There and Back Again

Total number of kilometers: 1268

The past few days have been a dizzying whirlwind of cities. By the time I had pedaled halfway across Belgium last Friday, it was quite clear that I no longer had enough time to bike the full distance to Amsterdam before my return flight departed for Seattle. I opted to switch my method of travel to train for a few days, which afforded me just barely enough breathing room for rushed visits through a handful of major cities, including Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Amsterdam.

Rotterdam, The Hague, and Amsterdam are all part of a formidably sized conurbation known as the Randstad, with a population of more than seven million individuals. Here, city borders grow into one another to create one giant, well-connected urban area. Despite this gradual merging, each city maintains its own separate identity: Rotterdam is a powerful, industrious town that boasted the world's busiest port for the latter half of the 20th century, until it was overtaken by Shangai in 2004. During World War II, almost 40,000 homes and buildings in Rotterdam's historic downtown were completely leveled in the space of fifteen minutes during the German invasion of the Netherlands. A somber and striking monument demarcates the fire boundary around the city, inside of which everything was destroyed. The Hague is home to the country's government, parliament, and supreme court, even though Amsterdam is constitutionally defined as the capital. Amsterdam, of course, is one of Europe's most cosmopolitan destinations, and for a time, was the world's leading economic power and artistic center.

Rotterdam's Fire Boundary, lit up by searchlights
for an anniversary of the bombing.

One of my favorite science fiction series takes place partly in the gritty streets of future Rotterdam (internet challenge: which series?), and it was really fun to soak in the atmosphere of the streets and shipping canals, and easy to imagine the characters scrapping through their misfortunes in front of my eyes. My visit to Rotterdam happened to coincide with a number of festivals, including the annual Wereldhavendagen, which celebrates the city's port industry and history with a tremendous showing of boats, fireworks, and waterfront activity. By the good graces and social connections of my host, a young man named Daan, I ended up at De Nacht van de Kaap, another annual celebration that fused the Dutch genre of Levenslied music with old-timey sailors, sea shanties, burlesque, and excessive costumery. We stayed until 3:30am, shantying and singing at the top of our lungs with a crowd of people, accompanying a little band on an impromptu stage cranking out an odd mix of sentimental American standards like Queen and the Everly Brothers, and a bunch of European stuff I'd never heard.

I woke up the next morning with a sore and raspy throat and stuffed up sinuses. I crossed my fingers, drank some ginger tea, and hoped that it was simply a consequence of too much singing and too much exposure to cigarette smoke. I set off on my bike for The Hague, and was immediately met with a monstrous rain shower. It passed quickly enough, but by the time I got to The Hague, soaking and sniffly, it was clear that I was just plain sick. I took some refuge indoors by exploring the M.C. Escher museum, one of my favorite artists and childhood heroes. After an inspiring and moving couple of hours in the museum, another cup of tea, and a plate of fresh poffertjes, I was feeling a bit better. I paid a quick visit downtown before continuing on to Amsterdam.

The Hague's scenic downtown.

The countryside between The Hague and Amsterdam was as Dutch as it gets: ancient windmills surrounded by resplendent fields of tulips stretched in every direction. I missed the height of the tulip season, of course, but there were still a surprising number of flowers in bloom.

Holland's tulip fields in full spring splendor.

My excitement for Amsterdam was comprised of many facets: it marked the final destination on my month-long trip; most everybody I'd met over the last month would wax poetic about how much I would love Amsterdam whenever they heard that's where I was headed; and of course, to finally see a city where the bicycle reigns as king.

In the States, however just or unjust this reputation may be, Amsterdam is synonymous with three things first and foremost: legal marijuana, legal prostitution, and bicycles. Regarding the first, I live in Washington, one of the few states in the country where pot is already legal; it's also been more than a decade since I've smoked anything, or had any interest. Regarding the second, well, let's just suffice it to say that some tourist attractions are better left unexplored. But the bicycles! Oh, the bicycles. Amsterdam is consistently recognized as the most bicycle-friendly city in the world. (For some perspective, not a single city in the US even places in the top twenty.) There are more bikes than there are people, and bikes outnumber cars 4 to 1. The network of bicycle lanes through the city are as well-developed as the road network for automobiles. At the central train station downtown, there is a 3-story ferry parked permanently outside whose sole purpose is to provide additional parking space for bikes. What a joy to ride around a city where a cyclist is in the majority for a change.

Bicycle parking outside of Amsterdam's Central train station.

Of course, Amsterdam is famous for many other things as well. The complex network of canals that permeate the city are nothing short of an engineering marvel. There are countless museums, many of which are grouped together in the Museumplein, including the Van Gogh Museum, and the world class Rijksmuseum. I visited the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, which house countless masterpieces from artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Warhol, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. I also visited the house where Anne Frank and her family hid and were ultimately discovered during WWII, which I had absolutely no idea was located in Amsterdam.

Chagall's celebrated The Fiddler, on display at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum.

There was a lot to explore, and not much time to do it. I arrived in Amsterdam on Sunday evening, and flew out early Tuesday afternoon. Given the time I needed at the airport to take apart and pack up my bicycle, this really left me only one day to take in the city. Add to this a fair amount of rain, and the fact that I was still sick, and I can't help but feel, in retrospect, that I didn't get my fair chance with Amsterdam. I rode my bike around a lot, and spent a good amount of time inside the warm and dry museums, but I think a good solid week is needed to do that city any amount of justice.

And just like that, I'm home again. The trip back was blessedly uneventful, and made easier by Delta offering a direct flight all the way back to Seattle. My house is still intact, my garden is bursting with still-not-quite-ripe tomatoes, blooming cyclamens and love-in-a-mist, and I have a new pair of roommates to get to know. Last night I slept alone in my own bed for perhaps the second time in the last two months. It feels good to be home.

Some happy little Seattle planters!

Looking back on it, I consider my trip successful in pretty much every way: I didn't get my bicycle or anything else stolen, I didn't cause any major international incidents, I learned a lot in my class, I met some wonderful people and saw some beautiful places, and had a great time doing it. If I were to do it again, though, I think I might do it differently. I either wouldn't get a return ticket on a set date, or I would let go of some of the attachment I had about making it the whole way by bicycle. I passed through seven different countries on my bike in the space of three weeks; there was so much to explore that I just didn't get to do, because I didn't have the time. Much of the travel between major cities could've been skipped altogether without missing much, which would've freed up my time to visit cities like Munich, Berlin, and maybe even Paris. The highly-developed, functional, and reliable light rail network  that connects virtually all of Europe makes travel between cities so much easier than I'm used to. Given a limited amount of time, the choice between biking through endless miles of farmland and getting to explore major European cities seems like a no-brainer.

Finally, a quick word of advice, for anybody considering a bike trip through Europe of their own: don't do it on skinny little road tires under any circumstances; you will suffer immensely with cobblestone and rail lines, and probably get a lot of pinch flats, especially if you're carrying a lot of weight. I used tires that were 1.5" wide, which is a good compromise between mountain bike and road bike tires, and I was quite pleased with them. I never got a single flat.

Thanks for taking the time to join me in my travels once again! School starts for me again in just two weeks, and I don't have any more traveling planned any time soon, but don't go away: I've got some big ideas brewing for next summer, and they're pretty different than the usual bike trip...

Love to all,

Scott

A Treatise on Beer

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, even as a passing acquaintance, that I like beer. I really like beer. For me, beer is more of a pastime than it is just a drink: I’ve been brewing it for eight years, and have been enjoying its taste for about half my life now.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest has shaped my tastes enormously. Cascadia has an unbelievably rich beer culture; my home states of Oregon and Washington have almost 300 breweries between them alone. Washington itself grows 25% of the world's supply of hops, and more than 75% of the nation's. As such, distinct styles of ale have evolved from the region, usually typified by large quantities of hops. I have always been a big fan of IPAs, CDAs, barley wines, anything aggressively hopped, and anything with the word Imperial in its name.

A recent hop harvest from Washington's Yakima Valley.

In contrast, I have never liked German beer. That assertion has always come with an important caveat, however. Imagine spending some time in Munich, and while you’re there, you run across some American beer in a market or a biergarten. What do you think it would be? What kind of beer do you think is produced in enough quantity and has enough marketing power to make it across the globe? Coors, maybe? Pabst? I think that, more often than not, you’ll end up with a beverage that reduces beer to a caricature of tacky American culture, rather than what I would consider an accurate representation of American beer. It doesn’t seem far-fetched, then, to believe that most of the German beer I’ve had in the States probably suffers from the same problem. I don’t like the German beer I've had in the US, then, but I have always said I would withhold my judgment until I get to try it the way it’s meant to be enjoyed. 

Welp, guess what? I just spent about three weeks in Germany. I drank a lot of German beer. And yeah, it’s pretty good: crisp, refreshing, even palatable warm. It doesn’t seem to have the distinctiveness that I’m used to in a beer: I could drink fifteen bottles of Hacker-Pschorr Weisse in a row, and then not be able to pick it out in a taste test. But that’s okay. When it really comes down to it, drinking a beer is more about the circumstances, the story, and the surroundings than it is about the taste. Hey! I got to go to Bavaria and have a Gemütlichkeit with a bunch of other Germans over Maßkrüge of Helles from a brewery that's older than my country! That’s going to bias the ol’ taste buds no matter how you cut it.

But last night came the real challenge. You see, I actively dislike Belgian beer. Belgian beer is characterized by a rather sour and yeasty flavor, which is imparted by Brettanomyces bruxellensis, a wild strain of yeast that is usually viewed in the brewing world as a contaminant more than a desirable. Belgian beers are a huuuuuuge trend in the beer scene right now, and there are many bars and even breweries in the Pacific Northwest that specialize in Belgians, and only Belgians. I’ve tried them enough to know that I don’t like them very much, and I've never thought I needed to go to Belgium to be sure.

And yet, there I was in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, the proverbial center of Europe, on a Friday night. And wouldn’t you know it, but that very evening happened to mark the beginning of Belgian Beer Weekend 2013, right in the center of the Grand Place, with over 350 Belgian beers on tap from more than 50 different breweries. Clearly, for better or worse, this was not an opportunity I could let go to waste.

Belgian Beer Weekend in the Grand Place, Brussels.

Belgians (the people) are insane about their beer. Beer festivals of one type or another can usually be found somewhere in town. One of the more prominent buildings in the Grand Place is a brewers' museum. Even the iconic and celebrated Manneken Pis is occasionally hooked up to a keg of beer to dispense libations for passersby. And on this night, people were out in full force for the occasion: thousands of people pressed up shoulder to shoulder, jovial and lighthearted, and thirsty, thirsty, thirsty. I fought my way through the gambrinous crowd for three hours in order to conduct my scientific survey.

The results: I still don't like Belgian beer. Don't get me wrong, I had some good ones. And as in Germany, the atmosphere was as fun and authentic as it gets. But dammit, most of them just taste weird. But hey, now I know for sure. And in the end, in the name of science, a little pickling of my liver for the sake of knowledge was worth it.

No seriously, this really happens.

Strasbourg

Number of kilometers: 970

I would like to begin this post by taking the opportunity to wax ecstatic about the Couchsurfing community. Couchsurfing.org is a website that connects people traveling all across the world with other people who can offer a place to stay. Yes, you are either inviting a perfect stranger into your house or you are staying with one, but there are multiple safeguards in place: but both parties have the chance to vet the other before they agree to anything, and Couchsurfing is a self-policing community, where you can easily see what kind of host or surfer someone has been, based on previous feedback. It is entirely free; no money ever changes hands. Instead, you trade stories, experiences, philosophies, anything you care to offer, or you simply pay hospitality forward to the next person. It is a very simple and straightforward idea, and one that works beautifully.

Soon after arriving in Strasbourg, I found a place to stay in town, hosted by a math teacher Marion and her architect boyfriend Eli. After the awkward introduction where I went in for a hug while she went in for little air kisses on the cheeks they do in France, I was treated like an old friend. We went over to their friends’ house for some drinks and snacks before going out on the town, where I found myself in a circle of eight people all speaking French at one another, most all of it going over my head. After 10pm, we walked downtown, where they were doing an impressive light show on the surface of the aforementioned cathedral, accompanied by a medley of pieces by French composers. The finale was Ravel’s Bolero, in which the cathedral started black as night, and piece by piece was slowly lit in more aggressive colors with the music, until a towering, ominous, 200-foot-tall gothic mass of stone was revealed, only to go pitch black again with the final note. Words cannot begin to describe how awesome the experience was, in the truest sense. Afterward, we headed down to La Petite France, a part of downtown riven and hemmed in with canals, where we enjoyed then nightlife at the Academie de la Biere until 3:30am.

The dizzying view from the top of the Strasbourg Cathedral,
more than 200 feet high.

The next morning. Marion took me for a bike ride around town, showing me a variety of landmarks, such as the headquarters of the European Union. We reconnected with everyone from the night before downtown once more, where we climbed to the top of the cathedral for a panoramic view of the city, and then back down for wine and a lunch of traditional Alsation dishes such as choucroute, flammekueche, and baeckeoffe, which translate as meat, flat meat, and meaty meat, respectively. Strasbourg is in the Alsace region of France, directly on the border of Germany, and is one of two regions that were occupied by Germany during World War II. It is easy to see remnants of German influence in the culture, especially in the food.

Bon appetit!

When I arrived in Strasbourg, I came here not knowing a single person, or even my way around. Because of Couchsurfing, I was plopped right into the middle of a group of wonderful, accepting locals, who showed me around, gave me a shower and a place to stay, fed me well, and even sent me on my way with a pannier full of food. What more could a person want?

It’s been an uneventful few days of riding since Strasbourg. It’s been getting a lot hotter, and that seems to be the climate that’s changing, more than the weather. Further south, every single field, vine, and blade of grass I saw was verdant and happy like it was the beginning of spring; here the fields turn browner, the sun harsher. I can really start feeling the heat by 9:30am.

A lovely waterfall of ruins adjoining one of France's many canals.

I’m now in Luxembourg City, in the tiny little country of Luxembourg. (Ten points if you could find it on a map before you read this.) I haven’t yet figured out why Luxembourg is its own country, and I probably won’t. I do know that the people who live here are true polygots: virtually everyone speaks perfect French and German, and many more speak Luxembourgese, the country’s third official language; most seem to know a fair bit of English as well.

From here I head to Brussels, in Belgium, and I hope to be there by Friday. I’m beginning to worry that I’m not going to make it to Amsterdam in time for my flight home on the 10th, but I suppose I can always just make up some time by jumping on a bus somewhere. Hopefully it won’t come to that. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I like the idea of completing the trip by bike if I can, even if it is hot as hell.

Goodbye to Germany

The day before I left Seattle on my trip, my neighbor lent me an old smartphone of his to use as a navigator and as a translator. As long as I have a wifi signal to latch on to (which is surprisingly uncommon), I have access to Google Maps, which has been incredibly useful, because the bike signage from town to town is often confusing, ambiguous, contradictory, or outright nonexistent.

Well, yesterday morning I took a short break on a bench on the side of a bike path, and when I got up, I evidently left the phone on the bench. I was six kilometers down the road before I realized I didn't have it anymore. I did a quick check of all my bags to make sure, and then about-faced and hightailed it back as quickly as possible. I knew it didn't stand a chance of still being there, though; countless numbers of cyclists and pedestrians had passed by in that amount of time. Sure enough, I returned to an empty bench. I was incredibly disappointed, because a) it wasn't mine to lose, b) there went my easy access to a map, c) there went my translator, and d) I had used the camera to take a bunch of pictures when my camera battery ran out, which were now gone. Bummer.

I started off Thursday morning from Radolfzell for the last time, and quickly left the flatlands, and entered the foothills of the Black Forest mountains. Now, the Black Forest has always lived in my imagination as a place like Fangorn Forest: dark, dank, and not to be trifled with. Sadly, I get the impression that any resemblance to that passed long ago. Instead of monstrous trees with canopies that turn day into night, I saw just an ordinary, average looking forest. Granted, I only took one path through it, and I’m sure it might be different elsewhere, but it looked to me like a bunch of young and 2nd-growth trees. (I have noticed that German houses sure seem to love having walls and walls of firewood in their yard.) I thought it was particularly telling when I saw a sign indicating how to identify a tree by its stump.

How to identify a tree in Germany.

To be fair, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I have a pretty high standard for forests. The Black Forest made for mostly pleasant riding. At one point I mistakenly followed the wrong kind of bike route sign, and ended up on a highly technical and extremely challenging mountain bike path that took me over steep hills, instead of around them. Fortunately, once I found my way back to the right path, it took me down a gentle river valley, surrounded by forested hills in every direction. 

About three hours down the path of this river valley, I noticed a rubbing sound coming from my back tire, and a little rolling resistance to go with it. I stopped my bike to pull out the branch that had probably lodged itself in there, and what did I find instead? Sandwiched between my tire and one of my brake pads was my missing phone! I have a hard time fathoming how, but evidently it hitched a ride there unnoticed for the last sixty kilometers or so, even through mountain bike terrain. Weird. Lucky.

The path eventually led me across the border and into the Alsace region of France, which is where I arrived this morning. I'm in the city of Strasbourg right now, but haven't yet had much of a chance to look around, other than the mind-boggling cathedral that puts the others I've seen to shame. The Strasbourg Cathedral was built starting in 1176, and is an awesomely impressive example of gothic architecture. Evidently it was also the world's tallest building for more than 200 years.

The entrance to the Strasbourg Cathedral.

Enough from me for now, time to go explore!

Bodensee, with Company

Number of kilometers: 381

A few days before AniMOVE summer school ended, my partner Melissa showed up on my German doorstep, all the way from Seattle (not unannounced, of course). She planned a trip to be here for a week, with enough time to explore Germany by bike with me for a few days, and to do some of her own sight-seeing. At least, that's how it should've worked. Instead, Melissa was promptly floored by a nasty virus (no doubt introduced from the plane ride), and spent her first few days here feverish and bed-ridden. I was happy that I could provide her a bed in which to convalesce, but I did not feel optimistic about us climbing on our bicycles and riding 50 miles a day.

In the meantime, I finished up my classes. On Friday, I was one of six lucky students who were randomly chosen to go up for a ride in the Institute's research Cessna. We strapped a pair of antennae to the outside of the plane to radio-track some UHF-tagged ducks, and went up in the air to "gather some data", which basically amounted to a scenic tour of the area.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

On Saturday, we had a morning of presentations on our individual projects, followed by a relaxed day of frisbee, card-playing, and napping. By evening time, Melissa was feeling just well enough to make it out of bed for the goodbye barbecue, which lasted far too late into the evening for my own good. I woke up Sunday morning bleary-eyed and hung over, and not too enthusiastic about starting a long bike ride. Nonetheless, the Kazakh vodka that contributed to my suffering was probably the very same vodka that delivered the final kick in the rear to Melissa's sickness, so who was I to complain? After nearly 60 hours on death's door, she woke up spry and fresh, and ready to hit the road. 

We headed down to Konstanz (her by bus, me by bike) to rent a bicycle for Melissa. A simple enough task in it's own right, but due to a cancelled train (her) and getting a wee bit lost (me), we both got into town about fifteen minutes after the bike rental shop closed. We instead spent a few hours sleuthing around for any other place in town from which we could acquire a bicycle, which was no small feat, given that it was a Sunday, and, once again, nobody does ANYTHING on a Sunday. We ended up finding an underground bike shop in what must have once been a subway station, run by a couple of guys rocking out to what can only be described as porn metal. Point is, we got a bike, and we were off! Several hours later than we wanted, but off, nonetheless.

Lake Constance from 1000 feet.

We planned ourselves a ride around Lake Constance (known in German as Bodensee), comprising a pleasant, flat, and well-traveled 140-mile loop. Bodensee is situated in the northern foothills of the Alps, defining parts of the borders of northern Switzerland, western Austria, and southern Germany. Bodensee also provides the beginning of Germany's portion of the Rhine River. It is far removed from the bustle of city life, instead buried deep in quiet, serene farm country. Our nights were mostly spent camped on the edge of a field between orchards and forest. 

A typical portion of bicycle trail around Lake Constance.

Tourist attractions abounded: the scenic island town of Lindau, Germany, exemplifies Bavarian architecture and culture. The opera house in Bregenz, Austria, is located quite literally on the water, and builds an unbelievably sophisticated new stage for every performance. (I'm also told it was featured in a scene in one of the newish James Bond movies, Quantum of Solace.) The spires of the Münster St. Nikolaus and Konstanz Minster churches dominate the landscape for miles.

The Bregenzer Festspiele's production of Bizet's Carmen.

Mishaps also abounded: during the middle of our very first night out, an unidentified bug crawled its way into my ear while I was sleeping. It woke me up immediately, but instead of panicking, I tried to just lie still until it decided to come back out. That never happened, so after about an hour of lying in the dark listening to its little legs scraping against my eardrum, I decided to wake Melissa for help. Fortunately, the simple act of me talking seemed to scare it out, and it made a hasty departure before she could even grab her flashlight. Ew.

Tuesday afternoon proved to be a wet one, with rainclouds rolling in unleashing their contents at unpredictable intervals. We dodged the major downpours throughout the day by ducking under awnings or into a restaurant, but just as we were picking out our camping spot for the evening, we got hit by a torrent. In the five minutes it took to ride from our field back into town, every little bit of us was soaked, right through our rain gear. The bike paths quickly turned into creeks, and it was not a difficult decision to hightail it to the nearest hotel. We spent a luxurious evening drying out our shoes with a hair dryer and sleeping warmly.

We got back into Konstanz earlier today, where I said goodbye to Melissa. She headed back to Zurich to catch a plane tomorrow, and I headed back up to Radolfzell to stay one more night in an inviting bed before hitting the road in earnest. I've spent two and a half weeks in Southern Germany now, and it's time to start making my way toward Amsterdam. The real biking starts tomorrow. Next up: the Black Forest!

AniMOVE

Before starting to explore Europe by bicycle, I arrived in Germany with two weeks of class ahead of me at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology, located just outside of the town of Radolfzell, on the northern shore of Lake Constance. I came to take part in AniMOVE, a summer course focused around animal movement, remote sensing, and species distribution modeling. The program is truly international in flavor: I am one of thirty participating students, who collectively represent eighteen different countries.

But why am I here? Animal movement encompasses some of the most awesome and powerful biological forces on our planet: from the annual 44,000-mile migration of the arctic tern; to the unparalleled size of a caribou herd; the stunning flocking behaviour of a starling murmuration; to the unpredictable impacts of invasive species. These phenomena and countless others have a profound impact on our environment and our lives, and scarcely any of them are currently understood. If we want to protect an endangered species, for example, how can we do so without knowing its movement patterns and habits? Crops are suffering across the globe because bees are dying, but why, and how? We're running out of fish in the ocean, but will they come back, and if so, where? These types of questions are addressed in part by learning how different animals move, from the individual to the global population, from a day-to-day basis to patterns seen across centuries.

Starlings in flight.

This branch of the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology, hereto referred to as MPI, is small, but astonishingly ambitious in its research. It promotes and emphasizes collaboration and data sharing through a fledgling but highly successful, freely accessible standardized worldwide database of movement data. (In this age of "big data", making sense of the glut of information out there is an onerous to impossible task, and the importance of standardizing information so that it can "talk" to each other cannot be overstated.) MPI collaborates with governments and NGOs such as NASA, National Geographic, the Smithsonian, and the National Science Foundation to conduct research as sophisticated as launching their own satellite. As a student, I benefit from the enormous wealth of knowledge and experience from the professors and researchers here, and get to rub elbows with some bigwigs in the science community as well.

Now, prior to my arrival in Germany, my German lexicon consisted of the following:

• bitte
• danke
• bier
• Reinheitsgebot
• schlagsahne
• kartoffelbrei

Suffice it to say, not quite enough to get by. Fortunately for me, AniMOVE is taught in English, which has severely softened any culture shock I may have otherwise experienced.  Instead, AniMOVE reminds me of a summer school I might have attended as a kid, except with a lot more work and a lot more beer. The days consist mostly of lecture and labs, but the atmosphere is relaxed and casual, with a healthy amount of time for play. I've spent most every afternoon and even some mornings (I'm not known as a morning person) swimming in a nearby lake (I'm also not known as a water person); the evenings are spent enjoying communal dinners, beer, and general camaraderie. The thirty of us students are housed in respectably luxurious guest quarters, with a spacious community building in an old renovated mill just a short field's walk away. Adjacent to the mill is an ancient castle occupied by a scarcely-seen baron, who I can't help but imagine staring down at us from behind his parapets, scowling through his monocle with a watchful, disapproving eye, but this is probably not an accurate reflection of reality.

Konstanz architecture.

This past weekend allowed time for a couple of fun forays: Saturday took us into the nearby town of Konstanz, a place filled with beautiful architecture, ancient churches, and European charm. On Sunday we took a trip to the Swiss Alps to climb Säntis, at 8209 ft (2502m) the highest peak in the region. The climb to the top featured sheer cliff faces with metal steps and hand cables hammered into the side of the mountain, and the descent was enjoyed from the luxury of a dizzyingly high cable car, that stretched more than two kilometers across jagged peaks and alpine pastures.

The view from the top of Säntis.

All in all, I can scarcely believe that I've already been here for ten days. I've been kept tremendously busy, but I'm having a wonderful time in class, and have absolutely loved the people I've met here.

Me with a classmate "in" traditional Swiss garb.

I've gotten a surprising amount of work done on my graduate research over the last week, but've still had time for frivolities like frisbee. I'll be sad to go in just a few days' time, but am just as excited for what lies ahead when I'm done here.

I hit the road on Sunday! I hope you'll stay tuned.

An Exciting New Adventure

Guten Tag!

It's been a little over two years since my last entry here, and not without good reason. First and foremost, I haven't had the time for any notable bike trips; instead, I've been frittering away the months in graduate school at the University of Washington. I'll soon be starting my third year in the Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management program, where I'm currently studying how climate change is affecting species' distributions in the Pacific Northwest. It's been a lot of work so far, and there's an awful lot more to come, but I love what I'm doing, love what I'm learning, love the people and the university environment. And despite the hard work, it's not without its perks.

Case in point: as I type this, I'm currently sitting in class at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Southern Germany, nestled in the foothills of the Alps. Last fall I learned of a two-week course on animal movement being taught here that was directly related to my research. I applied and got a scholarship for the class, my advisor paid for my plane tickets, and BOOM!, just like that, a (mostly) free trip to Europe!

Of course, having never been to Europe before, the way I figure it, if I'm going to fly all the way out yonder, I should probably go ahead and make it worth my while. That's why I decided to take an extra couple of weeks after my class is over to explore the area. And of course, what better vantage could be found than the seat of my bike? After two years of relative physical lethargy and neglect, it's time to dust off the old saddle and venture out once more! Never mind the ever-growing pain in my ailing knees caused by previous bike tours, never mind the fact that I'm out of shape and haven't ridden more than twenty miles in a day in forever. When the road's a callin', this guy heeds the call. So here's the plan: I scheduled my travel so that I fly into Zurich. From there, I travel to Radolfzell, Germany, for two weeks of class. After that, I have eighteen days to make it approximately 650 miles to Amsterdam by bike, to fly back home. As far as I'm concerned, anything and everything that happens between here and there is pure gravy. Now, before I get ahead of myself (since I'm already here in Germany), let's bring you to speed:

I had never flown with my bicycle before, and was pretty anxious about the process for a few reasons: the only prior experience I had checking precious cargo on a plane resulted in a thoroughly destroyed instrument case and a missing (read: stolen) pocket knife, so I didn't have a lot of reason to trust airlines to take good care of my bike. Furthermore, airlines are notorious for shaking down bicyclists with exorbitant fees, and I was flying with Delta, widely regarded as the worst offender.

Every town in Switzerland of more
than 20 people has one of these.

In order to package a bike for flying, you need to compactify it a little so that it can fit inside of a giant narrow box, mostly just by removing the pedals and turning the handlebars sideways. I wrapped many of the more sensitive parts of my bike with newspaper and masking tape, used my sleeping bag and Therm-a-rest as extra padding, and used copious quantities of packing tape to ensure the box wouldn't lose its contents on a tarmac in transit. The box arrived pretty thoroughly beaten up and with a couple of small holes, but the contents were no worse for wear, and, most importantly, nothing was missing. In order to avoid the baggage fees associated with four panniers' worth of gear, I took advantage of a suitcase I found in an alley in my neighborhood just a week or so prior to my trip. I was able to fit all four panniers and their contents inside of the one suitcase, and then I just abandoned it with a free sign on it after I arrived in Zurich. Once I got off the plane, I was able to find my luggage and reassemble my bike and gear all inside of an hour.

From there, I set off to ride from the airport to Radolfzell, equipped with a laughably complex set of directions printed out from Google Maps, and a map that didn't show enough detail to be of much use. After several false starts in the wrong direction I eventually found my bearings, despite the fact that I couldn't find any of the roads mentioned in my directions. After I made it through the first couple of towns, I realized that my directions really weren't needed; as long as I knew which town I wanted to head to next, I could just follow the signage without too much trouble. I took some wrong turns here and there, but for the most part it was smooth sailing.

The area between Zurich and Radolfzell was mostly scenic farmland and gently hilly forest. Every single township was connected by a bicycle path that guided me away from roads and instead through fields of crops and sheep and along forest borders, restricting my interactions with traffic to passing through towns. Any other day of the week this would've been the most wonderful thing in the world, but it didn't make much of a difference to me; the roads were almost completely deserted, presumably because it was Sunday, and apparently nobody does anything on Sundays here. Every town I passed through featured ancient clock towers chiming for no one, echoing off of shuttered businesses. Bucolic public wells continually replenished babbling cisterns with drinking water on almost every street corner. I saw lots of cyclists out enjoying the countryside, but most of them were either families or adorable old couples.

One of many many charming public wells.

Unfortunately, I didn't end up sleeping much on the plane from Seattle, so I departed from the airport for the 90-kilometer ride when my body was telling me it was 3am. By the time I got to Radolfzell, I had been awake for close to thirty hours, and I was more than ready to collapse into a bed. As it turned out, I arrived about eight minutes before the orientation began for the class I am attending, so I ended up quietly nodding off in a chair for a bit instead.

And that more or less brings us up to speed. I'm far from caught up on sleep yet, but that'll happen in due time. Until then, I'm in class here for the next two weeks. I have always strived to restrict this blag to be about bicycle travel and only bicycle travel, because I never wanted it to devolve into a pathetic, ignored and unread exposition about my personal life. That said, I won't be hitting the road to explore Europe for a while yet, but I still plan on writing something here occasionally; it's a whole new world I'm experiencing here, and even if I'm not actively cycling, it's all part of the same trip in the end. So one way or another, stay tuned, there's plenty more to come.

Glad to have a reason to be writing here again!