Give Me Feedback on my Totally Not A Book

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A lot of people tell me: “Write a book!” Or they ask, “Are you going to write a book?”

I don't know. I think first I should finish the trip.

But, because I'm a creator, I can't help but think about what that would look like. Would it be sequential or would I just talk about the people I met with cycling as a backdrop? How would I maintain anonymity if I said “so-and-so from such-and-such a place?” Would people actually read it? Do people still read books? Does anyone care enough about my relationship with depression to read the book if that's a major theme?

Dear reader, it's feedback time. What do you think a book about this trip would look like?

While I'm at it, what other feedback do you have for me? Anything goes! Do I write too often? Not enough? Am I too introspective? More photos? Fewer? Any and all feedback is appreciated, however praising or critical.

Before you keep reading, comment below and give me feedback. If you don't want to log in, you should be able to comment as “Anonymous” via the dropdown menu. Or, you can e-mail me at kyle@cyclehumanity.com, or comment on my Facebook page.

So, now that you've left feedback (you left feedback, right?)... since I have been thinking about what a book would look like... if I could start it now, here's what that might look like.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti


There is nothing really magical or supernatural about this story besides the fact that it happened. Some stories, especially nowadays, will say there is nothing magical about them, that they are completely normal, but they are selling something. I am not. Okay, I am. But really, I'm a normal guy. I just made some abnormal choices. But this story probably doesn't have a happy ending. I don't know how it ends; as I write this, it's not over yet. But you should know that I probably go back to my desk job and a semi-normal life afterwards. I'll just take my experiences with me. Because experiences – unlike anything else in our lives – experiences cannot be taken away from us.

Your average movie-grade story has an inciting incident. Watch any movie and you'll see something happen that changes the life of the main character forever. A relative will die, someone will tell them they are special, their computer will get hacked, someone they love will get kidnapped, they will find a ring or see a falling star. About halfway through they'll figure out they are “the one” and discover they have special powers. Movies (unintentionally) condition us to believe we are special: we just haven't been discovered yet. Don't feel special? Don't worry! If you continue working your 9-5 a crane will break through the wall, setting into motion a sequence of events resulting in defeat of the bad guy (who has been hiding in the shadows this whole time) and winning the heart of your true love (who you may or may not have met yet; maybe meeting them is the inciting incident).

The problem is, most people wait around and no inciting incident ever happens to them. Most of us have to decide to change our lives and do the hard work of changing it: quitting our jobs, leaving that bad relationship, whatever. Most of us won't get kidnapped or inherit a large sum of money or discover we have an illegitimate child; instead, we just go through the motions that society has made easy for us to go through: school, college, job, marriage, house, retirement, funeral. Scrolling through our Facebook news feed.

There is nothing wrong with this sequence of events, but there are also other things you can do with your life. As long as you do what you do purposefully. People have told me how amazing and wonderful my life sounds... yet there is nothing special about me except that I decided to live this way and then took action to make it happen. I chose to not care about the things most other people care about, like sleeping in the same place every night, being able to access the internet whenever I want to, and having a car. I've purposefully prioritized indefinite travel over having a nice house in the suburbs. Nothing wrong with a nice house in the suburbs – but it's not as important, to me, as some other things.

I have, of course, met plenty of people living in a house in the suburbs who are really happy, and that's awesome. I think the key, whether you live on a bike or in a house or in your car or the space station, is to live purposefully. You have to make the decision – not your parents, your other, your society, or the whim of fancy.

I don't think this story will end in defeating the bad guy because there is no bad guy (unless you want to personalize depression) and it's not about winning the heart of my true love. It's about forging a new life, an unconventional life, proving to myself that there's more to do when I wake up in the morning than getting a paycheck and buying stuff (Fight Club's Tyler Durden: “We work long hard hours at jobs we hate to buy stuff we don't need to impress people we don't like”) and seeing if doing that more will be fulfilling, even if it's hard.

It's about learning whether people around the world are good or if they're how they are represented in the media, if terrible things happen to people who step outside their comfort zone. Is the world ready for a story that doesn't involve defeating a bad guy or punching something or shooting something or blowing something up or a quest to win the heart of a true love or even just to get laid?

Probably. I'm pretty sure it's already been done. So like I said, there's nothing special about this story.

If I had to construct a completely fictional inciting incident that totally didn't happen, it would be this: I was lying on my bed feeling depressed, wondering what I was doing with my life. I opened my eyes and saw that poster I have on my wall – The Holstee Manifesto. I sat up. And read it. And this is what I saw:

Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them. So go out there and start creating.

I believe that. Because time and life are the most valuable things we have. They are the only things, once spent, we can never get back. And we can use them to construct experiences, which are one of the only things that can never be taken away from us.

Time and life are too valuable to be spent without purpose. Too many people with time and money and the privilege of choosing what to do with their lives just did what they were told or what was presented to them.

So I listened to that poster. I left. To meet people. And create things with them.

This is my story.

What do you think?

Heinrichsbrunn, Austria to Bratislavia, Slovakia: Tales of the Danube

When I left McDonald's after blogging, it was sunny. Trend: blogging at McDonald's makes the weather better. Maybe Ronald, like my University's president (also named Ronald!!!) has a weather machine in the basement!? Anyone know anybody else named Ronald who can control the weather? It's for science.

*ahem*

With the sun also came a plethora of other tourists. I don't know where they'd been hiding the past few days, but suddenly, I wasn't alone. I stopped to set up my bike as a drying rack and at least 10 other tourists passed me. Every picnic table seemed occupied by a pair of bikes and a couple eating lunch or taking a nap. It was glorious.

GUYS LOOK THE SUN IS BACK

Typical cycle rack along the Danube: occupied.

A much needed drying of socks, shoes, and gloves.

Also nobody spoke English.

I tried to stop at a riverside city to pick up a new chain, as my pedalstroke had been feeling... unhappy, to say the least. But, it was Sunday, so naturally everything was closed. Then I was going to keep going... but there was a storm passing by in front of me. I was sick of being wet, so I took a nap at a park...

"Oh, look at that storm cell passing by in front of me..."

...then tried to leave, but another storm cell appeared, so I thought... time to eat schnitzel!

Menu options for the day. Much time was spent on Google translate before the waitress just gave me an English menu...

Pancake soup.

View from the restuarant.

Soup, schnitzel, and cake for 7.90 Euro, plus a beer and a coffee – not bad. After eating, I was finally able to continue. Also the waitress was delightful. A friend told me Austrains were the “jolly German speakers,” and he was right. It wasn't just the waitress: most of the people who spoke to me were very happy about it, even though I had no idea what they were saying.

I continued down the river until reaching my goal for the night, 80 km from Vienna, where I had a Warmshowers stay set up the next night. This took me well into the night, but it was a nice bike path the whole way, so I didn't mind. I found a spot in an apple orchard, got a surprise fireworks show, and...

What parking spots are really for...

Castle sunset. Typical Austria...

...where was my helmet?

The next morning I would discovered it about 2 km back where I'd left it on a picnic table while searching my map for places to sleep. Such is the life of a tired cyclist.

The next day was fairly uneventful. The weather cooperated again and I made it to Vienna and found a new chain.

History is very Lord of the Rings here... or Game of Thrones, take your pick.

Also I raced a barge and won. I think. It might have passed me while I was asleep.

My host that night, and my first indoor stay since leaving Couchsurfing with Liviu in Munich on Thursday, was Samuel.

Samuel was awesome. He's a bicycle courier in Vienna, he knows how to decorate a flat, he takes tours every summer (since he has those since he's a student), and he surrounds himself with awesome people.

He can also pose like a boss. Secretly a male model?

One of those people was Webhe, a Syrian refugee, who I promptly and inadvertently began interviewing. I didn't intend it to be an interview, I just had a lot of questions, and every time I apologized profusely for asking so many questions, he said he didn't mind. He only spoke Arabic and German though, so Samuel had to translate.

This will be a vast simplification of a two-hour long conversation: Webhe didn't want to leave Syria, but his family was afraid for him. He's drafting age (as in, military draft) and naturally, his family didn't want him to go fight in a war they didn't believe in. So he left – first south to Lebanon, then a flight to Turkey, one of those terrifying boats for 15 but with 50 people to Greece, then bus, tuk-tuk, and whatever else it took to get to Austria (you can watch a video of another refugee's journey here. He likes to cook, so he has an interview to be a sous-chef at a restaurant next week, for which I wished him luck.

The thing that struck me the most about Webhe was his humbleness and humanity. He considered himself just another guy. He wanted to go back to Syria because it was his home – there was nothing specific he would cite besides his family and the general feeling of belonging that he missed the most. The first thing he wants to do when he gets back is something to help other people rebuild – open a restaurant maybe – and the thing he wishes everybody knew about him and the refugee crisis is that they are people, not headlines. All the refugees have families and homes and yes, a story to tell, but they are just people, like the rest of us, who want to go home, like the rest of us. I felt honored to get to know him; humiliated that I had, if only subconsciously, not thought about Syrian refugees as unique individuals but as numbers in a newspaper; and privileged that I could go back to where I was from anytime I wanted and not fear for my life.

Did I mention it was humbling?

We talked a lot about other things to, but that was the most striking part. After a while another Warmshowers guest joined us, Michael, and as most of the conversation was in English, Webhe left for his room. Michael, Samuel and I geeked out about cycle touring and drank absinthe (ahem) and talked about leaving behind women we loved.

Celebrating new friends by drinking the local alcohol: how it's done.

The next morning I slept in a little more than intended – I had some frequent flier miles due to expire, so I booked a hotel in the next town over, Bratislava, for free. I would normally never stay in a hotel if I have a choice, but this was use-it-or-lose it, and it was free, so... I wanted to get there early and use it as much as possible! Of course, conversation took over at breakfast (how many cyclists does it take to eat a bakery's worth of bread...) and I had a chain to replace so I didn't get going until about 11. I noticed when replacing the chain that my back brake pads needed to be replaced (again...), so I stopped by a shop to pick up some more of those, then finally had a beautiful ride out of Vienna, along the Donauinsel (a long, skinny island in the middle of the Danube that's basically a giant park with bike paths everywhere and no cars), and along the Danube to Bratislava, in Slovakia.

Left to right: Me, Webhe, Samuel, Michael.

Biking through Vienna.

Dead brake pads in the foreground, shiny new chain in the background.

Austria be like, "Where you wanna stealth camp bro?"

I'm in Slovakia.

This excites me.

Slovakia is the first country of the trip I didn't really learn about in history class, whose language I didn't have the ability to learn in school, whose culture is rarely featured in American media... I've already learned so much about other places I've never been before and other people I've never met before, but this starts the part of the trip where I learn about places and people comparatively few others know about. I know a lot of people who have been to England, France, Germany, etc... I know one person who has been to Slovakia.

The well-dressed gentleman lives in Slovakia, too!

My favorite new game: What is this an ad for?

Riding through Bratislava.

So. Here I sit in a hotel room in Bratislava. I invited Michael to join me, actually, since we are headed the same direction, but he got into Bratislava a bit late and the hotel is a bit out of town. I hope to meet him again. But tomorrow, I'll continue down the Danube, with the goal of making it to Budapest on Friday, and then it's only about a week to my WWOOF in Ukraine!

IT'S FLAT OUT THERE

Bratislava, Slovakia: That Time I Was Happy

Sitting on a sequence-of-events post but internet is... less than ideal here and it wouldn't work without photos. Here! Have this instead!

A few posts ago I concluded I might actually be happy more than half the time. “Concluded” might not be the best word, of course, because I also used “might” and ended with a question mark; nonetheless, I think I received more feedback on that sentence than I have on any other motif of the blog. I am grateful, of course, to have followers that want me to be happy, but I also feel it would be remiss not to elaborate a bit more on what I meant and how exactly I'm feeling.

I've linked to this comic like four times in this blog so I apologize for doing it again, but if you haven't read it, go read it and then you can ignore it when I link it a sixth time: engagement is more important than happiness.

What I felt when I wrote I was happy more than half the time was that I was engaged. It's easier to say you're “happy,” of course, but that's not how I was feeling and to me, that's okay. Happiness isn't my goal. I am happy often, but happiness is a byproduct. I am happy; more, though, I am engaged.

When I left for this trip, I had depression and anxiety. I still “have” them; much the way you might have polka-dot socks, they are still there even when they aren't taking over your life. But they are no longer taking over my life. I am no longer anxious all the time; I am anxious, but what I would call a “normal” amount (whatever that means). In the past month I have only had sleep paralysis (where you dream you can't move; more annoyingly for me, I usually “wake up” into another dream, think, “finally, I can move!” only to discover I'm still paralyzed) once. I haven't had any anxiety attacks, and I haven't felt terribly sad, lonely, or listless (again, not any more than a “normal” amount, whatever that means).

I've felt... purposeful.

I've developed a sort of faith that things will work out. Because for four months, they have (there was that shop that sold me the wrong size tire and then wouldn't let me return it, but for the most part...). I haven't gotten arrested, beat up, robbed, or any plethora of other things that could have possibly happened (knock on wood). I continually meet incredible people and experience seemingly endless kindness. My attitude when things don't go quite right is no longer, “Let's dwell on this until it's devoured my soul,” but, “What awesomeness is this precipitating?”

I don't believe (yet?) that every happenstance precipitates another, but that this trip is so continually filled with cool people is hard to ignore. If I have, for now, overcome my anxiety and depression, I've done it by filling my life with positive experiences. The brain is sort of like a river valley: the route most taken is the route most likely to be taken. If you want to have new mental habits they are hard at first, like digging out canals; as the water begins to flow the route becomes self-sufficient and widens itself, then the flow becomes stronger and eventually almost unstoppable. I used to have to try to be positive: I would dwell on small things that didn't matter, the voice in my head played songs about feeling lost and lonely and angry. Now, the songs that pop into my head are goofy and fun and celebratory (“because I knew you, I have been changed for good...;” Avenue Q's If You Were Gay). I'm more outgoing, I smile more.

There's research that says your life circumstances only dictate 10% of your happiness, but I wonder how much your lifestyle dictates. I used to work 40 hours a week at a job I liked that was sometimes engaging. I worked with great people (many of whom I miss... Orders team, comment on my blog again!?), but some of the duties were less than engaging. For a while, I had a friend group that was continually judging me and I invested way too much into unhealthy relationships (a few in particular). I spent more time than I care to admit on “the internet” and playing video games.

I wasn't living what I would call an unhealthy life – it is, perhaps, the average American lifestyle (though I am reminded of that quote, “There is nothing healthy about being well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society...”). There's nothing wrong with any of those things; many have done them. I don't regret having lived that life and it might be waiting for me when this trip is over. But compared to the way I'm living now, it's night and day. My time is evenly split between exercise, sleep, and getting to know people; “chores” are limited to cleaning the bare necessities of living (my clothes) and repairing my bike; I get to know new people every day; I do something every day that scares me, yet given the trend of everything working out, I feel safe. Nothing I do is without purpose, except occasionally after a blog post I find myself scrolling through my News Feed (and then I feel listless and stop). With my previous lifestyle, digging the river away from depression was a chore; now, it seems to have happened on its own.

It can, of course, always go back. Those polka-dot socks are still there, hiding under the pants' legs.

Time and life are the two most valuable things we are given: they are the only things that, once spent, we never get back. You can always make more money or buy a new car. But you will never get younger and you will never meet anyone else like the people you meet. Once they're gone, they're gone. I'm spending my time meeting people – finding out what they are passionate about and sharing stories and ideas with them, exploring what it means to be human, to love, to feel. And that is the most engaging and meaningful thing I can think of doing.

Let's close with some Tim Krieder, shall we?

My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue, but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy.

Munich, Germany to Heinrichsbrunn, Austria: The Strangest Sleeps

The original plan was to leave Munich on Wednesday, but Liviu and I were getting along swimmingly and I wanted to find a new rear wheel for my bike, so I asked to stay another day (Liviu: “Stay as long as you like!”). I spent Thursday searching bike shops for a compatible wheel (most said they could order one in; one shop, interestingly, had plenty of stock but only dealt in 26” wheels – more common on mountain bikes and in third world countries) and finally found one at the sixth shop I visited. There was much “Do you speak English”-ing and typing things into Google translate and gesturing. Many independent stores in Munich don't take credit or debit cards, which is fine, since it can be hard to make a profit by doing so (Visa takes a cut, if you didn't know). So, I went to an ATM, then back to the store, and got my wheel.

The second shop I visited had actually recommended the sixth shop to me, and their mechanic seemed quite knowledgeable and kind. So when the shop with the wheel didn't have the tire I wanted, I returned to the second shop to buy the tire. When I first visited, the mechanic was confused why I needed a new wheel – then she looked at my current one. Noticing the nice curve to the brake surface, she looked at me and smiled one of the most genuine smiles I have ever seen, as if to say, “Dang boy, you ride this thing!” It was a beautiful moment.

That night, Liviu and I (okay, mostly Liviu, I was wiped and fell asleep halfway through) watched my favorite movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It's about a guy who works an office job but daydreams about doing more. You should all go watch it right now (trailer).

Finally, Thursday came. I didn't want to leave my newfound best friend, but as I know now, there are more friends to be found. We hugged, he went to work, and after packing up the explosion of stuff I'd made on his floor, it was time to go.

That day was fairly uneventful, except for the hubbub of trying to sleep. I scouted out three places all within half a mile of each other – a memorial, a race track, and a mini church. The memorial was covered in teenagers and I didn't feel good about the race track, so I went for the church. It was nice, until about 9:15, when a tractor started working the field next to it. I hadn't set up my tent or anything – I was just relaxing on the bench – so I went back to the memorial. Still covered in teenagers. Race track. After 20 minutes there, I started feeling nervous, so I went back to the church – the tractor was gone. But then at 1 AM, a car on a road I hadn't noticed saw me from far away – I woke to the initial flash of their headlights, then they backed up and put them on me for 10-15 seconds more. I assume they say the reflective sidewalls on my bike, which I had neglected to hide very well (“What are those random circles on the other side of the hay field?”). They drove off, but I was awake and nervous, so... memorial.

The usual "bike paths everywhere" leaving Munich.

Sunset from the church.

I have no idea what this is but most towns have one. Someone who knows German culture, educate me?

The next day wasn't terribly eventful either, except I made it to Austria. I found a picnic spot with a view and tried to set up my bivvy – but, having a view, people were in and out until about 10. I wondered: if I just set up in a corner and went to sleep, would they even notice me? But, I didn't want to risk it. I went hiking in the woods to kill time. Finally, after two couples, a trucker, and some other guy, I had the place to myself. As I was setting up, I noticed some lightning on the horizon, but as it was quite far off, I decided to think nothing of it unless it got close enough to wake me.

Bike paths in Austria: spontaneous rebirth edition.
Also, the well-dressed gentleman from Switzerland is back, and he has a kid now.

It woke me at about 11. I thought, “eh, what's a little thunderstorm?,” put the fly over my bivvy, and went back to bed.

At about 11:30 I woke up again – the lightning was coming so fast now the sky was practically on fire. Flash... flash... flashflashflash... flashflash! But I couldn't hear anything – heat lightning? I pulled out my phone and searched for the nearest church – 5 miles away, a 30 minute ride. Then I heard the wind. I heard it. Howling. I decided I couldn't make it to the church in time, so I started staking out the fly. The soil was really not good, I could only get the stakes in about an inch. Before I even got one in satisfactorily, the wind came in, and the fly blew over. Okay, I said to myself, time to find shelter.

As fast as I could, I threw all the tent supplies into a pile and rolled them up together, then stuffed them in the tent sack. My sleeping pad and bivvy I rolled up together as well. There was lots of standing on stuff and putting water bottles on things to try and keep them from blowing away. I was worried I would blow away, just standing there. Leaves and small branches were falling all around me; looking up, the lightning revealed tree silhouettes bending over backwards. As I bent down to pack something up, a small branch landed on my head. I was fine, but at that point I considered leaving everything as it was. Almost done though...

I threw what wasn't strapped to the bike up against a small brick wall and put the bike on top of it all, then dove under a picnic table to think. Just as I got under, the rain began. Slowly at first...

What were my options? The church was too far away now. I could stay under the picnic table, where I'd be safe from branches, but would undoubtedly – thunk, a branch landed on top of the picnic table -- get wet. There was a tiny roof over the recycling bins. Or... was that trucker parked out by the road?

Plan: run up to the recycling bins to check them out. If they're no good, go look for the truck. 3... 2... 1...

I could wedge myself between the recycling bins and the roof, but it would be a tight fit, and there was bird crap on one of the bins. Better bird crap on my pants than a tree on my head, but I would literally have had to wedge myself in. To the truck!

I sprinted the 100 feet down the path to the parking lot, my headlamp revealing a fallen tree just in time to jump over it, there's the truck!, ran up and knocked firmly on the door. The curtain moved aside for a moment and a face appeared, then the door opened a crack. He said something in German. “Can I come in out of the rain!?” I shouted. The door opened further and he beckoned. As I climbed up, the seat moved back. I got in, closed the door, and turned to look at him. He was sitting on a bunk just behind the seat, wearing nothing but underwear. He said something in German. I took a moment to remember the only complete sentence I knew: “Sprechen si englisch?”

He gave me the same “Are you kidding me?” look I get a lot with that question, then stood up and said what he said again, while pointing towards a second bunk folded just above the fist. “Ja,” I said. He pulled it down, then crawled back into the lower bunk. “Danke,” I said; then, taking off my shoes and jacket and leaving them on the floor, climbed into the upper bunk.

“Ok?” he said from below me.

“Ok.”

He turned off the light. “Danke,” I said again, then again. I would have survived under the picnic table or on the recycling bins, but now, it seemed, I had a place to sleep. Rain poured on the roof and it took me about 30 minutes to calm myself enough that I could fall asleep. Finally, the adrenaline dissipated, and I closed my eyes and drifted off.

At 5 AM his alarm went off, he got dressed, and stepped out to smoke a cigarette. I knew I could have feigned being asleep still, but I didn't want to overstay my welcome. I got up, got dressed (it was really hot in there so I had also stripped) and climbed down the bunk, opened the door, then climbed down the steps into the fresh morning air. There was a carnage of tree parts everywhere.

The truck driver asked me something in German, but I shook my head in non-understanding. He pointed at me, then down the road one way, then the other, then shrugged. I pointed the way I was going. He then mimed walking. I mimed pedaling a bike with my hands. He nodded, then took a drag from him cigarette.

“How do you call yourself?” I said. He shook his head. I took out my phone and opened Google translate, then typed in “What's your name?” and held the phone towards him.

“Michael,” he said, though the “ch” sound was very German, not at all like a “k,” more like a throaty “sh:” Mee-shy-all. “Danke, Michael,” I said. He shrugged. “Alles gut?”

“Ja,” I said. “Alles gut.”

I went back to my bike to assess the damage. After some searching I recovered my belt, a bungee cord, and a few tent stakes that had gotten strewn about. Nothing else appeared to be missing and nothing had fallen on my bike. I re-packed the sleeping pad and bivvy sac, then went on my way. I rode by the truck again, but it looked like Michael was inside, and the curtains were drawn. I had already bothered him enough, so I went on my way.

Picnic table (center); recycling bins (right).

Michael's truck. THANKYOUSOMUCH.

On the bike path into town there was an entire tree blocking the path. I wondered if it would have landed on me if I'd tried to make the church. I heard two honks from behind, then Michael's truck blew by. I smiled and waved.

Tree blocking the bike path.

Old German-Austrian border, now just a BP.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful except for the rain and needing to take a few detours due to fallen trees. My goal was to make it to Linz, halfway to a Warmshowers stay the next night. Did I mention that it rained? A lot? It was obnoxious. Also I stopped at a bakery and learned how to ask for a “regular coffee” in German. It started because I was trying to order from a non-English speaker. I said “cafe” (with the French accent) and held my pointer and thumb an inch apart, trying to indicate I wanted a small one. “Espresso?” she said – sensible, given the distance between my fingers. “No, like... an Americano,” I said, widening the gap between my fingers. We stared at each other for a bit, then another worker behind the counter said, in English, “So like a regular coffee?”

“Yes please.”

“Cream or sugar?”

“Just cream.”

Later I went up and asked the English-speaking barista how to ask for a regular coffee. “In Austria,” she said, “it's...” and then, I remember what she said, but upon reading some articles trying to find the proper spelling I wonder if I heard correctly? Apparently Austria doesn't just do “coffee.”

It's not the same as a chasson-aux-pommes, but it is good...

Anyways, throughout the day I battled the cold, knowing the best ways to keep warm are to eat and to pedal. All the same, there was lots of swearing every time I put on my rain jacket after taking it off under a bus stop for a snack. Also, since grocery stores are closed on Sunday – even the big-box ones – and it was Saturday, I tried to stock up at 5:45 PM, 15 minutes before they all closed... but then ate most of it anyways. It seems I might go hungry on Sunday.

I made it into Linz about 8, much later than I would've liked, and began looking for a place to camp. The rain stopped, so after going across the river, I celebrated by biking up the river promenade the wrong way, having a snack, then biking back. While I snacked I found on my map an isolated-looking picnic spot about 10 miles down the river, bike path all the way there. I kept my light off to save battery until almost clotheslining myself on a fence, then... kept not using it because I didn't think that would happen again. I passed a few barges anchored for the night (through the windows of one I could see a big-screen TV on... life on a barge: not so bad? Travel all the time, anchor in whatever river, get paid...), made camp, and fell asleep to the sounds of water dripping from the trees, swans pruning themselves, and cruise ships in the locks downstream.

Me trying to be artistic... maybe some color enhancement is needed? Nah, too lazy.

RVs have it so easy... "Ooh look, a parking lot! Let's park THERE!"

Fallen tree from last night's storm.

Munich, Germany: Musings from the Road

”Musings from the Road” is any post where the content is not constrained by chronology. This gives me more freedom to write about whatever comes to my mind, though the content will almost always be influenced by the tour in some way.

Beer In a Hurricane

One of my friends sent out an e-mail after Hurricane Sandy. There were a few motifs, but one was being aware that what makes other people happy might not make you happy:

If you see someone buying an xbox with their tax refund or saved tip money, after they've used food stamps for dinner, and that seems unreasonable, just remember I bought a roast and a case of beer during a hurricane.

Recently I had to buy another rear wheel. I was hoping to get something used for around $20-40, but in the end got a new wheel for about $100. I also got a new tire (since the old one had a hole in it from the old wheel exploding) and a new seat (since the old one had broken back in England), also both things I could have gotten used. In fact, I don't think I've ever owned a new bike seat before – except once when I bought a new bike, except that bike was an unsold model from 2 years ago, so it wasn't exactly new... and I ended up not using that seat anyways since bike seats are as personal as favorite coffee mugs.

In any case, someone had recently donated an amount that came to roughly the sum of these purchases with the note, “Life doesn't always come with tailwinds.” As I was riding my bike to the community bike shop to swap the cassette, my old wheel blew. BLEW. With a bang.

I had to walk the rest of the way (only 3 blocks, not bad). And I was like, “No life does effing not always come with tailwinds.” So while this person didn't specifically say, “Go buy yourself a new wheel,” it seemed fitting that the amount they donated was the same as the amount I spent and they had effectively saved me from being without a rear wheel. Yet I had it in the back of my mind that, I could have gotten a used wheel, a used tire, a used seat... those may not have lasted as long, but I would have saved money.

Ultimately, I'm okay with having bought new. I'm usually opposed to this – most of us don't really need new things (for instance, the cost-per-useful-mile of buying a used car is often immensely less than that of a new one, and don't even get me started on environmental impact)... but often, new items do last longer, and on tour, you want things to last as long as possible. Even if I quit in India next year, halfway around the world, that's still another 5000 miles. I hope this donor would be okay with that, but if not... maybe a new wheel is my beer-in-a-hurricane?

On a side note, I built the wheel that broke, and it lasted over 12,000 miles and failed because of wear, not construction. I never had to replace a spoke and it rarely needed truing. I'm pretty proud of that.


Compassion Under Pressure

A quote I try to live by is this: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that” (Martin Luther King). I spend a lot of time thinking about this on tour. How can I show compassion to people who are less-than-polite? Most people are immensely kind, of course, but every now and then you meet someone who is just having a bad day, and I don't think being rude to them in return makes their day any better.

Back in the States I had a stay with a host and I kept moving the date around. First I'd overshot the date, then something went wrong. By the time I showed up I'd changed the date three times. Their review of me? “Kyle was very communicative about his arrival date.”

I was baffled. I was expecting, “Kyle kept moving the date around and it was really annoying.” And that would have been fair!

Once I was at a stoplight going straight, the light turned green for left turners, and somebody honked. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before so I was a bit grumpy: I turned and made eye contact with the car behind me and said, “I'm going straight!” I assumed they were honking at me. The car next to them (in the left turn lane) said, “It's me, dude. I'm going straight from the left turn lane.”

“Oh,” I said. Then, “You can go in front of me if you want.”

I felt bad for getting grumpy for no reason. Yea, I was tired. But on a bike, getting grumpy at drivers is dangerous. More, it was just unnecessary. I want to be compassionate and patient even when tired – even when grumpy. Apparently, I have some work to do.


Caught Camping

I mentioned earlier that I was caught camping for the second time, but I never wrote about the first. Here it goes, then.

I had camped the previous night in a beautiful spot on an unused field (above), so I was feeling ambitious about finding yet another beautiful spot. I did, but there was a caveat: the only flat spots were either with a view of the ocean from my tent and a view of my tent from the road, or no views at all. Since England has hedge rows everywhere, the only way anyone would see me from the road would be if they walked by and turned and looked for me. I figured, what are the chances?

Well, it wasn't two hours later I was reading my book and heard footsteps. I looked up and the owner of the field was staring incredulously at me. He started to walk over but I, knowing it's always better to be proactive, stuck my head out of the tent and said hello.

”Were you planning to pay?” he said, still incredulous.

“How much would you like?” I said, completely honestly. I was (evidently) on his property, and I had my tent set up and was willing to pay not to have to take it down and move elsewhere. I would move, of course... I just didn't want to.

“There's a campsite down the road, it's quite cheap, really!”

Not wanting to argue with him about how that campsite was full of camper vans and being the only tent sucks because nobody realizes how noisy camper vans are when they are in one, I offered again: “How much would you like?”

“If you would've asked I would have said yes!”

“I didn't know who to ask,” I said, honestly. I wasn't even sure where he'd walked from, there were only barns nearby which had been empty when I'd come in.

“As long as you're gone in the morning, I'll let you stay,” he said, and stammered off.

I'll fully admit my ambition got the better of me here. I was happy to have gotten permission to stay there, but felt bad that I had made someone angry. It is never my intention to make people feel taken advantage of, and I hope that after he cooled off he thought maybe I needed a place to stay that wasn't covered in camper vans and he had done me a favor at no cost to him (he did). But ultimately I know stealth camping comes with a risk of being found. I should have gone with the spot that didn't have a view of the ocean and couldn't have been seen from the road; since I got caught, I just tried to be as humble as possible.

Shotgun Edition - Lots of anecdotes that don't fit anywhere else

1. In Europe, you now have to verify your ID to buy a SIM card, because terrorists have been using them as throwaway methods of communication. My current host gave me a SIM card he had lying around, but only after he was on the phone with someone using his camera to take pictures of my ID.

2. Switzerland is expensive. I tried to buy as little as possible there. They even use their own currency so it's hard to know how much you're spending. My current host has heard stories of people paying what ends up being $8 for a coffee. In Germany they call this being “Switzerlanded.”

I had to call my Swiss friends while I was there but I was still on my French SIM card. Not wanting to spend 1E/minute, I used a payphone. The display read 0.10E/minute.

A $51.50 charge has posted to my account.

Switzerlanded.

(yes I am contesting it, the call was only 3 minutes!)

3. Are we obliged to gush about people who are kind to us? In the age of five-star reviews, more and more companies and people get angry or insistent if you don't tell them they are amazing. Why isn't a four-star experience acceptable? What if something was imperfect but I still had a great time? When I stay with hosts that are a little messy, or have a smelly refrigerator (pulling these examples out of thin air, by they way, they aren't actual feedbacks for anyone in particular), I don't really care – but someone else down the line might. Should I write an objective review? Is it possible to communicate I had a five star experience even if there was street noise all night? If the host explodes in rage that I didn't profusely congratulate them on their imminent perfection, does that say more about me or more about them?

For my two cents, honesty and humbleness are some of the most underrated and underused tools we have. Accepting criticism with grace and still knowing you're awesome, that it's okay to get 99/100 and that one or two pieces of negative feedback doesn't mean you're 0/100, is something we all should be working on.

4. This is my life now. It's finally settled in. I live without a static home, moving from place to place, sometimes meeting people and sometimes sleeping where I can. It no longer feels temporary, like something that will end any day now. It's just my lifestyle. There are ups and downs, like life. There are easy days and hard days.

This is my life.


Happiness: Tim Kreider Edition

I talk a lot about happiness and how it's not something you can chase or grow or produce. It's a byproduct, best enjoyed when it decides to show up and more likely to return the more gracefully you let it go. I love Tim Kreider as an author, and recently rediscovered an excerpt of his that I very much like on this subject. I thought I'd share it. The build up is about 2 pages, and it's all beautiful and I find it all to be true, but in order not to plagiarize I've selected only the conclusion.

Perhaps the reason we so often experience happiness only in hindsight, and that chasing it is such a fool’s errand, is that happiness isn’t a goal in itself but is only an aftereffect. It’s the consequence of having lived in the way that we’re supposed to – by which I don’t mean ethically correctly so much as just consciously, fully engaged in the business of living. In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it’s also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the “real” stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past.

The book is called We Learn Nothing and I recommend it to everyone, if only for the occasional artistic bits about life's truths like the one above.