“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
Today I woke up with high spirits, my knee was also getting better and I was ready to finally enjoy my trip. I did about 120 km, in the end you will understand why :P I passed through beautiful Austrian villages, enjoyed great weather, listened to my philosophy audiobooks, and generally, took the best out of the day.
By the way, I am not sure how much you are into philosophy, dear reader, but I would like to mention that I have a new favorite philosopher. His name is Spinoza, a quite unknown philosopher, very religious, yet outracized from all religions because he just could not keep his mouth shut and poke his nose where he should not. That guy was both ingenious and ingenuous (now you can finally learn the difference:) I am not saying that one should strive for perfection as he did, but he was clearly a very amusing guy. For instance, his greedy sister wanted to rip him off about his inheritance after their deceased father, but he, as a philosopher, had to prove adamantly that he was right, and spent a fortune to win the trail, just to make her admit that he was right. - afterwards he told her that she can keep everything anyway :P That is what I call ingenious and ingenuous at the same time. As if he did not think about the future that he might need that money. The other day, there was a rumor around in Holland where he was living in a certain period of his life that he was a French spy. When he heard of that, he wanted to publicly declare in the front of everyone on the main square that he was, clearly, not a spy. Just in the nick of time, his landlord managed to lock him in his room to prevent this unmitigated disaster. His work, however, seems very logical and precise, with a spark of irony in many statements and axioms. He would clearly be a saint had he not stood up against certain axioms of the Church. What a pity that he never got recognized during his lifetime. It was clear to him that his papers are so controversial that they could not be published officially. Nonetheless, his masterpiece about ethics was widely recognized after his death and caused quite a stir in intellectual circles. Better for him that he was dead; otherwise he would be accused of heresy by all means at those times. Maybe one day the Catholic Church will recognize him as a saint - that would be a nice gesture. In such a case, he would be clearly proclaimed the patron of irony and sarcasm.
On the other hand, I was quite disappointed by Sartre and I am contemptuous about his lascivious lifestyle, allegedly intellectual drug addiction an many other things that probably made him the most popular philosopher of all times. Not my cup of tee, however.
That's about my impression from philosophy and now let's get back to the real world. Early in the afternoon I met a Czech family on a similar bike trip. It was so cute; they even had their little babies in a small bike caravan. Now I know how I am going to spend my holidays in the future. All inclusive 4 star hotel? Nope, nothing for me – after 2 days I would be bored to death.
I have to pose a question: How much do you like shopping? Well, I mean food, obviously, because it is crystal clear that women enjoy shopping trinkets and men shopping cars, electronics, and sport stuff. But what about food? I guess you know that feeling when you enter a supermarket while being totally hungry. Well, this feeling was strongly intensified by my exhaustion and utmost hunger that day. When I entered a Lidl supermarket, it was like coming to the paradise – so many different things, yet so little place to put it in. The hunger I am talking about is the feeling of having no energy at all after a very intensive workout. Basically, your whole body is shaking and you hanker after excessive calories. Those who do sport will damn well know what I mean.
I made another roundabout that proved to be a big mistake because the road was totally dilapidated. I should have taken the original route. I had to move extremely cautiosly to save myself from troubles with the bike. I risked a little when I rode on a narrow dam instead of the beaten road because falling down from there could have been quite nasty.
This day I wanted to arrive near Linz, but in the dawn the rain set in. It would not be a good idea to build my tent in the city park; therefore, I decided to continue despite inclement weather conditions. It was a very unpleasant ride and furthermore, my last cell phone battery went flat, thus I was unable to locate my position on the map. No directions, no place to build my tent, heavy rain and dark – that was not a pleasant situation I was caught in. The only good option at that time for me was to carry on nevertheless, put on my light gadgets to tune up my bike into a moving carousel, and go on the car road to Linz. Around 11 pm the road connected to a highway and I was forced to find a place to stay in the nearby city. I tried to look for a place where nobody would come and that would be safe from the thunderstorm. I found such a place in the bushes on the corner of an open area. I quickly built my tent and set myself to sleep. What a coincidence that I built my tent only about 10 m below a train bridge! You can imagine that I did not enjoy a good night sleep then.
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