Hungover in Hamburg or I always depend on the kindness of former mayors of small towns

August  14, 2012 Tuesday

bathroom artwork at Jim's Burritos

After a long night of partying with our new friends in Hamburg, we got a very late start. We jumpstarted our engines with burritos from a place called Jim's burritos (suggested by Alex from Suicycle). I was pretty excited to find burritos anywhere in Germany. The atmosphere was a bit cheesy with luchador masks all over the walls, but I let it slide due to the cool aluminum bike up on the wall in the hallway towards the bathroom and the siracha and tapatio on hand. Luca also joined us and told us it was his first time eating burritos. It wasn't the best burrito ive ever had, but it was exactly what i wanted and it hit the spot.
And then we were off!.... to lay down in a park to digest and then really get started. Hanako and I laid down in a park next to a lovely fountain and enjoyed the sunshine and cool breeze underneath a shady tree.

maxin' and relaxin' by the fountain

We started along a bike route that took us along the Elbe river. After getting out of the city and biking for a bit, we pulled over to eat some trail mix and carrots and shared a bench and conversation with a nice German man named Carson. He told us he had been to the states before with his futbol club when he was younger. We talked about Germany for a bit. It seems really great- awesome health care, unemployment benefits, and a months paid vacation. He seemed to really proud of his country and I can really respect that. He gave us more detailed directions to find the upcoming ferry crossing and we were on our way once again....
Only to stop for a moment so I could slide down the biggest slide Ive ever seen. It was pretty fun, but no joke it scared the hell out of me.

the slide of fun and doom

crossing the Elbe

We found the ferry crossing, and almost immediately started on the wrong bike path. We asked several people along the way where the next campingplatz would be, and no one seemed to notice that we weren't where we thought we were. So we hustled our asses off to where we thought the closest campingplatz was, but we found that we were about 20km south of the Elbe.
We pulled into this tiny town to ask for directions and stopped a tiny green car from pulling out of a driveway. The English speaker in the car, Gustav, was in the backseat, so the driver had to get out so that he could talk with us. He told us we were in downtown Wittorf and that the nearest campingplatz was 15 km away. He told us that he lived right across the street right next to the firehouse, so with about 30 min of sunlight left, I asked him if we could camp behind the firehouse. He told us that we could camp in his garden, and it turns out that he was the former mayor of the town and had keys to the firehouse bathrooms so that we could use them. As soon as he told us that we could camp, we noticed that Hanako had just gotten a flat tire (from what we discovered was about an inch long nail). Talk about some serious good luck.
 We set up camp pretty quickly and he brought us some sparkling water and canned fish (which I couldn't have) to eat. I was super sad, but at least Hanako got to eat it. We also warmed up some rice and had trailmix too. Gustav met us later for some conversation and wine. The company he works for does work with people in the US, so he frequently writes emails in English. We talked a bit of politics and economics and he seemed to be proud of his German heritage. He told us that the town had just celebrated 1000 years in 2008 and his wife had planned it out. He left us to sleep after about an hour, and we fell asleep to the sounds of cows from the farm next door.