A Life in Waiting

As I am not using a GPS for this trip, I have been using a mixture of Google maps and a European mapping software on my computer for my directions.  So after I find the route I want to travel, I handwrite the directions in large print and place it in my tank bag, which has an enclosed map pocket on top for viewing while riding.  The directions so far have been working quite well, my biggest stumbling block is the lack of street signs in some areas, or the occasion mismarked directional sign.  Following my written instructions, I navigate the bike through the streets of Munich and head out on the Autobahn towards Cologne.

I once thought that the Autobahn was some magical stretch of highway where Germans paid a fee and rode on the only highway in the western world that had no speed limits.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  The Autobahn is all the A roads in Germany, or otherwise known as an Autostrada.  And on each of these roads there are sections where you can go as fast as desired.  Pretty unbelievable. 

So I head out on the A8 towards Cologne, where the speed limit is 120KPH, or 75MPH.  A nice comfortable pace as everyone pretty well follows the set limit on the road.  After a few miles, the speed limit signs that were every 500 meters or so disappear.  At this point, all the cars around just take off.  And I’m not just referring to the sports cars, everything from vans to station wagons to well you get the picture.  But as fast as everyone is driving, there are no cars that are reckless.  All cars keep to the right except to pass and not one car attempts to pass another on the right side.  It’s all very orderly.  But very, very cool!  It’s a crazy feeling getting passed by a car when you’re doing 200KPH.  (Don’t worry mom, it was only for a moment just so I can say I did). 

Once the excitement of the Autobahn wore off, I settled in with the middle paced vehicles who were hanging around 90-95MPH or about 150KPH.  It was a comfortable pace, and one that helped speed up the process of getting to Cologne for the brief times that you could drive that fast.  Whenever the Autobahn neared a town, the limits came back to 120KPH and sometimes ever 80KPH and during all of the construction (there was a lot) it went as low as 60KPH (~40MPH).  So the moments of limitless driving helped keep the overall average speed to where it would’ve been sans construction.

The overall trip from Munich to Cologne is 360miles (580km).  It’s approximately a five hour trek, not including any breaks for food or fuel.  Well about 150kms into the ride, it starts to rain.  Now mind you, it’s about +1C outside (34F).  So I’m already a bit chilled, but the rain just makes it ten times worse.  Now as I originally never planned on riding much in cold weather, I never bought proper winter riding clothes and I figured it was an expense that wasn’t needed.  I still think I’m correct in not buying them, but I wasn’t so convinced during that rain storm.  Fortunately I did at least have my skiing pants which did help in some of the wind protection, but as it turns out, are not completely waterproof. 

The rain does not let up at all during the ride to Cologne.  400+ KMs in the freezing cold rain.  I ended up giving myself 100mile goals to complete before stopping for fuel and a 15minute hot chocolate break.  You would be surprised how many weird looks you get riding a motorcycle through Germany in January, not to mention the rain. 

I was aiming to arrive at the Arche (the gathering place where over 40 different Couchsurfers were to spend the next 6 days partying for Carnival) around 17.00 (5pm) that evening.  But with my late start and the unexpected rain (I did check the weather before leaving, and not one word of rain) I ended up arriving a bit after 19.00.  So as the organizer of the Arche gathering was running late as well, I had no warm place to wait for his arrival.  I wander the streets for a moment, trying to keep moving in the hopes of warming up as I run into another Couchsurfer in waiting.  Carlos from Brazil, the other wandering Couchsurfer, tells me of the pub where we are all to wait for Ulf, the organizer.  We head over and meet up with the other 6 or 7 Couchsurfers awaiting Ulf’s arrival. 

We all introduce ourselves and begin the Carnival celebration right then and there.  It is at this moment I realize that I am heading into one long and crazy week and it couldn’t be with a better group of people.  As it turned out the few of us that arrived early became a quite tight knit group that spent a lot of good times together the next few days.  I was not prepared…

So I arrive in Munich on the 28^th of January and head back into the city center.  It’s amazing how familiar I feel in this city already.  I stop off in Marienplatz , get my German SIM card for my cellphone working again (I forgot the unlocking code) and make the necessary phone calls to let everyone know I arrived safely.  I hop on the tram and head off to Klaus’s apartment (I actually remember how to get there).  He cooks me another unexpected dinner and we catch up on what we’ve been doing over the past months since we saw each other last.

Tuesday I get up early and navigate my way through the Munich underground to reach the BMW dealership where my bike has been waiting patiently for me over the past two months.  One thing I notice while on my way to get the bike is how important living in Helsinki was for me.  It really got me comfortable in being overseas and dealing with people when English is not their foreign tongue.  I can travel most types of public transportation with ease and driving on the European streets feels like being home.  Such a difference from when I was last here in Munich.  I actually saw the city this time.  It almost felt like a filter has been lifted and I can see the real city now.  Hard to explain, but I felt strangely more confident.

I arrive at the dealership and pick up my bike that I had called ahead to get it ready.  I pull out of the complex and attempt to find my way back to Klaus’s flat.  Well what should have been a simple 5 mile journey, I arrive 20 miles later.  Good start, I thinks.

Now even though my storage fees at the dealership included a bike checkup, I take the next few hours to go over my bike and make sure all is ok.  Plus I take the time to organize all tools and bike related things on the bike.  That evening Klaus and I head into a trendy part of the city to meet a friend of his for some cheap food and a Weis beer.  I spent the night afterwards planning my route to Cologne and writing up directions to follow.  After a hearty breakfast and a thank you to Klaus, I head out to load up the bike and head out.  As usual I get a later start than desired, and well… You’ll hear all about that I’m sure.

Today was the day my bike arrives.  As I ended up oversleeping (HA! Like I have a schedule now) I head down to the local free wifi hotspot located conveniently in a local Laundromat.  The BMW was set to arrive at 0400 local time and it was now almost 1100, so I was quite pleased to see that it had arrived and at the very least, began the paperwork process.  I decide to forgo any other plans I had for my time online, and head straight to the Lufthansa Cargo area.  I walk back towards the (U6) and after a few connections, I am on the train heading towards Munich Airport. 

Nein Deutsch.  The two words I’ve spoken the most over this past week.  No German.  Add a thank you, hello and goodbye and you have my full arsenal of German.  Surprising, my Finnish is not better.  Well thankfully certain areas have a large population of English speaking citizens, not to mention international companies where the official language is English.  Thankfully Lufthansa is one such company. 

I arrive at the cargo area (after going to the wrong location of course) and hand in my paperwork.  Com to find out that all of the processing has been done and all I need to do is submit my insurance and passport information to customs control and I can have my bike.  As it is probably not a smart idea to drive around Munich airport without a helmet, I decide to head to the airport terminal where the bike gear and my helmet are stored. 

During all of this, I realize I have forgotten to charge my phone battery and it had died on me.  As I was about to ride my motorcycle through Germany for the first time, I figured it would not be smart to be without a functioning phone.  So when I get to the airport terminal, I head up to the upper levels, find a power strip that I don’t think was supposed to be found, and charge my phone while hopping online for a moment. 

After paying extortion prices for my bags in storage, I head back to the cargo area to get my bike.  The funny part about all of this is that EVERYBODY knows who I am.  As soon as I mention motorbike, their eyes light up and go “ahh you”.  Apparently Americans aren’t the only ones who think I’m crazy for shipping a bike to Munich in December!  I end up waiting for quite a while for them to unpack my bike and bring it to me.  By now it is almost 16:00 (4pm) and I’m still at the airport.  Hopefully BMW doesn’t close at 17:00.  I receive the bike and examine it.  Looks like it did the day I brought it to JFK.  Thank you Lufthansa.

Ahh, now for the adventure.  I manage to squeeze all of my crap onto and into the bike while constantly being yelled at by angry old Germans for being in the middle of everything.  Nein Deutsch you old bastards!  J  I start my bike up with the few fumes that it has left (fortunately the taste has left my mouth by now) and pull out through a sea of tractor trailers.  Man does it feel great being back in the saddle!  A total relief came over me as I felt free again.  And cold!  Somebody forgot their riding gear back at the couch (do we need the of course here, or are you finally seeing a trend?). 

Well to my luck, right at the entrance there is a petrol station.  15,68Liters for 20,68Euros.  I’ll need to do the conversion for that later, but basically $27 to fill my 5.5gallon tank.  Approximately $5/gallon, cheaper than I was expecting.  I head back out onto the highway and drive towards Munich.  Fortunately I planned ahead, and clearly wrote out the directions I needed to get to the BMW dealership in northern Munich.  Only about a 20mile trek, that was a nice mixture of highways and city driving.  I merge onto the main highway and give her a little gas.  Apparently my lil BMW was happy to finally be home again.  She purred like a kitten and cleanly accelerated as I needed.  Once I became comfortable, I freely used all traffic lanes and blended right into the normal rush-hour traffic. 

One thing I did forget to mention, it is clearly nighttime now.  The sun sets earlier than at home, so by 4-5pm it is already quite dark out.  So my first ride in this country, with their foreign signs written in German, is in the dark.  Oh and wait, there’s more.  It decides to rain!  Not rain, but freezing rain.  But you were expecting that, weren’t you? 

So now I am in the far right lane following all of the slow moving trucks to make my travels a bit easier through the slickening roads.  I get off my exit and pull into the city streets.  Right off of the exit ramp, I see this huge pole with the rather famous BMW insignia.  Deciding to ditch my handwritten directions, I head straight towards this glowing beacon of BMW.  Did you know that BMW is headquartered here?  Yeah, well that didn’t occur to me at all.  Turns out it was just a corporate office, and not where I needed to go.  So I turn myself around and head back where I need to.  Thankfully the German drivers I encountered were quite normal in their driving temperament.  No major issues at all.  Only self inflicted ones actually.  All in all, a rather fun experience, one I cannot wait to try again.

Well by now I have made it to the BMW motorcycle dealership and luckily they were still open.  I park and head in.  Smooth transaction all the way through, and I am back on the (U) once again heading back towards the laundromat where I can begin my search for cheap flights to Helsinki.

I really need to begin writing more often, as too much happens in between writing episodes and I end up forgetting most of the things I want to write about.  My phone has a voice recorder, I wonder if I should begin using it to help myself remember my thoughts and feelings as my days progress.  Awfully ambitious, doubt it will ever happen.

I seem to spend most of my days traveling.  I haven’t actually left Munich yet, but getting from one place to the next seems to take me three times as long as it should.  This is not to say that the public transportation in this city is bad, it’s just written in the wrong damn language.  It’s actually quite intuitive once you get the hang of it.  I am now well versed in the (U) underground subway system, the (S) next level up and the above ground tram system.  The tram is where I am most comfortable, as it is quite similar to the tram system in Helsinki, the only way I’ve traveled in that city thus far. 

But walking has been the main source of my getting around, and I actually love it.  My feet might disagree, but walking all over every inch of this city has been a pleasure.  Sure it’s not so wonderful while walking a mile in the wrong direction, but it is a great way to really get to know a city well. 

So now as I am getting more comfortable here, I have begun researching my route a bit.  And everyone has still claimed that the Alps are no place for a bike in December.  One of the people most helpful in this, is a gentleman by the name of David Steed.  He is yet another couchsurfer that is very active in the motorcyclist section of the site.  He has offered lots of information and happens to dwell in Munich to boot.  So we decide to meet up for dinner on the evening of the 6^th.  He was actually in the middle of hosting his own couchsurfer, so I ended up meeting with both David, who was originally from the states, and Toomas from Talinn, Estonia who was in town for German language lessons. 

We go to what I am told is one of the more authentic and traditional German restaurants, Augustinas.  After a rather lengthy walk where we all get to know one another, we arrive at the restaurant.  Beautiful architecture, it sits all by itself proudly.  The atmosphere inside is lively, as guests all sit at long wooden tables in lines down the restaurant.  Klaus ends up joining up with us and we enjoy a great meal over some lively discussions.

Friday morning Klaus informs me that I do not need to leave today as originally planned.  Turns out that he changed his plans so that he could take me to an alternative festival called Tollwood with his friends. The festival is held at the same site as the world famous, Oktoberfest.   Wow.  So we meet up later that day at his flat and head to Tollwood.

Tollwood is an alternative Christmas Festival.   Full of bright lights, food and beer tents and vendors all over selling stuff like any other market place.  The only major difference is that Tollwood is almost 100% organic as I’m told.  We meet up with Klaus’s friends right outside the entrance.  Hannah, who grew up with Klaus in a smaller village up north, and her boyfriend Uli.  The four of us bounce from one tent to the next sampling beers, food and Glühwein.  Glühwein is a German hot spiced wine that is common to these festivals.  After we all have a pretty good drunk on, we decide it’s a good idea to hit a local club, called The Gas Station.  I’d tell you more, but my hangover won’t let me remember anything else.  Though I’d bet it was a great time.

The next morning hurt.  Bad.  And of course it was the day that I had to leave Klaus’s flat as he was heading north to see his family.  So with a stubborn hangover, I trek back into the city with all my gear.  As I roll through the central station lugging my 20kg bag, I decide to throw it in a storage locker for the afternoon as I still have not found a place to stay.  By far the best 3Euros I’ve spent so far on this trip.  I contacted a friend of David Steed’s (the CSer with whom we had dinner with the other night) who also happens to be a global ambassador for the world of couchsurfing.  She informed me that she already had a guest in town, but if I wanted I still could stay with them.  With that security blanket, I decide to take a trip out to the BMW dealership to inquire about storing the bike for a bit.  I make my way out to the dealership only to find out that they do allow storage, but the service department doesn’t come in until Monday, so I would have to wait until then to find out anything more.

Still feeling quite under the weather, I head back into town to get some work done on the computer.  I contact Brie one more time to make sure it’s ok for me to crash with them, then head to the train station to grab my bag and to get to Brie’s flat before too late.

After reading up on my host to be, I am feeling quite comfortable about where I am heading.  Her profile is one of the deepest on the site with rave reviews and once meeting her, I can immediately see why.  I buzz her intercom and am invited up.  She’s lives on the third floor of an extremely nice apartment building a little southwest of the city center.  We introduce ourselves and she offers me a place to sit while she finishes up cooking her dinner.  The overall feel of the flat is so warm and welcoming.  Paintings and other cultural objects adorn the walls and cabinet tops collected from years of travel.  After finishing with her cooking, Brie sits down and we just talk about everything. 

About a half an hour later, the intercom buzzer goes off and in blows a teenage whirlwind of energy and excitement.  The couchsurfer who has been staying with Brie these past few days, has just returned from dance academy.  She came to Munich from San Francisco to spend a few weeks studying with a dance company before heading up to Berlin to audition for another.  Brie offers me some of her dinner as Chloe reveals she has hidden a whole chicken in Brie’s vegetarian refrigerator.  We all laugh about it and have a great night.

Next morning Chloe leaves early for an overnight trip north of Munich and I head back out into the city.  It’s now Sunday morning and I need to figure out how I’m getting to Finland.   The night before we find out that there might be a laundromat nearby that has free wifi access.  Great, I have been looking for free internet access since I arrived and not to mention a pile of dirty clothes.  So I grab my computer bag and the laundry bag and head out.  If I had bothered to look outside before I left, I would’ve realized the rain storm outside and probably would’ve forgone the bag of laundry part.  To top it all off, I spent the better part of an hour walking up and down the wrong street, looking for the laundromat.  I finally give up and decide getting strange stares from all the uppity patrons of the coffee house was better than continuing to walk in the rain with my now wet and dirty bag of laundry.

At the day’s end, I head back to my most recent couch and find Brie there hard at work.  She had offered up a game a pool at a local pub and I was quick to accept.  He head down to this great little corner pub, with low ceilings, smoky atmosphere and the quota of futbol fans intent on the game on the TV.  As I demonstrate that billiards is not my best skill, I end up losing 5 games to 3.  Fortunately Brie wouldn’t be the kind to hold that over my head for months to come. 

We head back to the flat a few hours later drunker, smokier and a bit more relaxed.

A seasoned pro I am.  World traveler extraordinaire, I’ve made it 3 whole days!  Top that Magellan! 

Man I must say I’ve underestimated a lot with this trip.  Not that I would ever be wrong, just not entirely right.  As I was never really prepared to be in Munich for this length, I never brushed up on my German, nor my history and site seeing information for this amazingly beautiful city.  I wish I had, but then again I do plan on returning during another time of the year, one where a lot more bier is consumed.  For now, I’m content on doing some nice walking tours of my own, and hanging in coffee houses trying to get myself settled and prepared for living/working/travelling over here. 

I need to break away from my most recent phobia.  Notwanttolooklikeatouristphobia.   So many beautiful sites and I am either forgetting to take a picture or don’t want to look like the many other obnoxious tourists around.  I will have to try a little harder, but I do have some shots to share.  As soon as I get my account set up, I’ll post a link to my galleries.

So back to Tuesday, when I first arrived.  It didn’t really come through in what I wrote on Wednesday , but I was exhausted that day.  I could not stay awake to save my life.  Once I got settled, the fatigue hit me hard and I literally had to fight to stay awake.  Mind you, I had to wait until 18:30 to meet Klaus, my Couchsurfing host to be.  Not to mention having those tremendously heavy bags to carry whenever I got to the point of needing to go somewhere new.   So I end up meeting up with Klaus in the center of Marienplatz, which is where they have a Christmas Market set up for the season.  Street vendors selling bier, brats and sweets.  Plus trinkets and anything else they can get the tourists walking by to purchase.  I meet Klaus under the main Christmas tree and feel a sense of relief when he looks just like his profile pictures did. 

We hop on the train and head to his flat.  We spoke a bit on the ride over, and he was asking if I wanted to do anything special this evening.  I took all I could do not to fall asleep on the softly swaying train, let alone be able to go partying.  Thankfully a sign of relief crossed his face when I politely declined and asked if we could just go to flat and relax. 

Now with me being so new with this whole Couchsurfing experience, I had no idea what to expect.  Well no matter what my expectations might have been,they were greatly exceeded.  Not only did Klaus email me precise directions on how to get to our meeting point, he also informed me of which train ticket to buy and why.  Then when we get to his flat (let’s ignore the five floor walk up for now), he offers me a hot shower and ends up cooking dinner for the both of us.  We share travel stories and then decide that it’s best if I get to sleep.  We transform the couch into a bed, and I end of getting the best sleep I’ve had in years. 

The next morning, I hear Klaus getting himself ready for work and get myself up.  Assuming I need to leave as he does, he informs me that I can stay in the flat as long as needed, even without him there.  Wow.  That’s a level of trust I was not expecting.  I hope he hasn’t ruined me for this kind of travel, because he has upped the level of hospitality to such a high level that I might start expecting it.

More later…