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August 26 Saturday Bicycle touring Denmark We want to take the ferry from Gedseng, Denmark, to Rostock, Germany, in former east Germany. We decide to cycle with Arran and Rebecca, our New Zealand cycle touring buddies, as the wind is nasty and we can take turns drafting for easier pedalling. We bicycle off onto a little side road. The sea is on one side of us and a forest is on the other side. It is the nicest cycling we've had in Denmark. At a small tourist town we pull our bikes to a stop to buy a bunch of chocolate, some cinnamon, and apple Danish pastries from the local bakery. I noticed they deal with innovation to conquer the yellow jacket problem: when the bees get on the products, they take the Shop Vac and suck them up. Arran tried to buy a pastry leg also, but they cost 11 krones. He only had 9 1/2 krones left. "Can I buy one for 9 1/2 krones?" he asked. "It's all I have in the world." "It costs 11 krones," she tells him. His face is decidely downcast. I slip him 1 1/2 krones, which lights up his face. That's the trouble with money Arran laments. Whatever happened to good old bartering? "Of course, it's damn inconvenient to have to haul sheep around on a bike," he concedes. There were too many people to go to the beach, so we cycled farther along to a less busy spot. It turned out to be a nudist beach. Two old nudists went by with their dog. No, it wasn't a wiener dog. Later, much to my chagrin, I saw a fat lady with no clothes. Why do people who should keep their clothes on have such a compulsion to take them off? We go for a swim with jellyfish everywhere around us. I finally found out why jellyfish are named jellyfish. Sure enough, when I picked one up it was just like holding a handful of jelly. After our swim we ate some more, and relaxed a while before continuing our Danish cycle tour to the ferry. We pulled up on our loaded touring bicycles just as the ferry began loading. We found out tickets are sold in the terminal, so we had to make a mad dash in there and then blasted our bicycles onto the ferry. Seconds to spare. Then they didn't even check our tickets. While on board, Sharon found a teeny tick stuck in her arm. Try as we might we could not get it out. First we tried Vaseline. That completely embalmed the little guy so he couldn't even move those flimsy legs. Then a hot needle didn't do anything. Then a cigarette that charred Sharon's flesh before the tick. It still wasn't out. We took a needle and dug the tick out, leaving a fair-sized hole in the process. We found a shower just before docking-too late to use it of course. We spent all of our Danish krones on chocolate bars and a donation to cancer research before leaving the ferry. The road was deserted from the dock. We pedalled off on our touring bicycles into a forest. We can't see the nuclear reactor from where we set up our Kelty bicycle touring tent, but trust me, it is just over there. |
