13 Juni - Pobrecito

We woke up bright and early to go on a 50K bike tour today from Öhringen to Heilbronn with the Medical Informatics department faculty and students.  We met at the University and rode to the train station.  On the way, Nora told me of a leopard that this hotel we were passing keeps.  Guess the wildlife laws must not be as strict here because it sure didn't look like he had anything close to a natural habitat to live in.  Once we arrived at the station, a couple people drove a truck with all the bikes in it and the rest of us too the train to Öhringen.   From there we began our ride through the beautiful countryside of Germany and along the river.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but it was kind of difficult to do that while biking, so the pictures are when we stopped for a short break here and there.

We stopped for lunch at an ice cream place to refuel after about 20K.  Have I mentioned how incredibly awesome the ice cream is around here?  I think they use more milk and cream where Americans use more water.  If I knew how to make the stuff, I would open a place in MN with real Italian pizza and ice cream.

We rode mostly along bike paths with a few roads to cross here and there.  Some of the path was through fields, some in parks, and some along the river bank.  Skylar had another spill on his bike and got pretty bruised and scratched up.  He said his tire slipped on the gravel and the bike came out from under him.  I was about 2 bikes behind him and all I saw was him hit the ground.  He was mostly just shaken up and maybe a little embarrassed.  His ankle got the worst of it and got a little swollen.  He lost some skin on his shoulder and elbow and some various other scrapes.  I told the group we would take it slow for a while and ride in the back of the pack.  He was pretty bummed for a bit, but lightened up as the day went by.  Pobrecito (I know, wrong language)... I just felt so bad for him.  I told him if his ankle hurt too bad we could jump on a train at any time, but he was keen to keep on going.   Along the river we passed a man feeding this beautiful swan.  I saw Skylar staring, so I asked if he was looking at the swan.. he said, "What swan?  Why is that man in his underwear?"  A little further down we saw another old man in his underwear and after inquiring later to Nora, apparently that is normal. In the afternoon we went to a BBQ and brought some veggie burgers.  They also had some vegetarian pastas and Nora brought some cheese (German Feta) and some garlic herb butter for us.  Someone made grilled tomatoes with butter on them.  There was also quite the variety of Fleish on the grill but saving a space for the "veggie garten".  Even though many of the German university students do speak English, they apparently are a little uncomfortable using it in conversation with me.  Nora said it may be because they are afraid they will say something wrong.  When they were talking, Nora kept trying to translate what was being said and it was very nice of her, but I felt pretty silly.  Skylar did his normal routine of running around and playing with sticks amazing everyone with his boundless energy. After a while we left to go to the International Festival, but I didn't have any cash on me so we had to go to the bank.  Unfortunately the bank that I normally go to stopped taking VISA (maestro is what is commonly used here).  After trying about 4 other banks we finally found one in town that would work, but Skylar decided he was too tired to go to the festival.  So, we went home to rest and get up to watch the fireworks later on. At nearly 23:00, we watched the fireworks and then came back home to fall asleep to the music from the festival.