Saturday, July 27, 2013

Picking up bike

You would think that would be easy enough  wrong again. Have to catch a city bus and they have the bikes stored in the bottom of some garage.   However at the bus stop l meet 3 German guys and an Australian family all looking for the same place. Have a chat at the bus stop and think this will be easy, wrong. Bus comes along and we get on have to stand so cannot see exactly where we are going.Im having keyboard issues. I am now in Niederranna or what is left of me, temp downstairs reads 41C But the good news is my keyboard is working, hooray. So back to the bike story. The city  bus takes a few turns but l am with other people so should be ok. We stop outside a swimming pool which is packed and now l want to swim, to heck with cycling. Anyway the German guys set off one way the Australians 180 the other way, they see a car park, l stay where l am only one of them can be right. The Germans do some speaking  and we all head after them, apparently we are looking for number 6 on this street we pass number 5 good next we come to number 8 Bad a quick conference followed by dumb looks l am very good at the dumb look so join in. We continue on and the next block has the garage which by coincidence has all the city buses parked there as well, you have to wonder if the people writing the instructions have a good laugh every day. So the guy sets us up in groups he does the Germans first, the Australians have a baby carriage so they are taken to one side. The guy then does me a favour, his daughter lives in Ontario so he upgrades my bike to 21 gears, as he says nobody gets the 7 gears as you have to peddle backwards to engage the brakes. So l thank him profusely. I know the last turn we took on the bus and it shows only 1 other turn on the map so l take off. Down the hill turn right l do that and feel confident the next T junction l consult the map  and it makes no sense as it shows me l took the wrong turn when l turned left. Anyway as l am oddling trained l take a right at the T junction after about a kilometre l get concerned as  l am now leaving Passau so go all the way back to the start. Come down the hill good check out the map which says l must turn left but l am positive  l have to turn right so head back the way l have just come. This time l turn left and straight away stop an old lady who is hurrying home with her shopping. Bitterschun l am looking for Brumaire Strasse her reply you are on Brumaire Strasse fortunately she leaves idiot off the end of her answer. Dankeschun which always brings back a Bitterschun l am getting used to the Schuns . I know l can only go one way back to the hotel so head off in great gusto and get to the Hotel Achat covered in sweat.
Two other points of note, as my Bluetooth keyboard is giving me grief l want to ask the pretty receptionist if l could plug my keyboard into her computer but see that could be construed so struggle with Swype. Secondly the evening receptionist is a very tall slim guy and when l ask him about catching the bus his answer is in a very high pitched  voice and both his eyebrows are doing a juggling act then his final word goes even higher and he brings his pencil to the horizontal position. If they ever do a German version of Fawlty Towers this guy is a shoe in for Basil Fawlty. Dankeschun. Bitterschun.

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