We travelled through the night and arrived this morning in Germany, in Passau.
We had signed up for another bike ride, and this one was guided by a real livewire, a local woman around my age called Britta. There were around 16 guests, some well into their seventies, but Britta set a cracking pace that had us all sweating. We had to eventually ask her to slow down. Luckily Milos was at the back, taking care of the stragglers. Once this was me while I took this photo.
The morning was cool with a low mist that burnt off by late morning, and it turned into a lovely day. Passau is a cute university town on the border with Austria. In fact, we crossed the border during our ride. At one point we walked across a footbridge, and the border was marked on the bridge itself.
We cycled back through the town of Passau on the other side of the river. Our guide took a photo of us on the bridge and when I said thank you in German she said my pronunciation was excellent, ahem.
Around the corner from the bridge was an old city gate, Britta said it was 80 years older than when America was discovered. I could hear a number of the Americans present saying in a confused tone “80 years? Before 1775? So that’s…..1695? That’s not so old…” Actually I think she was referring to 1492 (when Columbus sailed the ocean blue).
As soon as we got back to the ship, we set off for our final destination of Vilshofen. After lunch we had our final lectures, again excellent and full of so many pearls of wisdom from actual clinicians who are dealing with obesity every day in their practice.
We arrived mid afternoon in Vilshofen and Simon and I set out for a walk around the town. It was a gorgeous autumnal afternoon, warm and sunny. There was a faux Octoberfest organised for the entertainment of the passengers which we avoided like the plague. It was still sunny so we sat out on our deck listening to the Oompa band.
More sporting success for NZ, the Blackcaps won the test in India and the White Ferns won the 20 twenty cricket final against South Africa, having come off a ten game losing streak before the tournament. Also our netball team beat Australia. Awesome.
At dinner we sat next to a table of friendly people who were keen to chat. When they learned we were from NZ they asked why lamb was so expensive. Then they told a story about how much they’d had to pay for cigarettes the last time they were in Auckland. One couple used to live in Canada, and they would go to the local Indian reservation and buy cigarettes, 13 dollars for a carton of twenty packets. “And do you have a female Prime Minister? And does she want to outlaw handguns??” They then showed us photos of them posing with their semiautomatic weapons. Needless to say I didn’t initiate any political discussions.
Tomorrow we go our separate ways, Simon is heading back to Wellington and I am going to Italy, I have a conference in Florence in ten days.