I abandoned the idea of writing every detail and using what little cell power and data I had to write around Linz. I started writing in little notebooks when I could. The power it took on my phone to write stole power from being able to navigate later, especially when I was at campgrounds where charging meant taking a risk, because it meant leaving my electronics out in the open and unattended. One of those risks I took when I arrived in Linz.
After arriving in Linz, I stopped at an Indian place that was really expensive and charged extra for rice and naan. It's the first time I've had to buy rice ever. It was at that moment I realized I wasn't in the Czech Republic anymore. Linz doesn't have any hostels or anything that is really budget, but they do have a
campground on the Pilchlingersee, a little lake. There were listing for hostels on Google, but all of them were nonexistent when I biked to them. I arrived in Linz and saw commotion around the Ars Electronica building that had wifi, maybe because it was Oktoberfest.
I used my phone to search for places, but I wasn't seeing anything reasonably priced. I decided to go to the campground that was 12 km south of the city. I was impressed that for most of the way, there was a bike lane.
I set up camp and headed over to the restaurant-bar to get a beer and maybe a charge for my phone. Oktoberfest was going on in the area. While I was there, I met these people who let me take their picture.
I talked in broken German with the guy in the middle. He was trying to teach me some phrases for ordering beer. Beer comes in two sizes, and he was teaching me the word seidel, which I thought meant the mug for the klein bier. Everyone knew each other at the bar, but they let me listen. I had passed a brauhaus on the way, and I asked them what it was. Someone piped up proudly and clearly from the German noise that it was a "beer factory" after chatting with each other to find words. The young woman who was bartending was reluctant to speak to me because she didn't speak English and my German was horrible, but after traveling for a month, I knew I was able to communicate just fine. She loosened up a little bit eventually.
Everyone I had met thus in Austria had been disparaging the Czech Republic as being unsafe and untrustworthy, and that I was now in a better place there. They made fun of me a little when I misplaced my cell and panicked. I blamed my American paranoia, at which they all chuckled. It came time to go to bed, and I decided to take a chance to leave my external battery charging in restroom while I slept. I was in a safer, better place now, right? It was there from 2 am. I wanted to sneak a charge into it overnight. I woke up at 6 am, and saw that it was gone. It didn't feel very good. They didn't have it at the front desk either. And it was Sunday morning. Europe shuts down on Sunday, and Linz was no exception to the rule despite having a very Western mall feel the day before.
I resigned myself to sticking around Linz until Monday when I could buy a new battery. I really depended on it since I bought it back in Berlin. Was it really worth it to keep going to the sea? I was reluctant to announce to my friends what I was doing. Before, all I said that I was doing was riding to Prague, which was done. The Alps were a complete mystery to me. Things were seeming expensive, and I wasn't sure about the real rewards of continuing forward on my bicycle in this fashion, slow mile after slow mile accumulating injury and costs. I still didn't know what way was the best to take going forward.
I felt repulsed by the campground. The guy who tutored me on German who had a wedding ring on invited me for spiced wine in his trailer. I asked if his wife would be joining us and declined. My battery had been stolen. And strike three was just being watched as I was packing up my tent by a man who made no effort to disguise that he was watching me.. My distrust and overall sour feeling led me to book a night at the cheapest hotel I could find, which was a place on the Donau. I was mad because I would have to kill a day to get to Monday so that I could get the battery, and Linz wasn't cheap.
It was, however, a beautiful day to be in the city. I mostly just took it easy and wandered around the empty Sunday streets since everything was closed. I couldn't even buy toothpaste anywhere that I could see. I couldn't go to a bookstore to research how I was going to cross the Alps. Everything was just on hold. It was a frustrating part of the trip for me, yet it wasn't really that bad.
I walked around and just enjoyed the city. I let myself be an observer. I indulged by going to the only restaurant open, which was McDonald's. Sometimes, McDonald's was a little oasis of familiarity on my trip. It was a saving point that day because of it was open with food and because of the wifi.
I bought postcards and stamps at the end of the day, and made my way to the hotel feeling rested and less frustrated. My German had been improving. At the souvenir shop, which happened to be open, I leaned in and asked if there were open, and then was able to ask for stamps in German politely without the woman correcting me or switching to English. I stepped onto the square and a man stopped me and explained he was from Nigeria. In the first minute of us speaking, he took my hand and asked me to marry him. Linz was turning out to be so bizarre, and I had to shake loose from him. It was such a nice night outside, and it was disappointing to run away to my hotel before I was ready.
I eventually just settled down at the hotel and went to write postcards at the bar--I wasn't ready to be holed up in my room yet. I stumbled in asking for the drink menu. He gave it to me, but smiled. He let me speak horrible German, before he said, let me try speaking my horrible English to you. I flipped through my German phrase book and asked him about "gruß Gott" and "servus." He played some Lenny Kravitz, and we talked about American music. He eventually opened up and said that I had the sweetest way of speaking, but that my German was a "motherf*****," but that I shouldn't worry about it because it was nice that I was trying, and that my personality was evident despite. It was closing time nearly, and he asked if I wanted to tour the city after he was done with work. We made plans, and he called my room after some time. He called me twice, just to let me know what he was doing.
We eventually meet up. We walk through Linz at night, and I'm happy for the escort. "This is the street where every teenager loses their virginity or smokes their first cigarette." He and his friend tell me the same thing without hearing the other. We talk about Wes Anderson. We walk up to the old castle at night and walk by the facades of empty bars while they point out a restaurant where you can eat horsemeat. We eventually go to the imbiss on Landstraße, and he tells me the unspoken rules of the imbiss frau. You never speak to the imbiss frau first, you wait for her to speak to you. She has a quirky accent and is famous in Linz for making people wait who aren't privy to the rules. She asks if I want my grilled cheese on a sandwich roll instead of soft white slices of bread. I think the slices are better, but I decide to go with her recommendation. She seems cheerful. She gives us free candy at the end, and he tells me that that was the first time he ever got anything free from her. I told him Americans bring good luck. It was good to hear his story, and he was a gentleman with me completely, which was just nice. I was realizing my intuition was a working well, and I felt better about leaving the campground from the night before. He gave me details about why to get my battery the next day, and that was the end. No pressure. No creepiness.
On that Monday, I was able to get the batteries without a hitch, and I went to a bookstore and they were able to give me a good way at which to start my journey into the Alps. I decided to zig northwest along the Donau (Danube) bicycle path to Passau, Germany, which would connect me with another bike path that would lead me straight to Salzburg. That was good enough for me to get on the road south. I was happy to see older people on the path as I started out at about 1:00 pm. Groups of gray cyclists with matching Ortlieb bags and map books mounted to their handlebars riding slowly in a mob. After biking for days in the Czech Republic without seeing many other cyclists, I was happy to know that this path was one that was going to be gentle on my muscles and probably just boring and straight.
I abandoned the idea of writing every detail and using what little cell power and data I had to write around Linz. I started writing in little notebooks when I could. The power it took on my phone to write stole power from being able to navigate later, especially when I was at campgrounds where charging meant taking a risk, because it meant leaving my electronics out in the open and unattended. One of those risks I took when I arrived in Linz.
After arriving in Linz, I stopped at an Indian place that was really expensive and charged extra for rice and naan. It's the first time I've had to buy rice ever. It was at that moment I realized I wasn't in the Czech Republic anymore. Linz doesn't have any hostels or anything that is really budget, but they do have a campground on the Pilchlingersee, a little lake. There were listing for hostels on Google, but all of them were nonexistent when I biked to them. I arrived in Linz and saw commotion around the Ars Electronica building that had wifi, maybe because it was Oktoberfest.
I used my phone to search for places, but I wasn't seeing anything reasonably priced. I decided to go to the campground that was 12 km south of the city. I was impressed that for most of the way, there was a bike lane.
I set up camp and headed over to the restaurant-bar to get a beer and maybe a charge for my phone. Oktoberfest was going on in the area. While I was there, I met these people who let me take their picture.
I talked in broken German with the guy in the middle. He was trying to teach me some phrases for ordering beer. Beer comes in two sizes, and he was teaching me the word seidel, which I thought meant the mug for the klein bier. Everyone knew each other at the bar, but they let me listen. I had passed a brauhaus on the way, and I asked them what it was. Someone piped up proudly and clearly from the German noise that it was a "beer factory" after chatting with each other to find words. The young woman who was bartending was reluctant to speak to me because she didn't speak English and my German was horrible, but after traveling for a month, I knew I was able to communicate just fine. She loosened up a little bit eventually.
Everyone I had met thus in Austria had been disparaging the Czech Republic as being unsafe and untrustworthy, and that I was now in a better place there. They made fun of me a little when I misplaced my cell and panicked. I blamed my American paranoia, at which they all chuckled. It came time to go to bed, and I decided to take a chance to leave my external battery charging in restroom while I slept. I was in a safer, better place now, right? It was there from 2 am. I wanted to sneak a charge into it overnight. I woke up at 6 am, and saw that it was gone. It didn't feel very good. They didn't have it at the front desk either. And it was Sunday morning. Europe shuts down on Sunday, and Linz was no exception to the rule despite having a very Western mall feel the day before.
I resigned myself to sticking around Linz until Monday when I could buy a new battery. I really depended on it since I bought it back in Berlin. Was it really worth it to keep going to the sea? I was reluctant to announce to my friends what I was doing. Before, all I said that I was doing was riding to Prague, which was done. The Alps were a complete mystery to me. Things were seeming expensive, and I wasn't sure about the real rewards of continuing forward on my bicycle in this fashion, slow mile after slow mile accumulating injury and costs. I still didn't know what way was the best to take going forward.
I felt repulsed by the campground. The guy who tutored me on German who had a wedding ring on invited me for spiced wine in his trailer. I asked if his wife would be joining us and declined. My battery had been stolen. And strike three was just being watched as I was packing up my tent by a man who made no effort to disguise that he was watching me.. My distrust and overall sour feeling led me to book a night at the cheapest hotel I could find, which was a place on the Donau. I was mad because I would have to kill a day to get to Monday so that I could get the battery, and Linz wasn't cheap.
It was, however, a beautiful day to be in the city. I mostly just took it easy and wandered around the empty Sunday streets since everything was closed. I couldn't even buy toothpaste anywhere that I could see. I couldn't go to a bookstore to research how I was going to cross the Alps. Everything was just on hold. It was a frustrating part of the trip for me, yet it wasn't really that bad.
I walked around and just enjoyed the city. I let myself be an observer. I indulged by going to the only restaurant open, which was McDonald's. Sometimes, McDonald's was a little oasis of familiarity on my trip. It was a saving point that day because of it was open with food and because of the wifi.
I bought postcards and stamps at the end of the day, and made my way to the hotel feeling rested and less frustrated. My German had been improving. At the souvenir shop, which happened to be open, I leaned in and asked if there were open, and then was able to ask for stamps in German politely without the woman correcting me or switching to English. I stepped onto the square and a man stopped me and explained he was from Nigeria. In the first minute of us speaking, he took my hand and asked me to marry him. Linz was turning out to be so bizarre, and I had to shake loose from him. It was such a nice night outside, and it was disappointing to run away to my hotel before I was ready.
I eventually just settled down at the hotel and went to write postcards at the bar--I wasn't ready to be holed up in my room yet. I stumbled in asking for the drink menu. He gave it to me, but smiled. He let me speak horrible German, before he said, let me try speaking my horrible English to you. I flipped through my German phrase book and asked him about "gruß Gott" and "servus." He played some Lenny Kravitz, and we talked about American music. He eventually opened up and said that I had the sweetest way of speaking, but that my German was a "motherf*****," but that I shouldn't worry about it because it was nice that I was trying, and that my personality was evident despite. It was closing time nearly, and he asked if I wanted to tour the city after he was done with work. We made plans, and he called my room after some time. He called me twice, just to let me know what he was doing.
We eventually meet up. We walk through Linz at night, and I'm happy for the escort. "This is the street where every teenager loses their virginity or smokes their first cigarette." He and his friend tell me the same thing without hearing the other. We talk about Wes Anderson. We walk up to the old castle at night and walk by the facades of empty bars while they point out a restaurant where you can eat horsemeat. We eventually go to the imbiss on Landstraße, and he tells me the unspoken rules of the imbiss frau. You never speak to the imbiss frau first, you wait for her to speak to you. She has a quirky accent and is famous in Linz for making people wait who aren't privy to the rules. She asks if I want my grilled cheese on a sandwich roll instead of soft white slices of bread. I think the slices are better, but I decide to go with her recommendation. She seems cheerful. She gives us free candy at the end, and he tells me that that was the first time he ever got anything free from her. I told him Americans bring good luck. It was good to hear his story, and he was a gentleman with me completely, which was just nice. I was realizing my intuition was a working well, and I felt better about leaving the campground from the night before. He gave me details about why to get my battery the next day, and that was the end. No pressure. No creepiness.
On that Monday, I was able to get the batteries without a hitch, and I went to a bookstore and they were able to give me a good way at which to start my journey into the Alps. I decided to zig northwest along the Donau (Danube) bicycle path to Passau, Germany, which would connect me with another bike path that would lead me straight to Salzburg. That was good enough for me to get on the road south. I was happy to see older people on the path as I started out at about 1:00 pm. Groups of gray cyclists with matching Ortlieb bags and map books mounted to their handlebars riding slowly in a mob. After biking for days in the Czech Republic without seeing many other cyclists, I was happy to know that this path was one that was going to be gentle on my muscles and probably just boring and straight.
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