Our destination was Steinhuder Meer, which is a lake about 30km (19 mi.) outside of Hannover. In German, the word Meer means sea. The word See also means sea, but only if it is the feminine noun die See. If it's a masculine der See, then that's a lake. So the North Sea is die Nordsee, the Mediterranean Sea is the das Mittelmeer, and the lake in Hannover with the big scary fish in it is der Maschsee. And the Germans wonder why I have not yet mastered their language. Of course Steinhuder Meer is not a sea at all, it's just a big lake. It's like the size of Lake Geneva or any number of bigger Minnesota lakes.
After riding over railroad tracks, gravel paths, and probably some broken glass on the way, I got a flat tire about an hour into the trip. It turns out that I had chosen the worst possible bike for this journey - the one with tires that were not only skinny but old. We stopped under a tree and as I pulled out the spare tire and the pump from my saddlebags, an old lady stopped to talk with us. Since this doesn't happen often in Germany, I thought maybe she would offer to help us or let us use her phone or something. Instead, she said what you logically would to two women removing a wheel from a bicycle: (this is my rough translation), "pardon me but do you know just how old this wonderfully beautiful tree is?" Olga later invented the story of how her great grandfather planted the tree back when he farmed this land, which is still in her family even though she never lived in Germany until two years ago. Had the old lady been around when we came up with that, I think she would have believed it.
Our trip continued along the Mitteland Canal, through some fields, into the woods and on all sorts of rocky, gravelly, muddy paths that seemed to be taunting my tires and just asking them to pop. They held out though, and we got to the town of Steinhude and the Steinhuder Meer, which looks like this:
It was lovely. We found a place to lock up our bikes in order to wander around and have lunch, until I realized that I would not be locking up my bike - I had no keys. They had been in my saddlebags and must have fallen out as I changed my stupid tire under the stupid old tree. Our only hope was to stop there on the way back and try to find them, or else I would be locked out and learning pretty fast about how to get keys copied in Germany.
I tried not to think about keys or tires for a while and enjoy the town, which I did. Steinhuder Meer is famous for its smoked eel. It is supposed to be delicious, and looks like this:
I usually like to try the local dish when I'm in a new place, but something about the word eel just made me think of this:
So I didn't eat any. Olga bought one and stuck it in her backpack so she could bring it to her husband. That seems normal. Why wouldn't you ride around with an eel in your bag?
I even enjoyed the first half of our ride homeward, until my tire went flat again. I had already used my spare, but Olga had a kit to patch the tubes. So we patched both of them, put the tire on again and kept going... for about ten minutes. The patches were not as invincible as we thought, and the gravel was unforgiving. The routine went like this: tire goes flat, stopping, tire off, patching, swearing, re-patching, tire on, laughing, tire pumping, swearing, repeat. In the end I changed my rear tire five times. I got pretty good at it. My main goal was to get back to my stupid keys under the stupid old tree (if they were still there) and then I didn't care what happened. By then we'd be close enough to jump on a tram, or I could jump on the tram and Olga could ride home and do some swearing of her own. In the old days, Brian in his shining pickup truck could have come to rescue me, but the best we can do now is a bus ticket or a pair of rollerblades, and neither of those would have helped.
So, covered in grease, with a bleeding knuckle and melted chocolate of mysterious origin stuck to my pedal, we made it back to the big old tree. It was a big, beautiful, wonderful tree, because my keys were lying beneath it, glimmering in the sun (cue up angelic chorus). At least something had started to go my way. Thank goodness for Olga's imaginary great grandfather.
Olga may never invite me to go on a bike ride with her again. And, if she does, I will bring my slow, beat-up city bike and a lot of spare tubes. If there is a next time, maybe I would even try some eel, or stick it in my saddlebags for later.
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