Day 26: Bikes on a Train

This morning we departed camp after breakfast on Lake Zurich with Mike. Breakfast was a simple meal of bread cheese and salami, but we're buying bread by the kilo now, so we get plenty of food. (We've been using Nate trademarked "immigrant mode" method for saving money in Switzerland. Pasta with red sauce for dinner, bread with cheese and salami for breakfast. It's highly effective and we've been doing pretty well.)

The bike to the Bahnhof in downtown Zurich was again exciting as we got to bike through streets and avoid pedestrians, cars, and street cars. We made it there with no problem and walked to the ticket office to get the right tickets to Freiburg.

Unfortunately, the ICE (really fast train) did not allow bikes, so we had to take two transfers and a local train to get to Freiburg. Quick transfers with bicycles and full panniers are difficult, to say the least. We had 7 minutes to get out bikes off one train, down the stairs, find the right platform, get up the stairs and everyone to the next train. We were the last people on the train, and barely got on before the doors shut and the train started to move. We then had 6 minutes on that train, after which we got off and had an 8 minute window to transfer to our last train. We all made it no problem (along with a ton of other bikers on that train) and sat down for the hour long ride on the local train to Freiburg.

We finally got off the trains and Freiburg, and started our ride north. We made a quick stop at a farmers market right outside Freiburg, and all got strawberrys. They hit the spot, and we in good spirits we bikes to Ettenhiem.

Well, somewhat good spirits. We were promised a easy 30km day, but when the bike computer read 40km for the day, we were still 10km from our destination. All is well that ends well, however, and we arrived at the campsite just outside of town by 4:00.

And from that point on everything was great, mostly because everything was so much cheaper in Germany than Switzerland. Our entire costs for the day (excluding the train tickets, gag) were 25%-50% less than Switzerland. That includes at stop at a local bakery and the farmers market, what a life of luxury we live.

Dinner consisted of a salad and we biked to the grocery store to get ingredients. At this store, Mark was fascinated by the automatic bread slicer. You could buy a loaf of bread, and then put it in a machine and have the machine slice it for you. I'm sure the exists in the states as well, but it was really cool to watch it work. We almost bought two loafs just so we could slice bread again. Some engineers canbe be entertained by the simplest things.

Dinner and drinks where eaten at the campsite, where we relaxed for the evening preparing (mentally mostly) for two long days ahead of us to Heidelberg. 100+km days both days should be fun.

As we're falling asleep, the noise from a local amateur soccer team with an apparent large following can be heard up the road. (That's right, soccer, not football, America just won the World Cup so we can call it soccer for awhile.) Tonight is looking to be a nice cold night, so hopefully we will all sleep well and be rested for the long day tomorrow.