Nora and Bjorn went off to the sauna and we didn't see them again. I still am not brave enough to try it. I was worried about the bike and just sat in the whirlpool and pouted for a while thinking if we should leave right away to find a bike store. I decided we were already there, so we might as well stay. I got over it and went on with Skylar to all the slides. There was this one that went down the four levels of the place like a rushing river. You'd be able to jump off at each level or get swept in the current around the next bend. Had to be at least 10 yrs old to go on it. It was pretty freaky at first, but after a few times you could expect when the possible drowning would occur and prepare for it. There was also like 7 different pools, one like a giant bathtub, a regular one, a playground one, a wave one, a couple whirlpools, a few slides, and some others.. the place was huge. The other big slide was a dark curving tunnel that was slower, but cool because it had all these light designs poking through along the way. There was also a tanning salon, a sauna, and a massage parlor. There was a bar outside and a big grassy area to lay out on. When it was nearly dark, I had to drag Skylar from the pools with promises to return.
When we left we tried following the directions that Bjorn gave us, but of course got lost. He said to turn into a park and go through to the other side to a roundabout, but the park ran along the side of the road, so we didn't know where he meant for us to cut across. We ended up going along this path and over a bridge and through a skate park and finally coming out in this neighborhood with no roundabout in site. I knew the general direction that Heilbronn was in, so we just started walking our bikes in that direction. After an hour or so we did finally come to a roundabout and I pulled the map back out. We must have looked pretty pathetic walking this bike with a flat tire and a map strewn over it. This guy stopped and asked us where we were trying to go and I named some streets and he didn't recognize any of them (probably because with my accent, no one understands me when I try saying German words) and he didn't know where the train station was. He just pointed us towards Heilbronn and went on his way.
As we were heading off this older man must have overheard us and walks up and asks us again where we are going and we explain it again and his English isn't very good, but he gets most of it and exclaims that Heilbronn is 10km away. I say I know, but the buses don't take bikes and we can't find the train station. So he says he'll take us and of course I argue that I can't let him do that and it would be too much. He waved his hand at me and said he just had to wait for his son who was closing u the store. So we go over to his car (luckily a station wagon). He had a netting thing set up for a dog maybe and started tearing it all down. His son came out and he was a teacher of some sort and he spoke perfect English. So they put the back seats down and managed to cram the bikes mostly in and just tie down the back hatch. Then he says the son can wait there while he takes us home so we can sit in the front. I was already feeling like they were being too nice and so Skylar and I managed to cram ourselves on the floor boards behind the front seat so the son didn't have to wait. I explained that we just got the bike last week and that I hoped they could fix it, so he took us to the place that we got the bike at first to see if they would fix it, but they were closed. I thought we could leave the bikes there and take the bus home and go back in the morning, but he said it wasn't a very nice neighborhood and we better not do that, so he took us all the way home. It was so nice of him! He wouldn't take any money for gas or anything. I just hugged him and said thank you over and over. His son laughed at me and I hugged him too :)
So, for the second time we must have looked so pitiful that we got rides from strangers and at least this time he wasn't covered in tattoos and smelling like beer :)
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