München with the Boys and Backnang Touring

So after I last published, I was able to tour the Backnang Zentrum(city center). It is very beautiful. What seperates many European cities from American ones is the lively town center which is abound with many people and shops. I took it quite a bit on my little walking tour. I found a bookstore. And those that know me well, know that I can easily spend quite a bit of time in bookstores. I enjoy mainly reading different books, usually cooking, and perusing the magazines that I am too cheap to buy. I found some kinder deutsch books, which are deutsch lesson books for kids. It might do me quite well to purchase a few. My time with Älena and Tim is limited. And I very much want to communicate more with them and beat them at the different games like Uno! I also came across some Schwäbische cookbooks. I will certainly have to pick one of these up. My spätzle making skills need some improvement. And when Grädle(sandra's mother) was helping me, I was thinking like all aspiring good cooks do, how can I make this different. Two ideas immediately, and spinach spätzle and a curry spätzle. Sure enough in the kochen buch(cooking book) was a recipe for spinach spätzle. I felt pretty proud of myself to think of it. Next i stopped by a cafe for a pott kaffee, which is a machine coffee. American pot style of coffee is not popular here. Kaffee is made in single servings with the machine grinding then pouring per cup. Its the way to do it if you don't have a french press which as I have written is the best way for kaffee.

Heinz pointed out later that I spelled spätzle wrong which I first noticed in the kochen buch. In English we don't have the 'ä' character so its sometimes difficult to understand the spelling if you don't see it.

On Saturday, Ich fahre 50km(i rode 50km). My legs were pretty bad from taking 3 days away from the fahrad(bicycle) and the black lung didn't help the cause but it was nice to get out and see some the area. I must say that it is quite beautiful here. The terrain reminds me much of growing up in East Tennessee which is very rolling. We just didn't have the small villages and narrow roads to ride through and mix it up a little. Much different than Colorado. I am finding it very difficult to find a rhythm on the fahrad b/c of the constant changing of pitch. It will be good for me because it will make me a more complete rider. I'll soon get used to it. Afterwards, I drove with Kai to Fellbach and we met with Christian and Stefan, two riders on the team. We then drove the Activity bus to München. It was a pretty wild ride. The autobahn is very nice. People aren't driving the insane speeds that we are lead to believe in the US but people do drive fast but always and only pass on the left. I paid 0,50€ to use the toilette at the petrol station. Granted it was a very nice WC(wasser closet). First time paying for a toilette at a gas station. Fortunately, I had some coins with me. Which brings me to my first installment of lessons for the euro traveler.
1) always have euro coins in your pocket. This can get you out of many problems albeit GI problems.

I also learned that in Germany, you can drink beers in the car if you aren't driving. I was totally blown away by this. I didn't partake but a few of my friends did on the way to München. Once in München we decided to head to the Zentrum and we found a parking space outside a bräuhus. We rolled inside and found a nice table. Definite Bavarian experience. We each had a 0,5L of the bar speciality. It was good. Pilsner style. I more prefer the ales and IPA myself but it was quite good. There were a group of four americans next too us. They stuck out. It was kind of funny because I am American but I'm a little more incognito because I am with my teammates and they are all German. We chatted with them a bit. I will have to upload some photos later. Then we drove to the airport and picked up Marc. I also met Leif Lampater and his girlfriend Steffi. Leif is also a 'driver' on the team when he isn't world track events and teaming up with Erik Zabel in 6Day racing. I'm very eager to race with him. It will be good for me to have a strong leader on the team and someone to work for in the races.

Today, I did my first training ride with the team. My legs weren't very good and the lungs were still black but I gave it a descent showing. I now know better where to sprint which will help me next time. It was a very good training ride. Wetter is getting better. Not as cold today. This week is suppose to be very nice. So hopefully I will escape the black lung soon and realize some of the benefits from the training in Majorca.

Chow,
Matthew