Wednesday I rented a mountain bike in a small town in Luxembourg on the German border. I had an awesome map and confirmed my route with the guy at the hostel... I had a destination in mind... a bridge with a waterfall underneath it. Welp. Turns out that i'd picked a hiking trail and a quite intense one at that... after hitting the trail i spent the next 20 minutes trying to see how many beats per minutes my heart could beat/ walking my bike up a hill. Lots of steep hills, steps and rocky, rocky slopes had me carrying my bike on my shoulder more than riding. I used to mt. bike in h.s., so it eventually came back to me and i was able to ride down some of the slopes and stairs later in the day. After about 4.5 hours I made it to the waterfall only to dropp my bag (w/ passport, 2 cameras, etc.) into the river as I was exhausted and careless... so, i had to jump in after it. It wasn't deep, but i sure got wet... my little silver camera was the only casualty. THANKFULLY the memory card was undamaged and the camera is insured... so no huge loss there. I got what i think were some pretty good photos. I took a road route back to the hostel... had a long uphill (20 minutes in 3rd of 24 gears)... but my reward was a few minutes downhill at speeds prob. up to 50 mph. fun.
I then headed to Luxembourg City. Thursday I did a guided city walk and went to some museums, including one designed by famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei and then took the train to Düsseldorf where I met Jan. Friday he showed me around town & i tried many types of german meats, including a few raw varieties of pig and cow. Saturday I expored on my own and went out to his tennis club to see him play a match. Today I've been reading, catching up on internet/e-mail/etc. Tomorrow I will spend most of the day attempting to reach Leichtenstein (a tiny little country between Switzerland and Austria). Tuesday I hope to bike around, Wednesday I will head to Munich for one night before I fly from there to Istanbul.
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