work assignment. But I’m afraid it’s inevitable that no matter where you are, over time, you notice less and less. That is unfortunate.

What do I miss / don't miss?

2006-11-16T22:14:00.000+01:00

The weather was unusually warm for November, and I was able to go out for a nice ride. On the way home, I rode over one of the bridges that cross the Rhine. The city was to my left, and barges traveling down the river to my right.

There was one moment where it registered: I am going to miss being here when it is time to leave.

That started me thinking, what are the things I miss and don’t miss?

I miss:
My family. No need to say more.
Good pizza. Italian restaurants here are good, but I like the pizza I make, with home-made crust, sautéed mushrooms, and Italian prosciutto.
Cooking in our kitchen.
Shopping at our local Heinen’s. The stores here aren’t even close.
Riding in Geagua county. We don’t know how good we have it.
Riding with friends and teammates.
Stores open past 8pm. If you don’t get to the market by 8pm Saturday, no food for you on Sunday.
Bookstores with books in English.
My leisurely drive into work on back roads.
Driving at reasonable speeds. Driving here can be a white-knuckle experience.

I don’t miss:
Television. I could not even tell you who played in the World Series, and that doesn’t bother me at all.
News on television and in papers. What if everyone stopped watching the TV news and reading the paper? Would politicians still have so much BS to say?
Stores open at all hours. Convenience is nice, but it is refreshing to have a time where not everyone is out shopping and buying.
Giant parking lots. One of the ugliest things we have at home.
Strip malls. Um, see above.
Suburban sprawl. Hmm, see above again.
Having to drive everywhere. One of the things I really love about being here is being able to walk or take the public transportation to just about everything I need.
Chain restaurants everywhere.
65 mph speed limits. OK, it’s a 2-sided coin.
Hearing only English. I never get tired of hearing people speaking a foreign language.
Sloppy Americans. I hate to say this, but the contrast is startling.

I'm spending 2 weeks in the US over Thanksgiving, so we'll see what else comes to mind.

Some Things Stay the Same

2006-11-11T10:41:00.000+01:00

Whether in the U.S. or in Germany, some things remain constant. Take for example trying to go for a bike ride on Friday afternoon anytime later than 3:00.

We typically think that the Germans (maybe Europeans in general) take their time off from work seriously. We in the U.S. have the impression that they work something like 30 hours a week and receive 52 weeks of vacation.

It’s not quite that extreme, but sometimes seems rather close.

With all that time, you would think that they would take a more leisurely approach to getting home from work on a Friday. But just as in the U.S., Friday afternoon means a mad rush to get home. Or get somewhere.

The drivers here, while driving fast and aggressive, are mostly tolerant of cyclists. They usually give me enough room when passing. They don’t honk or yell things out the window.

But on Friday afternoon, when they are in that rush to get home, they seem to have no patience with a cyclist who might delay their arrival by maybe 30 seconds. So they pass too close, pass when there is oncoming traffic, try to squeeze in front of me when approaching a red light (why, I cannot imagine).

This has always mystified me back at home too. I’ve wondered why are people in such a hurry that they cannot stand to be delayed for even a few seconds? Once I asked a driver this, after catching up to him at a red light after he obnoxiously honked and yelled at me. His answer was to spew something like, “Get off the road!” with spit on his lips.

And I once asked the mayor of Hunting Valley why he was in such a hurry after he called the police to pull three of us over. We had delayed him by not riding single file on a country road (on a Saturday morning). He couldn’t answer except to say some nonsense about us breaking the law.

But that is in the U.S., where we expect most of the population to be racing home to the couch to switch the on T.V.

I think there is a similar phenomenon in Germany. Maybe the specifics are a bit different, but there is that same sense of impatience to get home to whatever small indulgence or distraction is waiting – which ironically might be going for a walk, run, or bike ride, judging from the amount of people I see out on the path along the Rhine.

Two Fridays ago I was riding on a narrow farm road, when a van, obviously a work vehicle, insisted on passing me from behind even though there was not enough room for both of us, and even though I was moving along at more than 20 mph and he had to stop up ahead anyway.

I can tell that my perspective here has changed, because now I am no longer the polite American in these situations. But I still need to learn the best insults to yell in German.

From track to 'cross

2006-11-05T22:15:00.000+01:00

What do you do the day after going to a six-day race?

Why, you go to a cyclocross race.

After the smoky night indoors in Dortmund, I needed some fresh air. It was a nice October afternoon, and I had noticed there was a professional cyclocross race in Sint-Michielsgestel, in the Netherlands, just an hour and a half drive from here.

For those who don’t know, cyclocross racing takes place on a course that is part on the road, and part off-road. There are obstacles where the riders are forced to dismount and carry their bikes. When the conditions are bad, in some places it’s faster to run than ride. They use bikes made for cyclocross: essentially a road bike that’s a little less aggressive, with wider tires and more brake clearance.

I’ve done exactly two cyclocross races in my life, and decided it wasn’t for me. I was sore for days afterwards. But then I was racing on a 35 pound mountain bike, using road pedals, and I hadn’t done any running in many years. It was as ugly as it was painful.

The race in Sint-Michielsgestel was a professional race, but it also included races for Masters, Juniors, Women, and U23’s. I parked and started to walk to the race course. I felt like I was at a local race at home. The racers from the early races were changing clothes, washing the mud off their bikes, and rehashing the race. The U23’s were warming up, sprinting and down the street.

I wanted to change, hop on my bike and jump in with them.

I watched the U23’s start and fly into the first turn off the pavement and onto the dirt, with brakes squealing, bikes crashing, and guys yelling. They quickly turned onto a small metal bridge (the sound even made me nervous), then through a field with a dismount and run through a sand pit. To say that it looked hard doesn’t begin to explain it.

The sand pit:

Cyclocross is spectator friendly. I walked the entire course watched all the difficult sections. In several places I could stand and have a 360-degree view of the race. You’re also up close to the racers, with only some plastic tape keeping you off the course. If you’re not careful and lean too far into the course, you can easily get hit.

The crowd watching the race was large – fans there for the race, families from the town, racers who had finished their races. Food and beer of course (do I need to keep mentioning that?).

The pro race had many of the top guys: Sven Nys, Bart Wellens, Richard Groenendaal, Erwin Vervecken. It’s pretty cool to see the guys in person who I’ve only read about.

They started insanely fast, with guys sprinting from the start to get to the first turn off the pavement. Now, I assumed that as professionals these guys would be good, but I could not believe the speed at which they rode on the dirt, and the skill they showed in the difficult sections of the course.

Nys over the barriers:

The race was an hour of absolute intensity. With the exception of Nys, who seemed to float over the course, they all had a look of pain on their faces. No doubt, these guys were tough. I felt bad for the guys who were at the tail end, in danger of getting lapped. They still looked like they were riding as hard as they could go.

Sven Nys won by a pretty comfortable margin. I left with a completely different perspective on ‘cross. If it wasn’t for my still-not-right collarbone, I might even be convinced to try it again.

Nys navigates the muddy section with ease:

The other guys have a harder time:

No doubt, one of the oddest sponsor names ever:

Dortmund Six-Day

2006-11-01T19:48:00.000+01:00

Borrowing from the joke about hockey, I went to a bar and a bike race broke out. Only the “bar” was the Westfallenhalle in Dortmund, where the Dortmund Six-Day Race was held.

A six-day race is an indoor track race. Each night teams of two riders compete in a series of different races. There are Madison races (where riders take turns racing, using hand slings to make the change), elimination races, points races, and sprints. There are the derny races, where riders draft behind motorized bikes at speeds of 65 km/h (40 mph!). The teams try to accumulate points and gain laps on their opponents.

Among racers and fans in the U.S. six-day races have a mystique about them. They were very popular in the U.S. prior to World War II. I’ve read that they were as big as any of the six-day races in Europe. For a bike racer or racing fan, being able to sit indoors and drink a beer while watching top riders race around a track is almost as good as going out and riding, especially at this time of year.

There aren’t any big six-day races in the U.S. anymore, but they are still quite popular in Europe. Bike racing in general is more popular in Europe, but I think a big reason the six-days are still held is that the promoters make them into events that are much more than just bike races.

But then again, I’ve noticed that Germans can pretty easily find an excuse to make anything into an event, with copious amounts of beer and food. It seems every other weekend there is a festival of some sort along the Rhine promenade in Düsseldorf.

The Dortmund race is just a short 45 minute drive for me, so I can’t pass up the opportunity to go.

As a racer, I’m interested in the racing. I’m mesmerized as I watch the 220 lap Madison race early in the evening. When you first see this race, it appears to be complete chaos. All the riders are on the track, but only 1 rider from each team is racing. The other teammate is circling waiting to make an exchange (by doing a hand sling). The riders trade off frequently, and they make the hand slings in the tightest spaces. Other riders pull off the front of the group and ride high up the banking of the track. At the same time, riders are trying to break away and gain a lap on the field – which happens frequently. I’m surprised they don’t crash more often.

I lean back and watch the track without focusing on any single rider. When viewed like this, the race looks like a perfectly synchronized choreography. It’s an amazing scene.

A large proportion of the people haven’t come for the racing though. They are here for the event: the food, the beer, the crappy band playing bad American pop music in the dance hall. The food, as expected, is plentiful: different kinds of grilled wurst, pizza, large pretzels, some kind of fish, Turkish gyros, shish kebabs, frites and mayonnaise, Dutch licorice.

They sing along with the cheesy music played during the race (if you can imagine this, “Take me home country roads”, in English, with a thumping electronic beat). They stand and clap, sway back and forth in their seats as if they were in one of the Oktoberfest tents. People smoke while in their seats inside the arena. As the night goes on, and more beer is drunk, it gets even louder.

Erik Zabel, probably Germany’s most popular racer, is clearly the fan favorite. They are visibly disappointed if he doesn’t win a sprint or if he and teammate Bruno Risi don’t win one of the events.

It all adds to the atmosphere.

By the time I leave, well after midnight, I smell like I’ve been to a bar. My clothes reek of stale smoke and grilled meat and will need to be washed. My throat is scratchy from the smoke. And I’ve eaten too much again. I’m going to have to ride a bit longer the next day.

Zabel and his derny partner:

Language barrier, part 2

2006-10-31T08:38:00.000+01:00

I studied Spanish 4 years in high school plus a semester in college, but still would have had problems ordering in a Spanish restaurant. Unfortunately high school Spanish was not oriented towards functional usage, and I had no other compelling motivation to become fluent in a useful way.

In 1997 I traveled to Italy for a bike racing camp. I experienced for the first time the wonder of being in a foreign country among people speaking a language different than mine. And not just any language, but Italian. I think any single guy who can speak Italian should have no worries. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for German.

I felt I was missing something important by not being able to speak a second language. Here were all these people, many of whom did not have a college education, who could speak at least two languages, sometimes more. After that trip I resolved to learn another language.

At first I thought it would be Italian. I learned some on my own, enough to speak a few phrases on a second trip to Italy. That little taste was enough to convince me I wanted to learn more.

A series of coincidences sent me to Germany for several work trips then led me to find that we had a German teacher giving lessons at work. I then had both a compelling reason (work travel to Germany) and convenient lessons. In contrast to high school Spanish, my German lessons were oriented towards functional usage – useful things like ordering a beer, ordering food, telling someone you’re lost and need directions.

Part of the appeal of my work assignment here was learning more German in advance, being able to use it while here, and then becoming more fluent. So for me it is not so much a language barrier but instead a chance to learn and practice.

On a personal level, learning and using the language is a way to more readily make contact and communicate with the people here. My German has improved, but is still far from what I would consider to be fluent. When someone is speaking fast, I might catch about every third word or so. But even at that level, I’ve noticed that it makes a difference when communicating with native Germans.

When Laura was here, one night we stopped to have a beer in the Altstadt. The waitress started speaking to us in English. At first we thought she recognized us as being non-German. But then we noticed her English had absolutely no trace of a German accent.

She had moved here from California with her German husband. We asked her how it was going. I was expecting to hear her say how great it was, but instead she told us about all the problems she was having. She said that people made fun of her, refused to speak English to her, and gave her a hard time about using English in the bar. She definitely had an attitude towards the language and towards Germans.

Fortunately my experience here has been more positive. I came here knowing enough German for day-to-day living. And I’ve been willing to at least try to use it and to learn more. The people here seem quite tolerant, even appreciative, of my bad German.

Now if only German could sound as sexy as Italian.

Language barrier

2006-10-29T22:50:00.000+01:00

The experience of the language barrier caught Laura by surprise.

Many people in Germany speak English well, and many more speak at least a little. But not everyone speaks English, and that includes many people you deal with daily: the woman in the bakery, the pharmacist, the man at the vegetable stand.

Even if they do speak English, it doesn’t feel right to walk up and just start speaking in English and assume that they will understand. But if you know absolutely no German that is all you can do.

Laura wasn’t prepared for how it feels to be in such a situation. You immediately identify yourself as being a foreigner – someone different who doesn’t fit in. For me personally, I tend to then feel incompetent, as though I should know how to speak their language and communicate.

Laura noticed this even caused her to change her behavior. She didn’t want to walk into the empty bakery because for sure the clerk would try to talk to her (in German).

I tried to teach her some of the basic things to say: please, thank you, I don’t speak German, do you speak English, where is the bathroom (only they say where is the toilet since “bathroom” would indicate you wanted to take a bath).

Even these few simple phrases are difficult to use in the moment when someone starts speaking a long string of German. I was standing in line waiting for an apple fritter when I saw the woman from the coffee shop come up and ask Laura something – I assumed whether we were done with our coffee cups. Even in this situation it’s hard in a split second to get a few simple words right: ich spreche kein Deutsch (literally, I speak no German). I could read her lips from a distance as she said, in English, “I don’t speak German.”

Laura said this gave her a new appreciation for people who come to the U.S. not knowing any English. I think people who are so adamant about only English being spoken in the U.S. have never been in such situations, and have never attempted to learn and use a second language. It is humbling.

Pharmacy visit

2006-10-28T09:29:00.000+02:00

It was good timing that my wife came to visit when she did.

Somehow my right thumb had developed an infection around the fingernail. In addition to being painful, it was starting to look a bit gruesome. My course of action was to do nothing and wait for it to get better.

My wife, being a nurse, first suggested I see a doctor. I vetoed that one. I was not in a mood to sort out whatever insurance nonsense was certain to result.

She insisted that something be done. She had heard, from where I am not sure, that pharmacies in Germany sell stronger over-the-counter medicines than in the U.S. She is very smart that way.

We walked down to the local pharmacy, and I showed my thumb to one of the pharmacists. The pharmacist knew exactly what needed to be done and brought out several different ointments, gauzes, and bandages.

The problem was she only spoke German. I’ve become pretty good at getting most of the conversation in German, but here was a case where I needed to do better than get most of the conversation. I needed to get the details right. I was picturing what my thumb might look like without the fingernail.

One of the other pharmacists spoke a little English. Between our German, English, and various hand signals, we figured out what we needed to do. The first ointment was some kind of strange-smelling, green goo. But it worked amazingly. Within a day, the infection had come to the surface. A couple more days with the second ointment and my thumb was mostly normal.

Good thing too, because while bandaged I realized how useful the so-called opposable thumb is. Ever try going to the bathroom without being able to use your thumb? Try it sometime.

Seeing what's here

2006-10-27T12:30:00.000+02:00

My wife Laura came to visit this week.

I planned to play tour guide and show her around Düsseldorf. Her visit was also a good opportunity to explore, try some new restaurants, and see some places that were new to me too. I had done some research, talked to people, and had a bunch of ideas for interesting places to go and things to see.

What I forget is that simply being here is interesting.

We leave the apartment to walk to one of the neighborhood stores. After being here for 3 months now, this is routine to me. But for her, everything is new: the different houses, different cars, the little beer store on the corner.

My intention is simply to walk to the store, but she wants to go slow and stop and look at everything.

We pass by three bakeries and a dessert shop within 15 minutes and stop to look in each one. She comments, here and elsewhere during the week, how everything looks so good, and is displayed so well with just the right lighting. I realize that is why I always want to stop and buy something.

There is a small open-air market in the neighborhood on certain days. We stop at the produce stand to look at a vegetable called Romanesco (I think we call it “Broccoflower”). It looks more like something you’d put in a plant arrangement.

There is an olive stand, a meat stand, a cheese stand. We buy olives, small peppers stuffed with cheese, stuffed grape leaves, fresh bread, then walk down to sit by the Rhine and eat lunch.

She comments that the “fast food”, if we can call it that, is good here. There are little stands and kiosks where you can get currywurst and frites, sandwiches of all kinds on nice bread, freshly made apple “pfannkuchen” (essentially an apple fritter). She notices people eating long bratwursts on small rolls, with the ends of the bratwurst sticking out on both sides. You can even get nice sandwiches and bakery at the gas stations on the Autobahn.

She notices that people seem well dressed and not at all sloppy looking.

More than anything she notices the dogs. Dogs in the airport. Dogs in restaurants. Dogs in stores. People walking their dogs off-leash. The amazing thing is that they are all so uniformly well behaved.

This has surprised me too, and before I leave here I must talk with someone to figure this out. It is no coincidence that the dogs all behave so well. I have not been chased once on my bike. They don’t even seem to pay attention to me.

The downside to the dog situation is that there is dog crap, well, everywhere. This is one of those contradictions about this country. There is mandatory recycling. People sweep and wash the steps in front of their houses. They are meticulous with their cars. Yet people don’t clean up after their dogs.

On our first walk, within maybe 5 minutes, Laura notices this too. I tell her, yes, you need to be careful when walking.

That night we walk to see the Branford Marsalis Quartet, over the river near the old town. I love being able to walk to things here. On the way back, on a dark side street, Laura finds one of the presents left by a local canine resident and almost slips and falls. Welcome to Germany.

That shoe spends the night out on the porch.

Currywurst and Frites at the Burg Elz.

Eating and driving

2006-10-19T00:26:00.000+02:00

I feel about 5 pounds heavier after just 3 days of driving around and visiting with some customers.

I was in southern Germany, in Bavaria and Swabia, two regions that are known for their peculiar way of speaking German, for the stereotypical eccentricities of the people, and for the distinctive regional cooking.

There was lots of meat, noodles, spätzel, sauces, salads with odd pickled vegetables of unknown variety. It was all quite good but not something I could do on a daily basis. I swear I could feel the butter sauce turning solid in my arteries.

The most interesting meal was the lunch we had at the office of a customer. We arrived around noon, talked for a short time then went to eat in a room where they had some lunch brought in.

They had a bowl with a bunch of cooked Frankfurters (the real kind) in water, then another bowl with big Bavarian pretzels, and alongside, some Bavarian-style mustard. Next to that was a plate of open faced sandwiches, with various meats. Next to that was a selection of beer in half liter bottles.

I took a couple Frankfurters and a pretzel, and a set of silverware. As we started to eat, I noticed I was the only one (there were 5 of us) with silverware. The other guys picked up the Frankfurters with their hands, dipped the end in mustard, and took a bite. Same with the pretzel. Now this was a “business lunch”, and I’m standing there wearing a tie, eating a Frankfurter with my fingers, and drinking beer.

I was told it is a Bavarian custom that employees are allowed a beer at lunch. Personally I couldn’t drink beer for lunch every day, but I like the attitude.

This trip was something of a first for me. I tried in the meetings to speak German first and English only if I had to. I thought my German was coming along well. Actually I was doing pretty well, and then all of a sudden a flurry of words would come, and I would be nodding my head like I understood when I would suddenly realize that I had no idea what was just said. I knew what the topic was, but not the detail. It is humbling when I realize just how much there is to learn with a new language.

Ride to The Netherlands

2006-10-15T21:10:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I rode for a while with a mountain biker who was on his way to The Netherlands. At the time I hadn’t realized we were close enough in Düsseldorf to ride there and back in an afternoon.

Today was a beautiful October day, and I needed somewhere new to ride, so I set out for The Netherlands.

There’s something fascinating about crossing the border into a different country, especially with the bike or on foot. It’s not as though everything suddenly changes, though you do notice immediate differences: signs in a different language, different street names, or the sudden appearance of a bike lane.

It’s more than the obvious differences though. It feels exotic knowing you’ve crossed into a different country and the next person you talk to is probably going to be Dutch (which he was).

Once outside of Düsseldorf there are many bike paths and small farm roads. These are great to ride on, but they have a couple of drawbacks. You can be riding on a nice paved road then suddenly find yourself on a dirt trail going through the woods. On a road bike, that can be a bit treacherous.

The other problem is that on a nice Sunday afternoon many other people have the same idea about going for a ride or a walk.

One of the many farm roads.

I found a nice farm road, smooth and without many other people. Many of these routes are marked as bike routes. I spotted a sign for Swalmen (NL). Sure enough, after a while I found myself going through a nature preserve on an acorn-covered dirt path. That was manageable.

Then the groups of walkers and people on bikes started to appear. Lots of them. Most people have these little bells on their bikes, and they will angrily “ching, ching, ching” them to get people to move out of the way. Since I have no bell on my racing bike, I will freewheel when coming up to someone, and they usually hear the clicking sound. If not, I will politely say “Entschuldigung” (excuse me).

This was not working today, so I was riding along dodging people and bikes, with my wheels shooting acorns to both sides and hitting people. Honestly I can’t understand how walkers and casual cyclists find this sort of situation enjoyable.

I found my way out of the woods and onto a path along the main road that took me into The Netherlands. I turned to cross to the other side of the road, and waited for traffic. I heard an angry “ching, ching, ching” from a couple coming down the path, since part of my back wheel was on the bike path.

Now, they had more than enough room to pass, and I really could go nowhere except into traffic. But they insisted on riding side-by-side on the path. The guy clipped my back wheel with the large pack on his bike and almost fell. Then turned to look at me as though it was my fault. I had no choice but to give him the universal signal of disrespect (this is how I know I feel somewhat at home here).

I rode for a while in the Netherlands, passing through some nice little villages with interesting houses and landscaping. On the way back, I traded people for cars, and took a more direct route, getting lost only once and making just a short detour through the woods. I felt as though I had earned my late afternoon coffee and Kuchen.

Bikes stopped at the cafe.

Cute little house in the Swalmen.

Summer Fairy Tale

2006-10-12T23:02:00.000+02:00

Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup this past June and July. This was a huge event, with millions of fans from around the world coming here. Unfortunately my timing was such that I arrived 3 days after the final game.

I watched many of the games on television, including all of Germany's. The German team made it to the semifinal game versus Italy, played on July 4th. It was an intense game, scoreless with only a couple of minutes left in the second and final overtime period when Italy scored. It was easily the best game of the tournament despite the outcome.

We felt so let down watching it in the US, it was hard to imagine what the German fans must have felt.

I expected to arrive here finding people depressed about their national team losing, and was surprised to find the mood was bright. There were still signs of the World Cup everywhere – flags, banners, signs for the stadiums on the Autobahn.

I talked to people about this. They were happy to have been the hosts for the tournament. Maybe it was better for one of the guests to win. The team played beyond anyone’s expectations. They are young and will be even better in 2010.

Most of all, people said, this was a significant event for Germans. Since World War II people have been uneasy about displays of nationalism. The World Cup finally gave Germans the opportunity to fly their flag, sing national songs, and openly display their solidarity. By the way people talked about it, I could see it was important.

This is a bit of a long lead-in for what I really wanted to write about.

There is a new film just released here. The title is: “Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen.“ In English: „Germany. A Summer Fairy Tale.“

It is a documentary made by Sönke Wortmann, a fairly well-known filmmaker who also happened to play professional soccer for a couple years. Wortmann was allowed to be with the team leading up to, and during the World Cup.

He filmed with a small camera, and the result is very intimate and not contrived or artificial. Surprisingly he doesn’t show too much actual game footage, but he shows just enough.

Including the winning goal in the game versus Italy.

There was an audible gasp in the theater when the goal was scored. Then when he shows the reactions of the players going off the field and in the locker room, people were crying in the theater. Hearing that, even I got teary-eyed, in sympathy I suppose.

Such a contrast to the reactions I found upon arriving here. I think maybe now this is Germany’s opportunity to relive losing to Italy and finally be upset about it. 2 more minutes and it would have gone to penalty kicks!

Speaking of food

2006-10-09T20:09:00.000+02:00

I've noticed that I'm often thinking about food here. In part that's because I'm completely on my own. No one is going to do any shopping for me, and anything I find in the refrigerator is because I put it there.

It also seems that food is one way of exploring the differentness of being here. Every trip to the grocery store is opportunity to find something new -- like yet another type of Wurst I haven't tried. Or have one of those confusing new experiences -- like figuring out how to work the automatic bottle refund machine while the line of people behind grows longer until someone steps up and shows me how it works.

There is one place where I don't have to think too much about the food. At work we have a small cafeteria. They put out the weekly menu at the end of the previous week, like a school lunch menu. Each day there are two meal choices. This usually involves some kind of meat, usually a sauce, usually a vegetable or salad.

You can also order something like a salad, which I do on occasion, but I always feel weird doing that.

You see, there are a couple women who work in the kitchen making the food, and I always feel bad if I don't order something substantial. I'm sure they don't make everything from scratch but it sometimes seems that way. I've seen them mashing potatoes, frying spätzle, stirring gravy. Not eating a substantial meal is like letting your grandmother down.

You have to place your order by 9:30 that morning. At first this seemed so bizarre to me. I could not imagine having to remember to walk down to the cafeteria and place an order, and then have to worry about getting it right in German. But then it became a ritual, and another opportunity to learn a little more German. They even cut me some slack when I come at 9:33. And they do notice that it is 9:33.

We have our assigned time when we are supposed to come, I think so they don't have everyone show up at once. And we always start the meal with "Guten Appetit".

Something that initially seemed so odd gradually became charming.

Except today. The main meal was "Leberkäse mit Spiegelei". Leberkäse literally means "liver cheese". Basically this was an odd colored meat loaf. I was told it doesn't typically contain any liver or cheese. Spiegelei is a sunny-side-up egg. So what you have is something that looks like a slice of Spam with an egg on top.

Thankfully today I had brought an apple and a couple bananas. Fruit never looked so good.

Eating off a board

2006-10-05T08:27:00.000+02:00

Someone suggested I write more about food. I think maybe she wants to eat vicariously through me. Well, here you go.

Last week in Sweden we went out to dinner at one of the local restaurants. One of the guys pointed out the restaurant’s specialty, something called a “plank steak”.

Now it clearly said “plank” but somehow my brain registered it as “flank”. So I was picturing, without really thinking about it, a marinated and grilled flank steak.

When it came, it was a steak that had literally been cooked on a plank – as in, a rectangular piece of charred wood. The guy who recommended it said, “Hmm, that one looks like it’s been used a bit.”

The border of the plank was trimmed with a huge amount of mashed potatoes, decoratively placed (using a pastry bag I presume).

As odd as it may sound, it was quite delicious.

We each ordered beer – a brand they said was brewed locally. I had heard that beer was expensive in Sweden and Denmark, but I was not prepared to pay something like a million Swedish Kronor. Actually it was only 60 SEK, which came to around $8 for a single beer. That would be cause for mass protest in Germany.

We talked about this, and the guys said that alcohol is heavily taxed in Sweden and Denmark, partly as a way to discourage people from drinking. The unintended consequence is that people drive over the border to Germany and literally fill up their cars with beer. Because of the EU they can bring the beer across the border without paying any additional tax (provided it is for “personal use”). Sure, I can personally drink a car load.

The further unintended consequence is that people tend to drink even more because they have mass quantities of beer conveniently on hand. I didn’t doubt this because Friday night back in Copenhagen, the amount of public intoxication was impressive. I saw groups of people hanging around the various public squares with plastic cases filled with beer bottles. It all seemed quite friendly though, and I think I could have walked up and joined them.

The guys told me there is a similar phenomenon with sugar and sugar products. But no, I didn’t see groups of people hanging around eating mass quantities of candy bars.

I had an early flight from Copenhagen back to Germany, too early for the hotel breakfast. After the 5-mile, 200 DKK ($34), cab ride to the airport (there must be tax on that too), I bought a surprisingly good Danish pastry for my breakfast. I realized there is a benefit to paying $10 for a piece of pastry: I did not hesitate in using my (company) credit card to pay for it.

Driving to Sweden

2006-10-03T10:19:00.000+02:00

The first few weeks in Germany I felt lost a good amount of the time. I was constantly looking at maps, asking people for directions, and I got pretty good at making quick U-turns. At the time it seemed I was the only one having this problem.

So I must admit to feeling some satisfaction when I see a native European have the same kind of trouble.

Last week I was at a seminar in Copenhagen then would be visiting with a company in Sweden the next day. Two guys from the company were at the seminar, and they were going to drive me the 2 hours to Sweden.

Their names were Mats and Martin, and they had just started with the company after finishing college. Martin was going to drive. Right away I could tell he had this endearing sort of ineptness about him. He seemed like the kind of guy who would lose his car in the parking garage, but would laugh about it.

Which was exactly how the trip started out.

We found the car though, which was actually the company minivan, which was a new experience for Martin. You don’t see too many minivans here (and then with an automatic transmission).

He tentatively put the van in gear and backed out of a space which was meant for something about half the van’s size. When we got to the gate to leave the garage, we needed a validated ticket to raise the gate. Martin had misunderstood where the free parking was. We had to pay – which meant going back to the payment machine. But by this time, there were already a half dozen cars backed up waiting to get out. He pressed the button at the gate to speak with someone.

“Do you know Danish?” I asked.

“If we speak Swedish, they can understand us. But we can’t usually understand them.”

“Do you know what she just said?”

“Actually, no”.

In the meantime, Mats had jumped out and validated the ticket. The whole thing had gotten Martin a bit flustered, because when we pulled out of the garage, he made a left turn into 3 lanes of oncoming traffic on a one-way street. In the blare of horns he froze. We got him to finally turn the van around, going up on the sidewalk.

Once Mats and I finally stopped laughing, Martin said, “Not a word of this tomorrow.”

Now, to really appreciate this, you have to imagine a Swede saying this in English, with the stereotypical melodic way the Swedish speak English. Think of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets show. Actually you can see him at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbs64GvGgPU&mode=related&search=

There is also an “Enchefenizer”, which will take English and transform it into what the Chef would say. The amazing part is it is exactly how Martin was talking:

“Nut a vurd ooff thees tumurroo.”
(Not a word of this tomorrow)

“Iff unyune-a sev thees fun zeey veell nefer by unytheeng frum us.”
(If anyone saw this van they will never buy anything from us.)

A few moments later followed by, “I'm ell sveety noo” (I’m all sweaty now).

I was then laughing to the point of tears.

The initial wrong turn meant we got started in the wrong direction. After 40 minutes, 4 U-turns, and a stop at a gas station we still had not found our way out of Copenhagen and to the motorway.

“Thees is insune-a. Zeere-a ere-a nu seegns [signs] in Cupenhegee.”

And it really did seem that way. Finally I spotted a sign for the airport, which I knew was on our way to Sweden.

After driving a while on the motorway, Martin said, “I elveys vundered hoo sumeune-a cuoold dreefe-a zee vrung vey. Noo I knoo.”

Which then started another round of laughter.

About 30km from our destination, the motorway was closed due to an accident the day before. A truck carrying paint had overturned. We inched along in traffic on a secondary road. Our scheduled 2 hour trip was approaching three hours.

Mats pointed to the fuel indicator, now getting close to “E”.

“Zeey tuld me-a zee tunk ves fooll. It ves nut fooll.”

They kept apologizing to me, as if it was their fault we were stuck in traffic.

Eventually we made it to my hotel, without any further incidents (except for Martin giving up on parallel parking the van in front of the hotel after 3 attempts).

Later that night I ate dinner with their manager and 2 other guys. I had promised not to talk about the wrong way driving. So all I said was, “they seemed a little nervous and kept apologizing for the traffic. Oh, and we almost ran out of gas.”

They looked at each other and burst out laughing. Somehow I think this has happened before. Their manager smiled mischievously and said, “I’ll tell zeem zeere-a vere-a sume-a cumpleeents ebuoot zee dreefing.”

Beautiful race

2006-09-27T00:20:00.000+02:00

The first European pro race I saw was a stage of the 1997 Giro d’Italia. That spring I spent two weeks in Italy at the Velo Veneto racing camp. We rode to see the stage over the Passo Pordoi in the Dolomites.

I will always remember what Ron Palazzo, the guy who ran the camp, said to me as we waited for the race: “First you hear the helicopters, then the race caravan starts to come through, then you see the long line of riders wind up the mountain. It always brings tears to my eyes. It is a beautiful sport.”

When the race finally came through, I knew what he meant. We waited in the cold and rain for hours, but it was worth it when we stood in the road and cheered for the riders struggling up the mountain.

I felt the same way in 2002 when a work trip amazingly lined up with the World Championships in Zolder, Belgium. I remember riding the train early Sunday morning to the Elite Men’s race. The train was packed with people speaking French, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, English, German, and who knows what else.

That day I got to eat frites and mayonnaise, drink Belgian beer, and see the Italian team deliver Mario Cipollini to the final 200 meters (after which there was no question who would win). I felt as though I had stepped into one of the European cycling videos I watch in the winter while on the trainer.

I wondered if I would still feel that way in Salzburg. Simply being in Europe, for a race, wasn’t a novelty anymore. It wasn’t until the day before leaving that I was even sure I would go.

But then, while driving to my hotel, I passed a couple of Spanish team riders, then a couple from the Netherlands. My heart started to beat just a little faster.

Saturday morning, just before the start of the Men’s U23 race, I was finishing breakfast when I heard the helicopters overheard. In that instant, I was ready. I grabbed my backpack and rode down to the start, just in time to see the U23 men finish their first lap.

First came all the police motorcycles (and clearly they were enjoying it), then the lead cars, then the riders, then all the support cars. It’s an amazing spectacle. Having organized a couple of local races, I cannot even imagine what goes into an event such as this.

U23's on the first lap.

Because the races are contested by national teams, rather than by the normal pro trade teams, there is a large amount of flag waving and enthusiastic but good-natured cheering and national rivalries.

The Danish and Italians can still drink together.

The road race is held on a circuit, this year 22km in length, so the spectators see the racers many times. We saw the U23’s do 9 laps, the women 6, and the Elite Men 12. That’s a lot of racing over 2 days (and those who came earlier in the week saw the time trials also).

Combine the number of races, the course, the people from all over the world, and you have an event that is a cyclist’s dream.

Late Sunday afternoon, when the men’s race had ended and the Italians were again celebrating, I got on my bike to ride back to the hotel. With the races over and everyone leaving, it suddenly seemed very lonely. I stopped and took a picture of Paolo Bettini’s face frozen on the video wall, then followed an Austrian couple down the hill, on a back way into Salzburg.

Next year the race is in Stuttgart. I’m already thinking about it.

Surprise ride

2006-09-22T23:10:00.000+02:00

I love it when you just stumble into a surprise.

Here I am in Salzburg to see the World Championships. The drive was 7 hours of white knuckles from the traffic, road construction, and other drivers. The last kilometer to the hotel took about 40 minutes through Salzburg. I was cursing the decision to drive rather than take the train.

But because of the car, I have the bike. I’m here early enough to go ride, and I figure that’s the best thing to get rid of the driving stress. I want to see if I could ride part of the road race course. As it turns out my hotel is only 1km from the start/finish, so the start of the course is clearly marked.

I start out riding and quickly realize that the course is completely closed to traffic and lined with barricades (all 22km of it). There are other people riding it too, and we have the whole course. I’m thinking, this is amazing. I just cannot help myself from riding hard. With the course closed, the other riders, people watching along the course, it feels like a race.

I ease up and pull out my camera and take some pictures while riding. A 4 man group (Austrians I think) I had passed comes by in a paceline, and I jump in. When I get to the front we start up the first climb. I go a little harder, look back, and the other guys are gone.

I take some more pictures and a guy in a yellow jersey and hairy legs attacks me on the hill. OK, this is serious now. I get out of the saddle and go by on the steep part. People at the top are yelling “Forza”, “Allez”, and I swear I hear a “go Torelli”.

On the downhill I catch a guy in a full US Postal kit. He latches on, then at the 5km sign I say, “we’re sprinting at the end, right?” He laughs and says no. When I ease up to take some pictures again, Yellow Jersey Guy attacks. He came back on the downhill! This I cannot let go. I ramp it up and pass him in the finishing stretch, almost taking out a girl in the crosswalk. Oops.

At the end of the first lap, I realize I had not eaten anything the entire day, only coffee. I stop and buy 2 Mars bars and some awful carbonated apple drink. The sugar boost is enough for another lap.

Unfortunately the course has now been opened to traffic, so we are dodging cars on occasion and cheating the red lights. I hook up with a group of 3 guys. I figure I will be nice and not go hard on the hill, but then I think, hey, this is the Worlds. There is no mercy here. I want to get a sense of how hard this course will be for the pro’s. So I go hard and pass them. Then I pass some guys walking. OK, so maybe the “competition” isn’t the strongest.

On the way back to the hotel, some local woman on a “city bike” in essence flips me off because I got in her way. I just give her a look that says, “I just won Worlds. Like I care what you think”.

The first group.

Yellow Jersey Guy (with chainring tattoo)

The steep (notice the Gerolsteiner guy).

I beat this little punk too. He ended up walking.

No my name is not on the road.

A problem everyone should have

2006-09-19T22:16:00.000+02:00

I need to decide what to do this weekend.

The UCI World Championships (bike racing of course) are going on in Salzburg, Austria. That’s a 6 or 7 hour drive for me (or 7-8 hours by train). Salzburg is supposed to be nice, I’ve read that the course should be good this year, and it’s very cool to see one of the biggest pro races of the year.

Then there is Oktoberfest in Munich. The real Oktoberfest. This is about a 5 hour drive or 6 hour train ride. I’ve never been there, and I’m sure it would be crazy. (though finding a hotel is a bit questionable at this point).

Bike racers who don’t enjoy beer would probably say go to Salzburg. Beer drinkers who don’t ride would say go to Munich.

And what if you enjoy both beer and racing?

Help me out, ‘mates!

Last race (?) of the season

2006-09-17T22:03:00.000+02:00

I wanted to do one last race this season. I always want to do the last race knowing that it’s the “last race”. It’s no good one or two weeks later to just say, “that was the last race”. It doesn’t have the same sense of finality, or give you the chance to go all out for one more good result.

I found two different races I could potentially do this weekend. I chose the race that was about 2.5 hours away, because it was somewhere I hadn’t been before. One of the nice things about racing here is even the trips to and from the race can be enjoyable.

One the way, I passed many fields full of these yellow flowers. I’m not sure what they are, but they were gorgeous.

The race was yet another criterium, but at 70km quite a bit longer than the others I’ve done here which I hoped would be to my advantage. There were two very tight turns, one of them onto a road that was only a bit wider than a bike path. Fortunately there were only 30-35 guys in the race for a change. For me, in a criterium, this makes all the difference. I could not imagine this course with 90 guys.

After I got my number and was riding back to change, I stopped and talked with a couple of local guys watching the race that was going on. They told me there were crashes because the riders were scared ("angst") going through the corner. They said they had told the organizers it was too tight, but did they listen? They looked at my bike -- not one you see around here -- and asked where I was from (they usually guess England). Then asked, how did I know about this race? Ah ... the Internet.

I wanted to be patient and wait for the 2nd half of the race to do any serious attacks. But no one was making the race hard, so sometimes patience isn't the right answer. I attacked and 2 other guys came along. We got caught after a couple of laps.

Right as we got caught I attacked again, and we had a 4 man group. After several rounds of attack-and-chase, finally I got away with the same 2 guys from the first break.

It’s funny how that happens. Sometimes it doesn’t take long to sort out who wants to make the race go that day.

With about 20 laps to go, another group of 4 joined us. The announcer kept running through the names in the break. Every time he said my name, it was always, “Brian Batke aus den USA”, as though I were some celebrity racer over here. I guess we would probably do the same at one of our local races.

Normally I would not want to sprint from a group of 7. But with about 5 laps to go my right calf started to cramp, so I wasn’t up for any late lap attacks. I was in pretty good position (3rd wheel) as we headed for the last corner. Then one of the guys did this impressive kamikaze attack over the grass on the side of the road. Must be a cyclo-crosser. As everyone scrambled to get his wheel, I lost my position and then only managed 5th in the sprint.

I can’t complain though. It was a fun race, I was one of the animators, and afterwards stood around BS’ing with the other guys in the breakaway. For my 10Euro entry fee, 5th place got me 60Euro, a set of Look cleats, some tire levers and some bottled water.

I hung around after our race to see one of the most fredly things I think I’ve ever seen: a criterium for recumbent bikes. Not that I have anything against recumbent riders, but one of them was racing in long pants and a shirt with a pocket protector. I am not kidding. At one point, two guys crashed in the tight corner. They were going so slow I think they might have just tipped over.

I drove home through some insane Sunday afternoon traffic. It was as if all of northwestern Germany was on its way back from somewhere. As I drove I was thinking, maybe I should see if there’s a decent race on the calendar next weekend.

Home and back

2006-09-15T23:37:00.000+02:00

Labor Day week I made a trip back to the

– mainly for a family visit but also for a couple of work events.

I was curious how it would feel to be home again. Would it feel as though I’d been gone a long time? Would it feel strange to be in the US again, hearing only English?

Surprisingly, it seemed like I’d been gone maybe 2 weeks – like I had been on a longish trip for work. I guess you can’t undo a lifetime of living in the US in just 2 months.

You can however start to pick up some new habits. Like driving. My wife said I was driving like a German: too fast, too close, and too much on the brakes. I hadn’t consciously noticed this until she pointed it out. 65mph seems very slow when 75 to 90 is the normal cruising speed.

It was great to see everyone, but in retrospect I tried to cram way too much stuff into a short period of time: 2 picnics, Taste of Cleveland event, soccer game, football game, movie, 2 bike races, work meeting, drive to Detroit for another work meeting.

The low grade headache I had from the flight home didn’t go away for 4 days. Lesson learned.

Now, about the bike racing. Sunday morning I drove out to Tamarack, PA for the Tour de Tamarack road race – a race where I’ve always done well. The radar looked clear but as I got closer, it started to rain. I was thinking about the last race in Germany, where I turned around and went home. It was strange -- I just could not do that again.

Unfortunately my legs weren’t as committed. Maybe it was the jet lag, or the low grade headache, or the rain, but I felt pretty bad the entire race. In the end I didn’t even try for a placing.

The weather turned better on Monday, and I was looking forward to the Tuesday night Westlake race. It’s only a training race but it has become a weekly ritual for something like 7 years now. And this week it turned out well. Not too long into the race, 3 teammates and I managed to break away from the field. It then turned into a team time trial. OK, the field was not so big, and most of the big guns weren’t there. But we still rode pretty damn hard, and my legs felt good. It was probably the most enjoyable race I’ve done all year. How many times do you get to finish 1^st through 4^th?

The week went by even faster than I anticipated. Fortunately the nice weather followed me back here. I got off the plane, drove home, drank some coffee then went out for a 3 hour ride under blue skies and sunshine.

Good day at the races

2006-09-14T22:35:00.000+02:00

After my first race experience, I was questioning whether it was worth the trouble to race over here. I thought: I could just go out for a nice 3 hour ride, on some new roads with some new scenery. No driving, no hassles, no crashes.

But there was a race only 25 minutes away, and I was told it would be hilly. I couldn’t resist hilly.

Things were starting to feel more normal. I had moved into my apartment. My clothes and other things, including my race wheels, finally arrived from the US. I was able to pack my race bag as I would at home. It’s interesting how little things like this have affected my general mood.

The course was a good one for me: only 2.5 km but it had a big climb, short flat part, then big descent. I wanted to be more aggressive this week, and went with most all the breakaway attempts. A 3-man break looked promising until one of the guys rode into my back wheel and crashed. I had visions again of someone hassling me.

About halfway through the race I jumped away solo on a prime lap. I took the prime then kept going. I dangled in front of the field at 20-30 seconds for a couple of laps. Then the gap started to grow. Then people around the course started to yell encouragement (which, I must say, was a big motivation).

I stayed away for the win, picking up 7 primes along the way. My take at the end: cash, basket of food (chocolate, cookies), two tires, pair of gloves, towel, model truck, 2 pens, 2 cigarette lighters (I think even the racers smoke here), fluorescent vest. Entry fee was 10 Euros (about $12), including the 5 Euro late fee.

After the race, I was the novelty – the unknown guy from the US who won. I talked to a bunch of people, gave an interview to a reporter in fractured German, had my picture taken.

This was just a couple days after the news of Floyd Landis’s positive drug test from the Tour. Everyone wanted to talk about this. The reporter asked if doping is common with racers in the US. I said I didn’t believe so, while thinking to myself, how unfortunate that this is the big topic of interest.

On Monday, a colleague at work brought in the newspaper. Looking at it, I could see the reporter also asked me if I had doped. I hadn’t realized that at the time, but fortunately I somehow gave the right answer.

DSL and talking to yourself

2006-09-13T09:14:00.000+02:00

I finally have an Internet connection at home (along with a telephone).

I’ve been debating whether or not that is good. I’ve gotten used to not having Internet access all the time, always checking email, the weather, racing results, etc. I’ve been able to read books, made out of real paper. I think I’ll need some discipline to keep from being on-line all the time.

It’s taken a full 2 months to get the DSL connection. Getting the appointment with Deutsche Telekom is the first hurdle. Then the installer doesn’t show up for the appointment. Then he shows up but there is a problem with the system in the apartment, requiring access to a locked closet, for which we don’t have a key.

Sometimes it seems every little thing is difficult here. But in the end it makes for a good story.

The DSL guy is quite personable and helpful. As usual, I try to speak in German as much as possible. The DSL guy speaks pretty good English. So as is also common, I speak in German and get answered in English. People here often want to practice their English as much as I want to practice my German.

The DSL guy tells me he doesn’t get too many English-speaking customers, and says his English isn’t as good as he would like. Still, it’s better than my German. I never stop being impressed at how many people here can speak more than just their native language.

He often stops and searches for the right word in English, saying it first in German. It’s interesting for me to see someone do this with English, and imagine that this is what I look like with German. It often feels like I will never reach a decent level of fluency in German. There seem to be so many words to learn.

The DSL guy thinks out loud as he works. He repeats out loud what he is doing, like a narrative. He tells me that he talks to himself to help keep organized. He says he even does this while driving in his car.

Then he tells me he’s divorced and how he needs to go pick up his son later. I’m wondering if his (ex-) wife got tired of hearing him talk all the time.

I think of the Austin Powers movie, when they unfreeze Austin and he says (out loud) that he now has no inner monologue. I keep waiting for the DSL guy to say something when he sees the dust bunny in the corner (or worse).

He says that after working with a customer who speaks English he finds himself talking to himself in English.

I tell him maybe I should try that with German. I think that if I ever do start thinking in German, out loud or not, I will finally have “gotten it”.

Leaving comments

2006-09-10T23:02:00.000+02:00

This may not be entirely obvious ... but you can leave a comment on any topic by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of the topic.

Comments are always welcome!

About the title

2006-09-10T22:38:00.000+02:00

Several people have asked about the title of this blog.

Über die Brücke means “over the bridge” in German.

This has both a literal and a metaphorical sense.

Oberkassel, where I’m living, is on the other side of the Rhine from the center of Düsseldorf. So you must go over one of several bridges to reach my neighborhood.

Metaphorically, it has to do with being over here and on this little adventure (any more explanation takes away from the metaphor).

First Jerk

2006-09-08T15:35:00.000+02:00

I met my first jerk ten days after arriving in Germany.

Other than the surly cashier at the market – common, I was told – people had been friendly. On my bike I’d only been honked at once, and that was my fault. So it was ironic that the jerk was another bike racer.

It was my first race in Germany, and I was nervous. Everything was strange. There were no teammates or friendly faces. No usual pre-race routine. At the start I saw guys look around, then look at me: the unfamiliar racer.

The race started fast, but not really any different than back at home. There were attacks and counter-attacks, fast periods followed by slow. It was a regular bike race. Still, I was nervous.

About halfway through the race, a guy on my right moved over abruptly. I moved too, probably overreacting. I felt someone to my left give me a big push. When I turned to look he started yelling at me in German. He put his hand on my hip and shoved me to the side. Then he tried to ride across my front wheel.

In all the races I’ve done in the US, I can only recall two occasions where someone rode with such intentional aggression, and it wasn’t this extreme. And here it happens in my first race.

I rode up next to the guy and tried to say, in German, “hey, the other guy moved into me.” But with trying to ride, breath, and speak at the same time, I’m pretty sure I made no sense. I didn’t anticipate making enemies already and now had visions of someone hassling me every race. In that one moment, Germany became less friendly. I wished my teammates were with me.

I felt I needed to do something. With 6 laps to go I attacked solo, 2 laps before a prime (a mid-race prize). I had a big gap, and it looked like I would win the prime until my left contact lens came out in the wind. With essentially one eye I had to go easy into the turns. Another guy caught me at the line for the prime – a teammate of my new friend. I rode the last couple laps at the back, happy for the race to be over.

The lost contact lens meant driving home on the Autobahn with one eye. With Audis, BMWs and Mercedes flying by, I didn’t dare enter the left lane. I just listened to the voice on my car’s navigation system when it said, “keep to the right for the A46 …”

A fast week

2006-08-31T12:49:00.000+02:00

After 6 weeks here on my own, it was a nice change to have a visitor. I’d been so involved with getting myself oriented – at work and in general – and then with trying to keep up with training and racing, that I’d not had much time to relax.

It was still early when Carolyn arrived. After dropping her things at my apartment I suggested we go to the bakery. She started towards the car, and was surprised when I said we could walk there in less than 10 minutes (one of the things I like about being here).

Going to the bakery is something you “must” do here. My first week, while taking German classes, I mentioned to my teacher that I had gone to the supermarket and bought bread. She said, “Do not buy bread from the supermarket. Go to a proper bakery.”

At the bakery we started a week-long routine of taking pictures of our food.

We stopped at the grocery on the way home. Carolyn looked up and down the aisles at all the unfamiliar items. The foreignness of the grocery is part of what makes being here interesting: strange food, strange money, strange customs like bringing your own bag, or depositing a Euro to release the shopping cart.

In the end Carolyn picked out something that would be familiar to her: a box of Kellogg’s “Smacks”.

I think we repeated the bakery and grocery trip about every other day, and found something new to try every time.

I told Carolyn she was helping me to do some things I’d not had the chance to do on my own: we found the closest movie theater (which actually shows some movies in English), tried some new restaurants, took trips to Köln (Cologne) and Belgium, went to the top of the Rhine Tower in Düsseldorf (see photo). She helped figure out how to work the machine to print train tickets and itineraries.

We also learned:
• The movie theater gives you assigned seats (next to someone, even though the theater is only one-third full).
• The dogs all seem exceptionally well behaved.
• None of the ticket machines at the train station seem to work when you are in a hurry to catch a train.
• When you are about out of gas on the Autobahn, the next gas station will not be one that takes your gas card. But as soon as you fill up, the next one after that will.
• When you are on the tram, if you stand too close to the door it will not open and people will yell at you.
• There are plenty of cash machines when you don’t need them, but none when you do.

But for me the most enjoyable times were simple things we did: going to the market and bakery, shopping in Düsseldorf, riding the train, cooking out on the patio, picnic by the Rhine, watching a movie on TV in German and trying to make sense of it.

The week went by incredibly fast, and it seemed so quiet after she left for home. Her box of “Smacks” is still on the counter. They’ll go stale now, but I can’t bring myself to throw them out. They’re a little reminder of her trip here. The morning after she left, I poured some in a little cup and ate them with my coffee.

A new traveler

2006-08-30T08:49:00.000+02:00

My daughter Carolyn came to visit last week. She flew here by herself, as an “unaccompanied minor”. At 13, she’s already becoming a confident traveler. Earlier this summer she spent 10 days in Mexico with a classmate, then flew back to the US by herself.

I’m pleased she’s had the opportunity travel on her own. As a parent I naturally had some anxiety, but overall I think it’s positive. We are of course protective of our children, but sometimes I’ve had the feeling this comes out as an unwarranted fear of the world.

I remember being surprised last November, while staying in Munich, when I saw two girls Carolyn’s age riding the subway at 11:00 PM. They appeared to be normal kids, on their way from a movie or something (i.e., not out looking for trouble).

At the time I couldn’t imagine my daughter doing that. But since I’ve been living here, I’ve noticed many children riding the public transportation without adults, walking around the city, in stores, on their bikes, out in parks. They seem quite at ease.

I also get the sense that other people – adults – tend to look out for them. I wonder if that is perhaps the flip side of telling other people what to do.

One less race

2006-08-28T09:48:00.000+02:00

Here is more evidence that I’m getting soft. Sunday morning there was a race about 40 miles from here. Right up until the time I needed to leave, I debated about going. I had a cold since Tuesday and wasn’t feeling completely better. But the sun was out so I decided to go. By the time I got to the race, the weather had turned and it started to rain. A cold, rainy, 5-turn criterium just did not sound appealing, so I left. Fortunately, at Autobahn speeds the trip back was quick.

Back in Düsseldorf, it had not rained. I went out for a nice 3 hour ride then washed my bike for the first time since I’ve been here.

If this had been a race back home, I would have just done it in the rain. Back home I would have had teammates also willing to race in the rain. Back home I know how everyone rides and I don’t so feel uneasy on a slippery course. And back home we would of course rehash the “epic” race Tuesday night at Westlake.

It was pretty easy for me not to do the race. There was no need for me to tell teammates or anyone else I wasn’t staying. I just got in the car and left. It’s a nice change to be completely on my own. But I also find myself missing the camaraderie of the racing scene back at home – another one of those things you don’t think about until it’s not there. I’m sure there is camaraderie here too, but between the language barrier and being a stranger, I haven’t yet found it.

April in August

2006-08-25T18:12:00.000+02:00

I did not imagine that Düsseldorf in August would be more like Cleveland in April.

I have not kept track exactly, but I think it has rained just about every day in August. Not all day, every day, but just enough to make it hard to plan for outdoor things. Unless you don't mind getting wet. Like today, it's been mostly cloudy with a very few bits of sun, and now, when it's time to leave and maybe go for a ride, it has started to rain. I think that might be one of those laws of the universe, along with the one that says a rainy weekend is followed by a beautiful Monday.

I've not yet learned the weather pattern here. At home, armed with Internet connections and almost real-time radar, we cyclists like to think we're amateur meteorologists. And after a while, you do get to see patterns in the weather. I can look at the radar and have a pretty good idea whether I can go ride and stay dry or not.

Here, at least so far in August, the weather has no pattern that I can make sense of. It will be raining at work, but not where I live (25 km away). Or I ride North and it's raining, then turn around and find it never rained only a few km to the South. The upside is there have been some interesting cloud formations:

After almost 4 weeks of this, it's getting to me. Part of my problem is I don't like to clean my bike. And given my apartment living now, it's even harder. I can't really go out on the sidewalk and wash my bike. And actually I've been told that is probably "not allowed". I was told you may not wash your car out on the street.

So if it's looking like rain is likely, I've not been going out or have been staying close to home.

What do the cyclists do around here? Sunday, while sitting in a coffee shop and watching the rain through the window, I saw a line of about 10 cyclists go by. This was a hard rain, and they were "just" recreational riders, not racers, so they didn't "need" to be out training. They were just riding, and getting wet. Obviously they like riding enough that getting wet wasn't a problem.

We racers tend think of ourselves as hard core when it comes to riding. Right now I'm not so sure.

Train watching

2006-08-14T12:05:00.000+02:00

After Sunday’s race, I went out to ride a few more miles. Much of the route was on narrow roads that cross through farmland. The weather was great, and I passed many people out for Sunday bike rides.

At one point I came to a railroad crossing to find maybe 30 people standing there, with cameras, obviously waiting for a train to pass. This was essentially in the middle of a field somewhere near the border with the Netherlands. I figured they must be waiting for some sort of special train, so I decided to wait too (I had my camera in my back pocket).

While waiting, one guy started talking, loud enough for all to hear, about something related to the train. I couldn’t understand most of what he said, but could tell from the way he was talking that he was, shall we say, “pontificating”. He bent down, pointed to something with the track, then pointed down the track, then made sure to say from which direction the train would come.

I moved over to the other side of the track, thinking a picture would be better from there. When the gate started to come down, Herr Know-It-All made sure to tell everyone to be careful. Then he yelled for me to move my bike out of the way. Crazy, since I was no closer to the track than anyone else.

No knowledge of German was needed here. This was the sort of person you roll your eyes at, independent of any language.

Finally, the train came by. It was an old steam train, with a few passenger cars.

I rode back to where the race was. The junior race was going on. People were now telling me to stay off the race course, though I showed no intention of riding on the course while the race was on.

Before coming here, a friend had told me about this preoccupation with telling people what to do. I thought he was exaggerating, but now I am starting to wonder.

PS: when I come back to the US, please make sure I am not dressing like this. Capri pants don't work for guys, and I cannot figure out why this is common here.

Carsick in the UK

2006-08-11T11:01:00.000+02:00

Mon - Thurs I was in the UK. My colleague Richard picked me up from Birmingham airport (which turned out to be a wise choice). I received an immediate introduction to driving in England. I'd been here once before, but don't remember the driving being like this.

Richard has been in the military, and spent some time driving Range Rovers off road (for which they are intended, he says). He's taken off-road training from Rover. Unfortunately for me, I think he missed the part where they explained the difference between on- and off-road.

Between the constant speed changes, hard braking, ever-present roundabouts, and the disorientation of driving on the left, I think I spent most of the trip with this low grade car-sickness.

I saw a number of road signs saying things like "82 fatalities in 5 years". I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be good news or cautionary. Going by the way they drive, I'm thinking it was good news.

But we did see some nice English countryside (particularly in Wales), visited Hampton Court Palace, drank some real English ale, and had some very good work meetings.

This is "Iron Bridge", which is the first iron bridge ever made (ca. 1779)

Hampton Court Palace, built by Henry VIII.

Road sign with both Welsh and English.

Settled in Oberkassel

2006-08-07T09:46:00.000+02:00

It only took 2 days to find an apartment, then 2 weeks before I could move in. After 15 days in a very warm hotel room, I was happy to be out.

My apartment is in the Oberkassel neighborhood of Düsseldorf, which is just over the Rhein from the center of Düsseldorf (the title of this blog means "over the bridge").

There are many restaurants, cafes, shops, etc. within walking distance (even quicker by bike), and the center of Düsseldorf is reachable on foot, or by the tram.

Here are some apartment pictures:

View from the street (my kitchen window is to the left of the front door). The street is a little busy, but only from the kitchen.

Out back, it is a totally different world.

And here's the living room. Plenty of room for my bike. Unfortunately I've already had to ride on the trainer, since the weather lately has been more like Cleveland in spring.