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September 11 Monday sunny Bicycle touring Germany Anja and Kay don't have a telephone. Neither does anyone in their four-story flat. Or anyone on their entire block as a matter of fact. Anja's mother has been on the list to get phone service for eleven years. The good news? They're supposed to be getting a phone installed this year. They tell us that some people already have their telephone equipment, but they don't have a phone number. Cool, eh? Sharon and I go with Kay to Chemnitz, Germany. First we stop at the university so Kay can tell his boss that he won't be in today. Not having a phone makes this phoning in sick stuff pretty hard to do. Kay is finishing up his Master's degree on measurements of meniscuses in a vacuum. I'm not sure what the practicality of something like that would be, but, like they say, somebody's gotta do it. Kay takes us to a bike shop to see if they can remove the cluster on Sharon's old rim. They have no removal tool. Yep, for sure every bike shop will have one of these tools the bike mechanic in Ireland told me when I wanted to buy the tool when I bought the cluster on our bike tour in Ireland. Kay stops at the grocery store to buy baby food. While we're here, Sharon figures she might as well pick up some dental floss. She asks Kay which aisle to find the floss. Apparently German's don't floss as regularly as North Americans. Kay shows Sharon where she can buy dental floss. But it's not at the grocery store; it's at a specialty place in another shop. Who knew? We head back to the university for lunch at the Mensa cafeteria. No meals are over DM3. We have steak, potatoes, sauce, green beans, and soup for DM2.80. Not bad. Even though I don't understand German, I'm thinking of enrolling. After lunch, Kay takes us to a friend's bike shop in another town. He doesn't have the particular too to remove the old cluster from Ireland, but he has a tool that is close enough in size to remove the cluster. That is, once he hammers it into place. Once he succeeds in removing the cluster, we install it on the new rim. Sharon looks happier already. I certainly know I will be. And her aching back will thank her for the lower gears as well when we pedal up those 15% grades. We tell the bike mechanic about the weird noises the rim has been making. He tells us that unpleasant sounds are common on new rims nowadays. Oh, yeah? "After 100 kilometres, he says, they have to be trued and tightened. Not to worry." We go to Kay's parents' home. His mom does pottery. Big time pottery. Huge kiln. And I do mean huge.She could do cremations in that baby. Hmmm. I wonder where it came from? Kay introduces us to his nineteen year old sister. She's in prep school for university. On the way home, we stop at a gas station. I pay DM50 to fill the tiny car's gas tank with 37 litres of fuel. Ouch. Maybe bike repairs aren't that expensive after all. Back at Anja and Kay's, we decide to save the sealed hub from Sharon's old rim. We try removing the spokes using a spoke wrench, but find the spokes are solidly welded in place. We succeed in removing the hub ... after snipping the spokes in half. Anja and Kric have been busy while we were gone. They picked blackberries to put in the quark, a type of low-fat curd cheese. Anja has baked another huge plum cake. We have a piece before and after dinner. Anja's Mom has been busy while we were gone, too. She has scrubbed our bicycle touring water bottles. They gleam like new. In fact, I don't think they were that clean when we left home. After supper, we look at pictures in their photo album. Lots of baby Louisa. Some nature shots of the area we hiked. Nude shots of Anja in the woods. Nude shots of Anja with the baby. Nude shots of Anja with Venetian blind shadows for clothes. The usual family shots. After Kay's photos, mine seem so bland. I take a picture of the scene we can see while sitting at their kitchen table and looking out the window ... rooftops of neighboring houses, a tree in a pasture on a hill, cows around the tree. Sometimes there are horses, too. I watch a farmer go along the ridge on an old tractor. We entertain ourselves, talking about English sayings and English slang. Fat head. Big head. Air head. We make up "vacuum head"-maybe it has something to do with Kay's Master's thesis? Break a leg. Dummkopf. Kay comes up with "flat head." "The better to set one's beer on," I say. |
