Well, there it is

This blog is in its final stage: its shank has shrunk, and it is returning to its childhood, somewhere in the 0s and 1s of a data center guzzling energy somewhere it the world. It was a good blog. I got 33 comments! There is still a week to go before I touch down in the states again, but it is less of a stage of the trip than something intermediate.

It was a good trip and I have learned a lot from it. To get some of this giant mound of wisdom, just visit me and I'll tell you something.

However, the most important things are these:

1) Always travel with a canvas bag
2) Just ask someone

Hope you liked it.

Bye.

ps. it will be really interesiting to see how long this blog survives. One would think that these bytes would stay around forever somewhere, but I know they won't. Who knows, the Shawdyssey might be a must read in 5000 CE...



...

Hello from CZE

Apologies to our regular readers, but it shard to get to internet while on a bike. When we crossed the Danube east of Vienna yesterday we saw a day tourer with a palm pilot mounted between his handlebars. Maybe that is our next move.


Enter a new theme into the tour== EURO 2008.

We have gotten to see most of every game so far. There has been good play all around, but the Netherlands has captured my heart -as well as everyone elses- so far. We have just spent a day and a half in Austria (or Australia as dad called it once). I guess there were also 5 days in Hungary without a blog post, but you'll just need to seek me out for those stories...

yes, so Austria. We bypassed Vienna even though we were in the area because of the EURO 2008 crowds. We were sad for a bit, but we've learned to cheer ourselves up with pastries. We eat a lot of pastries people. Like, one time dad ordered two pastries for himself at one backery. DAD! But as they say, if you're biking all day everyday, then you're entitled to as much butter and sugar as you darn well please thank you very much.

We crossed the border into the Czech republic this morning, but just before we ran across this:

It was entirely deserted up there. We walked around it for about half an hour and then got on our bikes and kept on riding. Its near a town called Staatz, I think. So bike touring goes.

On Soviet Hotels

The last two nights (in Agnita and Turda) we have stayed in the only hotel we could find, which in both cases was a 30-50 room fortress built in the Soviet Era.

Neither of these towns have much of a Tourist industry, so were were the only customers. Also in both cases we were offered a meal in their vast dining room. The first night we turned it down as too weird, but the second night we were so loopy from riding that we tried it for a lark. We had a baked cheese, two salads, two plates of polenta, a basket of bread and a "Mix Grill" a piece, which had mashed potatoes, sausage, pork, and two types of liver. Jesse, I keep on trying your "wonder-meat", but it keeps on tasting like pencil lead.



Over the last 4 days we have ridden over 500km including a 1200m pass. Dad's computer has reset so many times now that we don't know anything exactly and the distances on the roads never correspond with those on the map, so all that is certain is that it has been a lot. We consider ourselves to be about halfway between Bucharest and Budapest at this point. The town of Brasov seemed interminably far away at one point and now it is 250km behind, so we are hoping that Budapest does the same thing.