Germany: Das ist Zuiper

Photos (top to bottom): lots and lots of sheep; bikes make awesome shadows; along the a major shopping canal in Germany, means racing many barges, we often win; and a cold and windy North Sea.

That's right we zoomed through the rest of Holland, but not really since strong winds (not in our favor) still haunted us. We traveled good distances but the zooming feeling which makes riding a bicycle so much fun is taken out when the wind pushes you sideways all day. It is like an elephant is trying to sit on you all day. I'll stop complainig about the wind one day, I promise.

Off we went over the German border, the wind was still there but some little hills started to apear! Oh my. The landscape has been amazing with green fields and forests. We raced up through the northern section of Germany to get to Denmark! That's right we are all the way in Denmark. It is light until ten!

But first a bit about our German adventures. So far what we have seen and been through of Germany we love. We are excited to travel back through most of the country and end our journey in Southern Germany. Upon entering Northern Germany we knew there were many canals and waterways. We ended up taking a few ferries, similar to the Shelter Island ferry. You drive your car on you park, you drive off. Some were longer distances and other shorter. One ferry had the best hot dog I have even eaten, high hopes for German sausage, duh! On one night when we couldn't find our campground we ended up riding a small ferry back and fourth. The operator must of though we were a hoot.

Em ran into some brake problems, which slowed our progress a bit. Problems such as she now has no front brake and the back brake is pretty lame. Long story short her fear came true that the disc brake would break and we wouldn't be able to fix it. Luckily Gen was able to take the front brake caliper and move it to the back. If anyone doesnt understnsd the front-back switch, I am sure you can remeber as a kid slamming on the front brakes and flying over the handle bars, or at least seeing someone do this. The semi-flat conditions help with the lack of braking speed she has. Her bike is now in the shop and she got a loaner cruiser to ride around the Danish town we ended up in. The bike has coaster brakes (push back with your feet) and no clip peddles, but it does have a low bar, which Em can easily swing her foot over.

That's pretty much it. Except we arrived in Denmark today (5/13) and quickly realized our Euros were useless. We are now on the Danish Royal Kroner, where a loaf of bread coasts $K26 or bike shorts $K299. We'll get used to it by the time we leave. We are heading around Denmark and over to Sweden and meeting up with Em and my parents in Copenhagen in about ten days. Since none of us have cellular devices and internet scarce, it will be fun an adventures just finding them.