Monday, September 21

From	To	Distance (km)	Average Speed (km/hr)	Max Speed (km/hr)	Odometer (km)	Riding Time (hr:min:sec)	Push-Ups
Illzach, France	Freiburg, Germany	75.47	15.1	69.2	701	4:59:50	200

(772 words)

Five-Minute Pancakes

This morning Matt and I got up and made an American pancake breakfast for Valérie. Valérie, as her friend Elisabeth once put it, "likes Americans and all things American." When I met Valérie a year ago in Rothenburg, I was surprised to learn that she had spent a lot of time in my neighborhood in northern California. This past summer, in fact, she was again in northern California, spending most of July and August in Mountain View.

At her apartment in France, Valérie showed us many American foodstuffs in her pantry, including pancake mix and syrup. The banana pancakes that Matt and I cooked up this morning tasted great with Valérie's maple syrup. Unfortunately, Matt and I had neglected to keep a close eye on the clock, so Valérie had only about five minutes to enjoy her breakfast before she needed to leave for work. After the three of us finished off the pancakes in five minutes flat, Valérie hopped up, collected her things, and put on her coat.

Matt and I bid farewell to Valérie, who was in a hurry, and thanked her for all she'd done for us during our visit. She rushed out the door, saying that the quickness of the goodbye would make it easier. Matt and I then stood in the doorway for a good half a minute while Valérie waited for the elevator, which apparently was not in a hurry. When the elevator finally arrived, Valérie dashed in and she was gone. Matt and I then did the dishes and otherwise tidied up Valérie's apartment, carried our bags downstairs, and prepared our bikes for more adventure.

Flat Tires

Matt and I decided to begin our day by backtracking along the route we had taken to get to Valérie's apartment from the German border. Along the way I hit a rock just right and got a flat front tire. In my haste to fix this flat, I left a twist in the replacement tube, which led to a second flat later in the day. Once we crossed the border into Germany at Neuenhausen, Matt and I decided to ride back to Freiburg so we could again visit the Equinoxe internet cafe.

In Neuenhausen, we got onto the Mulhouse - Freiburg bike path and headed towards Freiburg. Although this bike path wasn't very well marked, we managed to follow it (with one likely detour up a nice hill) all the way to Staufen. In Staufen we paused briefly to take a look at the local Goethe Institut, the German language school Matt and I had attended in Rothenburg, and then continued on to Freiburg.

The first hotel we inquired at when we got to Freiburg, Hotel Sonne, was fully booked. Nevertheless, the friendly couple who ran this hotel took care of us by calling around until they found us a room at a hotel named "Stadt Wien." They asked this other hotel to hold the room for us, gave us a little map of Freiburg, and showed us a good bike route to the other hotel. They recommended we go directly to Hotel Stadt Wien, because the proprietors there were expecting us to arrive in the next 20 minutes and wouldn't hold the room much longer than that.

It was on the way to this Hotel Stadt Wien, of course, that I got my second flat tire of the day. Since we didn't want to lose the room, Matt rode on ahead while I made a proper, unrushed repair on my front innertube. During this repair I for the first time used a glueless patch, which seemed to work fine.

When I arrived at the hotel, Matt had checked in and was about to carry his bags up to the room. We quickly dropped our bags in the room and headed off on our bikes to the internet cafe. When we arrived at the internet cafe at 6:00, all the PCs were taken. Given that our stomachs were grumbling anyway, we went around the corner to a pizzeria, where I had a very tasty Spaghetti Napoli. We returned to the internet cafe after dinner, secured two PCs, and got to work. After three hours on the internet, we pulled ourselves away from the computers and rode back to the hotel to sleep.

Today's ride was enjoyable, with some decent bike paths and nice views, but primarily it was a "get someplace" day. We were in Illzach in the morning, and we wanted to get to the internet cafe in Freiburg before it closed in the evening. So we put our heads down and rode until we arrived at our destination.