I realized today that I had not actually told you about my arrival in Melk, which was worth noting for two reasons. Firstly, I experienced something akin to happiness when I reached the actual town. I had been biking for nine hours; I had struggled with the bike trail's abysmal signage for some time; and I was not even sure if the reception area of my hotel would still be open. I did not want to mention this after the first day, as I initially thought that the failure might be on my end or that I might be making a mountain out of a molehill, but I can now say with confidence that the signage along the Danube (for bikers, that is) is atrocious. The signs along the way are misleading, contradictory of one another, and, as often as not, entirely absent. One has to rely on them a great deal, as the path along the Danube often diverges from the river itself for long stretches, but when one is near the river, it is often better to follow roadway signs, which are sure to be correct.
I have, as usual, digressed, and I forgot to say what I was going to say. Despite being exhausted and in pain when I arrived in Melk, I was vaguely pleased - it is still possible to feel things when all of one's energies are spent. When I arrived in town, having chosen a direction in which to go based on the advice of someone whom I had passed fifteen minutes previously rather than the road signs (which I just called reliable), which had the work "Melk" on arrows in all three possible directions of movement (besides backwards), I arrived at a gas station and learned from a man there that the train station was only a short distance away - five or ten minutes at most, the man said. I rode into town, where I saw a church, and found that the information building had been destroyed in the recent floods. When I reached the nearest plaza, I found a street name that matched one on my map and pumped my fist in victory - I could already smell blood, so to speak. I asked a few more people which way to go, and the last group that I approached, having asked me for the name of my hotel, pointed it out to me. The crowning moment of my arrival in Melk was that the hotel's reception area was a restaurant occupying its first floor; reception was not only still open, but would have remained open for quite some time longer had I arrived in town later. I checked into my hotel, ditched my bags, and headed out for dinner.
The only notable detail to my getting dinner was that, having developed a taste for Austrian dumplings, I immediately asked for them when I wandered into a nearby restaurant. The waiter told me to read the menu myself, and, when I found dumplings on it, I saw that they came with deer heart. I thought that I must have misread what was written, but the waiter clarified that heart was, indeed, the accompaniment to the dumplings. I considered ordering them but could not bring myself to do it - while I tried both pigs' cheeks and, by accident, pig intestines in Chamonix (in 2010), I could not bring myself to eat heart. I owe my distaste for inner organs to the stolid prejudice that one eats cooked muscle, not other parts of the body, yet I have tried, in addition to accidentally eating intestines, fish kidney paste (or liver paste, or some other such horror), and I survived. Perhaps I should have grown bold and broadened my palate, but I took the conservative option of weinerschnitzel with potato and parsleys, which I had had countless times before. The twist to this dinner was that I was eating in a restaurant that featured plenty of main dishes that cost over 20 Euros, yet I ordered an enormous, and very high-quality, weinerschitzel with a first-rate side of potatoes and a half-lemon (I will take all of the vitamin C that I can get), for only 8.50 Euros! It was like spotting a pine tree amongst a forest of redwoods - one wonders how it got there in the first place.
I have, as usual, digressed, and I forgot to say what I was going to say. Despite being exhausted and in pain when I arrived in Melk, I was vaguely pleased - it is still possible to feel things when all of one's energies are spent. When I arrived in town, having chosen a direction in which to go based on the advice of someone whom I had passed fifteen minutes previously rather than the road signs (which I just called reliable), which had the work "Melk" on arrows in all three possible directions of movement (besides backwards), I arrived at a gas station and learned from a man there that the train station was only a short distance away - five or ten minutes at most, the man said. I rode into town, where I saw a church, and found that the information building had been destroyed in the recent floods. When I reached the nearest plaza, I found a street name that matched one on my map and pumped my fist in victory - I could already smell blood, so to speak. I asked a few more people which way to go, and the last group that I approached, having asked me for the name of my hotel, pointed it out to me. The crowning moment of my arrival in Melk was that the hotel's reception area was a restaurant occupying its first floor; reception was not only still open, but would have remained open for quite some time longer had I arrived in town later. I checked into my hotel, ditched my bags, and headed out for dinner.
The only notable detail to my getting dinner was that, having developed a taste for Austrian dumplings, I immediately asked for them when I wandered into a nearby restaurant. The waiter told me to read the menu myself, and, when I found dumplings on it, I saw that they came with deer heart. I thought that I must have misread what was written, but the waiter clarified that heart was, indeed, the accompaniment to the dumplings. I considered ordering them but could not bring myself to do it - while I tried both pigs' cheeks and, by accident, pig intestines in Chamonix (in 2010), I could not bring myself to eat heart. I owe my distaste for inner organs to the stolid prejudice that one eats cooked muscle, not other parts of the body, yet I have tried, in addition to accidentally eating intestines, fish kidney paste (or liver paste, or some other such horror), and I survived. Perhaps I should have grown bold and broadened my palate, but I took the conservative option of weinerschnitzel with potato and parsleys, which I had had countless times before. The twist to this dinner was that I was eating in a restaurant that featured plenty of main dishes that cost over 20 Euros, yet I ordered an enormous, and very high-quality, weinerschitzel with a first-rate side of potatoes and a half-lemon (I will take all of the vitamin C that I can get), for only 8.50 Euros! It was like spotting a pine tree amongst a forest of redwoods - one wonders how it got there in the first place.
My news for today is that I made it to Krems. This being a trip along the Danube, the day did not go off without disaster: while I made it to the outskirts (by which I mean one kilometer from the city center) of Krems itself at 1:30, two-and-a-half hours after leaving Melk, it took me another hour-and-a-half just to find my hotel, which was located in the middle of nowhere and was not even technically in the city of Krems. I have no idea why I booked a room in it, given that there were so many (i.e., dozens) better options lying right next to the river, but I expect that the other guesthouses did a bad job of advertising themselves online or that I immediately skipped over them in my search for the cheapest possible accommodation. (Note: do not always pick the cheapest accommodation available. You will pay for it in other ways.) Whatever the case, I arrived at the guesthouse exhausted and out of sorts, only to be shown indoors by a lady who thought that it was wonderful that I was biking along the Danube (She obviously did not realize how hard it had been to get to her hotel, which was up in the foothills and accessible only by a series of gravel side roads.) and showed me in to a nice enough room. The Wi-Fi here works well, I have my own bathroom, and there will be breakfast tomorrow, which was included in the cost of the room. I wanted to collapse onto the bed and go to sleep, but I knew that that would disrupt my circadian rhythm, so I enjoyed my Internet access for awhile and went out for dinner.
The dinner itself was a bit of story. The hotel manager told me that I could get very cheap food if I went a few hundred meters up the road and turned left. I tried to do that, more or less, and found a restaurant that looked abandoned and a cherry stand, the owner of which had no idea where I could find a cheap meal that featured local cuisine and, in particular, dumplings. I gave up my search and went back down the road to a guesthouse that I had seen earlier, one that seconded as a restaurant, and asked if I could eat there. It was a very small establishment - the only waitress there was sitting and chatting with the restaurant's only two patrons - and did not have a menu. The woman there said that they did not have dumplings and that they only offered one meal today - goulash, I discovered when she repeated its name. I said that it sounded good and was immediately bombarded with a series of incomprehensible questions - the waitress was trying to figure out what kind of side I wanted. When one of the patrons answered my question, "What is [whatever the woman said?]" with "bread," I said that bread sounded good and sat down. The waitress made a face when I declined to order a drink, and she looked at me as though I were crazy when I said that I was biking the Danube and wanted to return to Austria in the winter. When she came back out some time later, she gave me an enormous bowl of goulash, big enough to drown in, with big chunks of meat in it and a side of two slices of black bread. The food turned out to be of the highest quality and to cost only 8 Euros, and it had enough protein, I presume, to help my muscles recover as much as possible - they are starting to get sore.
It turns out that I have a lot more to say than expected. I will try to keep these notes brief, both for the sake of finishing this email and getting in the shower soon - I want to make another early night of it. If all goes well, I will get to Tulln by 1:00 PM, buy a train ticket, and arrive in Vienna by 2:30 or so; the nightmare will be over, I will have returned to civilization, and I will have learned never, ever to go on any trips involving biking. One has far fewer new impressions when biking than when travelling by train, as one is in too much pain to take much interest in the surrounding world; one's ideas, when they arise at all, come and go without sticking. While I saw a great deal of countryside and medieval-looking towns today, I could just as well have seen them through the window of a train or bus - that is, I would have been much more immersed in my surroundings if I had been on a train or bus, as one does not notice anything except for birdsong on a bike. The only time at which one can think of anything essential is in a position of physical comfort, and it is impossible to be in such a position while biking, which is like walking all day with blisters. One thing that I learned today is that I have fairly low pain tolerance and have no ability to cope with having to continue to exert myself despite being physically wearied. I never understood people who said that they get grouchy when they are tired or hungry until today: it turns out that I am at my worst in the aforementioned circumstance; if I had been with another person today, I would have done nothing but complain. I took my peevishness out by yelling at idiotic drivers who would not pass me and cursing the entire world in my head.
The dinner itself was a bit of story. The hotel manager told me that I could get very cheap food if I went a few hundred meters up the road and turned left. I tried to do that, more or less, and found a restaurant that looked abandoned and a cherry stand, the owner of which had no idea where I could find a cheap meal that featured local cuisine and, in particular, dumplings. I gave up my search and went back down the road to a guesthouse that I had seen earlier, one that seconded as a restaurant, and asked if I could eat there. It was a very small establishment - the only waitress there was sitting and chatting with the restaurant's only two patrons - and did not have a menu. The woman there said that they did not have dumplings and that they only offered one meal today - goulash, I discovered when she repeated its name. I said that it sounded good and was immediately bombarded with a series of incomprehensible questions - the waitress was trying to figure out what kind of side I wanted. When one of the patrons answered my question, "What is [whatever the woman said?]" with "bread," I said that bread sounded good and sat down. The waitress made a face when I declined to order a drink, and she looked at me as though I were crazy when I said that I was biking the Danube and wanted to return to Austria in the winter. When she came back out some time later, she gave me an enormous bowl of goulash, big enough to drown in, with big chunks of meat in it and a side of two slices of black bread. The food turned out to be of the highest quality and to cost only 8 Euros, and it had enough protein, I presume, to help my muscles recover as much as possible - they are starting to get sore.
It turns out that I have a lot more to say than expected. I will try to keep these notes brief, both for the sake of finishing this email and getting in the shower soon - I want to make another early night of it. If all goes well, I will get to Tulln by 1:00 PM, buy a train ticket, and arrive in Vienna by 2:30 or so; the nightmare will be over, I will have returned to civilization, and I will have learned never, ever to go on any trips involving biking. One has far fewer new impressions when biking than when travelling by train, as one is in too much pain to take much interest in the surrounding world; one's ideas, when they arise at all, come and go without sticking. While I saw a great deal of countryside and medieval-looking towns today, I could just as well have seen them through the window of a train or bus - that is, I would have been much more immersed in my surroundings if I had been on a train or bus, as one does not notice anything except for birdsong on a bike. The only time at which one can think of anything essential is in a position of physical comfort, and it is impossible to be in such a position while biking, which is like walking all day with blisters. One thing that I learned today is that I have fairly low pain tolerance and have no ability to cope with having to continue to exert myself despite being physically wearied. I never understood people who said that they get grouchy when they are tired or hungry until today: it turns out that I am at my worst in the aforementioned circumstance; if I had been with another person today, I would have done nothing but complain. I took my peevishness out by yelling at idiotic drivers who would not pass me and cursing the entire world in my head.
My only other real points are that I dislike Austrians and that long-distance biking is a little like hiking - one has to pace oneself and choose both appropriate times at which to rest and appropriate rest times. My dislike of Austrians is founded on their impenetrable unfriendliness. While Germans will eagerly greet one, smile at one, and even engage one in conversations, Austrians invariably smile (exactly one person has smiled at me in passing since I arrived in Austria). Austrian waiters are infinitely ruder than German ones, and, while Austrians are just as helpful as Germans when one asks them for directions, the haughtiness with which they otherwise carry themselves sours one's opinion of them. While it would be crazy to say that I look forward to leaving Austria for Hungary (My trip through Hungary and Slovakia will be the last adventurous part of the trip and my last trip, besides a few days in the Balkans, to Eastern Europe.), I keenly anticipate the last few weeks of my trip, in which I should be able to meet normal people again. I admit with shame that I will continue to ride my bike for pleasure in Vancouver despite having taken this bike trip, as that is a different (i.e., much less demanding) kind of riding, and that I will factor a non-negligible amount of hiking into a trip that I plan to take in three years. The hiking will be different from this bike trip, though, as I enjoy long hikes, unlike long bike rides, and have extensive experience doing them. Since I am rambling at this point and have nothing more to say, I had better cut myself off. I cannot wait to ditch this bike and never have to bike more than 40 km in a day (and that only if I accidentally go that far) for the rest of my life. I would throw my bike into the Danube as a symbolic gesture if I were into symbolic gestures and did not have to return it, but, alas, I am neither that audacious nor even able to do so if I want to get my deposit money back. I will have to satisfy my disdain for biking by finishing this trip by train rather than by bike, just to spite the bike route for its existence. Please do not go on any bike trips unless you are my worst enemy, in which case you should absolutely do it, as it will serve you right.
Oops. I forgot one final point, which is that one can go for up to half of an hour without seeing a soul on certain parts of this bike trip, which is odd. It is also odd that there are very few pedestrians on the streets of Krems, which made it harder for me to find this hotel. Perhaps that is because all of Krems' citizens spend their days in church praying that the people who are stupid enough to take this bike trip will hate it and dissuade anyone else from trying to do it. One never knows, though; they might merely have discovered that travelling by car is easier than travelling by foot. That is the actual end of this post.
I bought a bucket of cherries from this roadside fruit stand.
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