"So much to say, so much to say, so much to sah-ey"
So Much To Say. Dave Mathews Band-during his cool years
Kat and I have gone a long way since I've been able to properly write.
Third Leg auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen
We left Rotterdam and headed towards what has to be the worst city in all of Germany. Duisburg used to be a major center of steel, but then all the factories closed down, and it went into a steady decline. Now it is one of the poorest, dirtiest, most vile cities in West Germany. The minute Kat and I reached the northern suburbs it felt like we had entered a gauntlet-from the people to the architecture. We stopped in a small plaza with several old people around to check our directions. We figured that if people were leaving the old timers alone, then surely they wouldn't bother us. While we were pouring over our maps, across the street part of the ornate stone decoration fell off of the side of the building and almost hit a group of people walking below. Like a gauntlet I tell you.
Kat says that one of my talents is finding at least one thing positive about a situation. The only redeemable aspect I can find about Duisburg is that they have quite talented graffiti artists. Because really, how else are you going to pass the time in a shit town except paint the decaying buildings pretty colors? We took some pictures but don't have a way to put them on the computer yet. Soon I will get some more up here.
Whenever I travel in Europe and I come across a heavily industrial and ugly town, I always think, "Bombed during the war." And vice versa, if a town is old and super cute then is was saved heavy bombing during WWII. I feel like Duisburg must have been mauled during the war. I learned that even the Germans bombed their own bridges, some built during Roman times, so absolutely no one could get across. Ancient architecture gone, at the bottom of the river. Damn war kills all the cool architecture.
Hell-bent to get out of Duisburg as soon as possible, Kat and I blazed a trail past another young, tattooed, saddlebag ladden dude. We inadvertantly picked him up as a traveling companion for what we thought would be a couple of hours, but ended up being 3 days. You stop to figure out where you should be going and then voila, a young man offers to show you the way himself, and poof, instant traveling companion. That's how it's done. He's a chain smoking German firefighter who took off on a cycling trip after his live-in girlfriend broke up with him and he needed time to 'think'-except he just hung out with us instead.
When traveling, occaisionally you get thrown into an extended companionship with someone towards whom you only feel a lack of negative sentiment. In normal life you'd probably never become really good friends with them, even though they seem nice enough. Thrown together on the road, you get along pretty well before you part ways with no intention of keeping in touch. You also seem to share a lot of information with eachother about your personal lives because well, you'll probably never see them again. That was the story with the romantically challenged German fireman named Michael.
Kat however, hated him. He drove her absolutely crazy. When she finally told me after the first day I was totally surprised since I felt totally neutral about him, and just kind of enjoyed not having to figure out where we were going for a while.
Michael did let us in on a nice German secret. Technically the land along the Rhein is "owned" by the river. Every five years or so, it floods and climbs up the riverbanks about 20 meters. So technically no one can fuss at you for camping on the banks of the Rhein. Sometimes it's a trick to find a nice, flat, non-city, non-campsite bit of Rheinside land, especially through the Loreley Cliffs. That area is freaking amazing and it's no wonder that the Brother's Grimm collected so many fairytales here.
Side note: I read that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were first and foremost, German linguists. As of the 19th century there was still no unified Germany, only 39 nation-states, whose sole common link was the Germanic language. They were collecting German folk/fairytales as a way to help create a cultural identity.
We actually camped across the river from something like the picture above. We had ridden so far that day, 120km, and were dead to the world but we couldn't find one nice flat place to camp until we came upon this sight. We set up camp and were in the middle of cooking bratwurst on Michael's portable stove, when it started to lightly drizzle. Over the castle across the way two rainbows formed. Two! Sigh, fairytales.
So Much To Say. Dave Mathews Band-during his cool years
Kat and I have gone a long way since I've been able to properly write.
Third Leg auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen
We left Rotterdam and headed towards what has to be the worst city in all of Germany. Duisburg used to be a major center of steel, but then all the factories closed down, and it went into a steady decline. Now it is one of the poorest, dirtiest, most vile cities in West Germany. The minute Kat and I reached the northern suburbs it felt like we had entered a gauntlet-from the people to the architecture. We stopped in a small plaza with several old people around to check our directions. We figured that if people were leaving the old timers alone, then surely they wouldn't bother us. While we were pouring over our maps, across the street part of the ornate stone decoration fell off of the side of the building and almost hit a group of people walking below. Like a gauntlet I tell you.
Kat says that one of my talents is finding at least one thing positive about a situation. The only redeemable aspect I can find about Duisburg is that they have quite talented graffiti artists. Because really, how else are you going to pass the time in a shit town except paint the decaying buildings pretty colors? We took some pictures but don't have a way to put them on the computer yet. Soon I will get some more up here.Whenever I travel in Europe and I come across a heavily industrial and ugly town, I always think, "Bombed during the war." And vice versa, if a town is old and super cute then is was saved heavy bombing during WWII. I feel like Duisburg must have been mauled during the war. I learned that even the Germans bombed their own bridges, some built during Roman times, so absolutely no one could get across. Ancient architecture gone, at the bottom of the river. Damn war kills all the cool architecture.
Hell-bent to get out of Duisburg as soon as possible, Kat and I blazed a trail past another young, tattooed, saddlebag ladden dude. We inadvertantly picked him up as a traveling companion for what we thought would be a couple of hours, but ended up being 3 days. You stop to figure out where you should be going and then voila, a young man offers to show you the way himself, and poof, instant traveling companion. That's how it's done. He's a chain smoking German firefighter who took off on a cycling trip after his live-in girlfriend broke up with him and he needed time to 'think'-except he just hung out with us instead.
When traveling, occaisionally you get thrown into an extended companionship with someone towards whom you only feel a lack of negative sentiment. In normal life you'd probably never become really good friends with them, even though they seem nice enough. Thrown together on the road, you get along pretty well before you part ways with no intention of keeping in touch. You also seem to share a lot of information with eachother about your personal lives because well, you'll probably never see them again. That was the story with the romantically challenged German fireman named Michael.
Kat however, hated him. He drove her absolutely crazy. When she finally told me after the first day I was totally surprised since I felt totally neutral about him, and just kind of enjoyed not having to figure out where we were going for a while.
Michael did let us in on a nice German secret. Technically the land along the Rhein is "owned" by the river. Every five years or so, it floods and climbs up the riverbanks about 20 meters. So technically no one can fuss at you for camping on the banks of the Rhein. Sometimes it's a trick to find a nice, flat, non-city, non-campsite bit of Rheinside land, especially through the Loreley Cliffs. That area is freaking amazing and it's no wonder that the Brother's Grimm collected so many fairytales here.
Side note: I read that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were first and foremost, German linguists. As of the 19th century there was still no unified Germany, only 39 nation-states, whose sole common link was the Germanic language. They were collecting German folk/fairytales as a way to help create a cultural identity.
We actually camped across the river from something like the picture above. We had ridden so far that day, 120km, and were dead to the world but we couldn't find one nice flat place to camp until we came upon this sight. We set up camp and were in the middle of cooking bratwurst on Michael's portable stove, when it started to lightly drizzle. Over the castle across the way two rainbows formed. Two! Sigh, fairytales.
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