Livin on Reds, Vitamin C and Coffee

So we boogied out of Cologne with the worst hangover ever. Not a good idea to learn how hard the kolsh party when you have to have all your shit packed and out the door by 11. We met some people from the hostel that wanted to go out and we did. I figured out why I dont see many people my age out and about, they are all cramped into underground rooms dancing their asses off. I was already drunk when we went out and so I only stayed long enough to drink one then me and the germans from the hostel left but speyers had the disco fever and stayed. So yeah I felt like death when I woke up and was not digging anything about the day, I actually hated everything. We only went 60km then found nice camping along the rhine and we got to see our first real mountains. The next day shit got real.

We got out of the campsite around 11 after a couple cups of coffee on a lawnchair peeping the mountains. We set out for Koblenz which is 60 km away. The riding was a breeze, we thought, just follow the river. When we got to koblenz it turns out that the river split into another fair sized river and of course we followed the wrong one. When we were 30 km down the river we realized something wasn't right, this river is too small. So we figured it out and set out to correct it. The rivers run parallel so it wasn't so bad, we thought. We found a road that connected them and set out for it. Immediately upon inspection of the road we realized we where fucked. Mountains are cool, I love em, just not riding a bike with 70lbs of shit up one. But we did with surprisingly minimal ammount of stopping, I thought speyers was going to die, he didn't, but he did puss out and walk a portion of it. The climb was 4 km and we still encountered some more hills before the downhill. Before we did the epic downhill we enjoyed some coffee and put our helmets on. We get to the road that we are supposed go on to go downhill and there is a cop turning cars away and we thought we were fucked, until we saw him let one pass we went up him and he said it was cool for bikes. Yes a blocked road just for us to haul ass down, it was sweet, and very very scary. Speyers rode his brakes the entire way down and I waited a good while for him at the end. It was so cool, the max speed was 59.5 km. It turns out there was a marathon being run at the end so we busted out the bike stero, it was pretty funny. So we where pretty much dead after all that riding and the only campsites we could find where on the other side of the river and not a bridge or ferry in site and we almost gave up until we saw the glorious sign. Set up camp as it began to drizzle and then the great flood came ALL NIGHT. The bottom of my tent was moist when I woke up and I was not too happy about that. I sat in my tent and enjoyed some coffee so I could be content with laying back down on my sleeping bag then the sun illuminated my tent blue and I felt hope. I got up took a shower and when I got out it was raining again. Fuck, so we chilled and then the sun came out again this time for long enough to dry our tents and our spirits and as soon as we finished packing up it started raining again. This shit contined all day. Not wanting to spend 25 euros on a real rainpancho we bought 2 euro ones that were trashbags with cut outs for arms and a head and looked like kkk robes. We sounded and looked like trash in the wind. We rode until the weather was to fucked and we took a train to Frankfurt which was like 30km away.

Now we are at the 5 elements hostel and it's pretty awesome here. Last night me and a quite eclectic group of people (aussies are my new favorite) just sat in the hostel which had a bar and talked and were entertained by the passer byers. Did I mention the hostel in the heart of red light district. So some of the highlights from the night : A bum walks up to the window and starts pointing at shit on the table and at first I asssume hes talking about the one slice of pizza on the table and I point at it, he shakes his head, then the beer next to it, he shakes his head again, then the unlit candle next to all of it and he gives me the yes nod and I look at everyone with a wtf expression then we look back out the window and the bums buddy holds up a CD player from a car. Then when we were smoking a cigarette outside a group of young kids walk up and the most trashed one grabs one of our beers and takes a sip and we werent too mad because this kid was trashed trashed and then he starts talking shit about the police maybe 30 yards away, then he starts yelling shit about the police and they just sit there, then starts talking shit to me and I almost break my beer glass over his head but he had a way of defusing situations by saying ''oh I was joking, its fun'' Plus he was in a track suit, how can you be mad at someone in a track suit. I wonder if he ever got that ass beating he was looking for? Then this black bum puts on these pink sun glasses and just starts freaking out, it's really hard to describe because I had never seen anything quite like it, but it was definately the hardest I have laughed in the last 2 weeks. Well i'be been here for too long, time to see this city. -Max