Eurail

Today we went to heidelberg with the intention of solidying our trip to paris, and the experience all but dissolved it.
We were able to buy eurail passes, which by the way though not cheap, is probably the most thrilling thing I have done recently. They give you a map and a timetable for all the major trains in europe and you feel like the world is sitting at your fingertips. Picking only three countries felt a little limiting, but really with germany, switzerland, and france, there is still plenty to explore. Also as long as I get out of europe every six months (they check your visa stamp on the passport), I can indefinitely get eurail passes. So in the event I make no friends and live a terribly lonely life, I will be able to travel voraciously through more than 20 countries.
The service agent thought killed our plans to paris because although we could get reservations on the way there, we cannot get them at any time on sunday and taking a day off work is not feasible. So I guess we will have to venture somewhere new, but thats the point isnt it, (gell?)
After that Stephanie and I decided to do a run through heidelberg, as it is so much prettier than ludwigshafen), it was quite beautiful although since we only had 20 minutes before our train left our run wasnt exactly epic. I will have to go back at some point to continue and run some hills so Hood 2 Coast doesnt eat me for breakfast.
We gave alex our keys and because of communication issues we ended up being locked out of our appartments imaging what possible things alex might be doing in there as to cause him to not answer the door. In fact he had just taken the wrong train back. Which is comforting and scary at the same time as it means even germans get confused by train overload.
When that was sorted out we headed to stammtisch which was at an irish pub (Ive been to more irish pubs in germany than boston), it was nice and they had cheap pitchers, so no complaints. I also met a german who spent a year at stanford. And his response to where I was going for grad school (I guess I am kind of bragging but most people are like where? oh zurich is an expensive city) was wow, that is probably the best overall technical university in europe. Super.
This morning I was able to watch Charlotte use the Scanning Electron Microscope. The device was amazing. Everything for it was so much more elegant than any instrument I have ever used. Plus some of the pictures it produced were incredible. If only samples didnt need preparation it would be the perfect instrument.

To France

With an ending like that to friday, you would think saturday would be one of those, woke up at 2pm and ate pretzels till I felt better. It was not. It was supposed to be rainy, but when I got up I could see a bit of rain but mostly clear sky. There was a winefest in Freinsheim that some of the other BASFGuest house students went to. I decided to try and go, of course by bike. I started heading over there and received a text saying the festival was dead and probably wouldnt start until night. So I diverted to Neustadt am Weinstrasse (Germans Wine Road). I went through a number of beautiful small towns all with wine shops and tasting locations. The bike route even goes through some vineyards. It reminded me of oregon, but it liked these ones much better. You ended up going through a different town about every 10 minutes (they are quite close together) and the bike paths were exceptional. You never had to ride on the street if you didnt want to.
In Neustadt I met up with Neeta (an undergrad from India, it is her last day) and Olga (a student at UniHamburg). We went to get some food, sunscreen, and Icecream. Then tried to go to the castle but barely missed the hourly bus. After a little recharging I decided to continue southward. The weather at the beginning was flawless. The scenery was beautiful and all the little towns were great. The bike paths were at times a bit confusing, but between the signs, my GPSs, and my map, I was able to figure most of it out. It started raining quite hard at one point, in a town in the middle of nowhere. Luckily there was a nice Wine tasting/cafe with tons of other cyclists at it. I decided to try and wait it out with a nice big coffee. The coffee was excellent and I got a chance to practice a little bit of german with them. Based on my accent they guessed I was from the Netherlands (even though my bike jersey says Boston on it). I feel sorry for any dutch person right now. They had come from Ausburg and were on a short wine tour.
Anyways the rain let up and I hit the road again in brilliant sunlight. At this point it began getting much hillier. I still had plenty of time, I hoped, and at least I wasnt wet and still had food and water. The whole ride continued to be quite fantastic and scenic. I will have to come bike here again. The highlight of the trip though was riding by the sign at about 25mph that said with an EU star logo saying Frankreich in the middle. All of a sudden everything went from german to french. Along those lines the pretty little wine towns turned into the dead or mostly dead Wissembourg. I also had the shocking realization, that I dont know how to say Train station in french. So I went up to the first friendly looking french person I saw and said. "Ou est le Hauptbahnhof" at which point they told me in german. I found the Gare centrale, or something like that. And then realized not only did their schedules use french days of the week (a little foggy on thursday-sunday), but they list two trainstations for Wissembourg. I found a french man and tried to ask him using french/german/pointing and we decided I was in the right place, but he wasnt certain. I found a small cafe in the center of down which was slightly nicer looking, the outskirts were just butt ugly ~ ludwigshafen. I ordered Pannekuchen (clearly not a french food) and a little container of french vin rouge. It was spendy, but I satisfied my goal of having a nice glass of french wine. It also made the train ride much more pleasant.
Finally I was told by some french persons in Ludwigshafen that the french no longer use Bicyclette, and I heard two different 30-40 year old persons use it, to tell other people to get out of the way.

All in all about 70 miles on the day.
See the ride stats here
Ride map here

A small detail I forgot was I saw a sign that said "Honig Aus" -> Honey out?, and didnt really understand it. A few seconds later a bee flew into my jersey and stung my heart. Bee strings smart more than I remember than, and fortunately I am still not allergic to bees.