Tschüss definition from
Wiktionary. It is an informal way ze germans say 'goodbye,' similar to 'ciao' in Italian. The one thing I don't get is how happy and positive it always sounds. Think of that girl you knew in high school who was friends with
everyone. The one who was
always super happy. Then say 'yippee' in her voice, and imagine that same tone to say 'bye bye.' That is how ze germans say '
Tschüss.'
'Yippee...bye bye!'
Maybe they are thinking 'thank god you are getting the hell out of here.' And maybe that's the case with my dumb American self, but they say it that way to everyone. I asked
the Sherpa about it, he thinks it is just an accent thing...such as the Swiss german, or High/Upper German (group of dialects in South Germany).
Then I thought about 'ciao', and while I've only spent less than 10 hours in Italy, it also sounds very positive when I hear it. I guess all of this just seems odd to me because I would expect the greeting (hello/how are you/etc) to sound more positive than the goodbye.
Given that, I will happily say
tschüss to this weekend, i got some good riding in after recovering from that haematoma. On Saturday I met up with
Sascha, his friends Roman (sp?) and Alex who works for the famous
Lightweight wheels (but not so famous in the US). His plan was 5-hours of 'fett' burning with a course-recon for a circuit race that is in a couple weeks. Not this
fett burning, but the german word for fat. I can always use that kinda ride, plus I'm trying to get my legs back in a hurry for
Trans-Germany.
He told me the meeting place, near this bridge. I had fun riding in circles while I waited.

This was recorded by my Garmin. While riding I reminisced about the
pinwheel of death. While the pinwhel was better, this bridge was way cooler than the one in Iowa city. Too bad we aren't
college kids any more.

This dude with a cart took up the
whole bike lane across another bridge.

We met up with Alex.

Yes his wheels are
ONE piece of carbon. Please read that again, one piece...the rims, spokes and hubshell. They have some secret process to glue the rest of the hub inside. (take note of that first picture in the link)
Unfortunately, Roman's rear derailleur exploded. We had some more bad luck later in the ride when Alex hooked my bars (I think) and went down. Luckily he is ok. As well as his bling wheels.

We rode by some cornfields.

...with some old volcanos in the background.

This bridge was one of our multiple German/Swiss border crossings.


There was some sort of
Smart Car tour or rally going on. Literally 20 or 30 of these cars in a row. The black one with the light was the last one.

Now that is something I definitely don't understand. The point of the smart car is to reduce emissions, driving and our effect on the environment. I guess if this was a tour to convince people to buy smart cars AND the company can prove this actually works to get people to stop driving their planet destroyers and start driving planet slow-wasters that is OK. But if this is just a rally of a bunch of people that think they are cool for driving smart cars they are a bunch of hypocrites. Bikes don't have emissions, unless your name is
Cam.
Aaaaah, the bike trail. It was packed!

Now for some other pictures from the last week
America, the Beautiful
One day, I aspire to do the same thing. Though I wonder, if he is living in Switzerland is he avoiding taxes? Paying taxes is patriotic.
This is some brand that tries to advertise the awesomeness of American food.

Note the combination of McDonald's and Kennedy, two of America's most famous, for 'Mcennedy.' These cookies were damn good for packaged cookies, but I would stay away from the other stuff by this brand. On that note, Sascha, Alex and I went to the
biergarten last night. This dude ordered two huge plates of fried something (looked like chicken nuggets) and a giant plate of french fies for him and his girlfiend. He topped it with a glass of beer that would overflow my hydration pack. We had been making jokes about Germans learning from the best of American eating habits, so we had to make fun of this guy. Later we realized he was speaking English with an American accent. It's not as funny written in blog form, but I almost died from the hilarity. And as we left the guy realized I was an American too, he was looking at me funny.
Boyceland
I think I mentioned before that I am staying in Konstanz, Deutschland as recommended by
Mr. Sherpa. This is where he studied off-campus during college. I'm sure he's pretty famous around here. So I wore my sherpa-disguise one time to see what would happen.

I think he liked it because it reminds him of home

And it's windy, notice all the sails.

Farmland with hills.
Other entertaining picturesI rode on a bike trail that was as wide as a road to get to what would be an island if it weren't for this strip of land.

Here's a picture from the other side, if you look in the center on the other side of water you can see the line of trees where I was riding.

Sometimes they have these targets in the middle of intersections. I'm assuming it's just to yield, since there are no stop signs or other traffic direction.

I almost want to aim for the target though.

Ooops, I missed.
I did not know they had yaks in Switzerland.

Maybe they are just emo-cows (as in those emo kids that grow hair in front of their face).
This guy looks like he's going racing on his unicycle. That's pretty sweet.

And this guy honked at me very angrily and then buzzed me when he passed. Admittedly, I did sprint when I saw yellow and sort-of ran a red light (depending how you define it). But there was very little traffic and I put no one in danger. But of course that is still a perfectly good for reason for him to put me in danger. I caught him at he next light, asked him "are you having a good day?" (in english), and took his picture.

He yelled something at me in German. He was probably also angry I was not riding on the bike trail. Maybe I will write more about the drivers here later, it is very interesting. In the meantime I'm going to have some fun adventures until the Polizei comes after me.