Hanover today

Good ride through more beautiful country. The electronics are conspiring to torture me. Just as soon as I fix one problem, another appears.

The GPS continues to be flaky, failing several hours into a ride and losing all data. Turns out there was an update for the device which wasn't available before I left home. Thankfully there are internet cafes here in Hanover. So I paid my buck and downloaded the update. Worked like a dream. We'll see if the fix worked tomorrow, but I have faith. Then, my tablet's 3g service was blocked this evening. I anticipated this because the letter confirming a local address was going to be returned. I gave the Berlin address, but the name doesn't appear on any Berlin mailbox. My cellular advisor tells me I can overcome this with a phone call but not till tomorrow, Saturday. That's why this post may be late. Or not. I can also check out the paid internet. If you see this on Friday night my time, it worked.

Leaving Wolfsburg was much easier than leaving Berlin. There were fewer north/south flowing rivers which I needed to navigate around so while not straight, the route was straighter. I can't confirm, but I think the milage was about 45 miles today. Tomorrow I'm off for Bielefeld or a bit farther since Bielefeld is booked up.

Spent the evening in Hanover wandering around the downtown shopping area. It's shopping malls on speed. It rivals anything I've ever seen by a factor of 2 or 3. The comparison between east and west is shocking. The former East Germans are austere while their western counterparts drive Porsche's, BMWs and Ford Mustangs (heaven help me) and shop till they drop.

The bike paths are all quite nice. Most of the time they are separated from traffic. In towns, they share space with pedestrians. Apparently bikes and pedestrians have priority at crosswalks, because cars actually see you and understand that they need to stop and let you go. It's a truly amazing thing. I'm in pig heaven.

And speaking of porks. I've seen several trucks taking the huge beasts for a ride somewhere. You think they're just out for a summer ride, or is it a sad story? Given the vast quantity of sausage sold on the streets, I have to imagine the trip for the pigs may be their last.

When the Garmin works, it's a truly amazing piece of tech. When it doesn't, you want to bounce it off the concrete. If you aren't paying close attention to your last and next towns on the map, there is a moment of terror while you look for road signs to clue you in. I'm getting better at it. In truth, the intermittent failure if the GPS is making me a better navigator. If the thing worked all the time, I'd have little use for the maps. Tons of the bloody things. They print them on heavy paper and at the scale they're printed, I have about 8 just to get to Bonn. I'm starting to throw out clothes to compensate. I'm moving the bike at a good speed, but lighter would be better than heavy, especially if I hit a hill someday. This country so far, is flat as a billiard table. I know that will eventually change.

There aren't any photos of downtown Hanover because I was traveling light and taking the Ubahn. Best not to have too much hardware on the subway. I wish I did because there were things to see. I was walking towards the train station after dinner figuring to head back to the hostel when I heard really good jazz coming from an old bombed out, (but stabilized) church so I paid the admission and heard a local group who was quite good by the name of Salt. Nice venue with art hung in the opening where windows would once have been.

Photos below show some paths and signage. Unfortunately, more times than not, there isn't signage when I'm clueless. Same rule as buttered side of toast always points down.

The first sign takes some explaining. The bike paths are on one side of the road in one area and on the other further down. This sign is telling you to switch sides; fair enough. Why are there 2? Louder signs for the deaf or enfeebled? Who knows?

Clearly, there is a large commitment to wind and solar power, but the nuclear reactors are still hot, not withstanding the promise to end all nuclear power generation. I'll be interested to see if this position changes after the next election.