weekend trip part one

the bike trip actually happened! anne and i planned pretty much the whole thing friday afternoon. we rented bikes from ig fahrrad basically down the street, and anne with her good german was able to get the 'rads for us friday evening to sunday night with only paying for two days!

we got on our S-bahn from Westbahnhof with no problems and rode an hour and fifteen minutes out to Melk...again. it was weird to be back in those places we had been just a week ago. the beginning of this stay in vienna already feels like a million years ago! an actual MILLION. but okay. luckily i remembered to figure out where the Donauradweg actually is, besides on the Donau. we biked a kind of scary/hilly/trafficy road for 15 minutes to where the 'weg actually was. then we started our 70 miles back to wien.

the route was pretty populated with families, couples, and Serious Bikers. the trail is flat and really well marked, and for a long time there was a road between us and the river, unfortunately. but we went through a ton of tiny villages that took 4 minutes to get through. the air smelled faintly of apricots, due to all of the apricot orchards in that area (lots!). i didn't know that. the scenery was amazing. obviously exactly what we saw on the boat last week, but there's something about the experience of pedaling yourself through it that makes it more awesome. mountains on both sides, steps of vineyards, red shingled houses scattered everywhere. i dig austria.

we stopped a few times, including once for ice cream. have i mentioned how superior the average ice cream is here to america? it's like creamy delicious gelato, but cheaper and they give you more of it! the route changed after we reached Krems, going into a more foresty setting. the land was also much more boring. we started getting tired around where we stopped to swim on this really long, boring part of the trail, about 30 km from Tulln, our destination. it started to be extremely uncomfortable to sit down around here too, but we still had at least 15 miles to go! luckily the scenery changed again at the last 10 miles to Tulln. flat fields of grain, sunflowers, and green plant stuff, power lines, houses, all bordered by foothills at the horizon. it was like being in a big basin.

eventually we got to Tulln and decided it would be worth it to sleep in the hostel we looked at, specifically for the BED, instead of unter den sterne. another time. this was my first hostel stay! the first of many. it was nicer than i expected. we were given two beds in a six bed room, but we were the only ones that showed up so we got a big room with no stranger awkwardness. we were pretty hungry, but it hurt too much to bike around to find a place to eat faster. i could not sit down on that seat. many of Tulln's restaurants were closed around 8:00, but we eventually found a restaurant in the middle of a block with a big menu. i got a Puntigamer (which i randomly ordered and i liked it a lot) and spaghetti carbonara. not the most austrian dish, but it was perfect. i have no idea how i'm going to order food while Alone in Germany because i'm not going to have an Anne or a Frau Lonnes to tell me what all the words mean.

after dinner, we walked around Tulln and had some small adventures, mainly watching old people dance and party and hang out on a boat restaurant on the Donau. then we went back and i passed out so hard.