27 Sept 2013
Rostock to Schwerin
17 miles & Train

My bicycle has basically become a rolling luggage rack, I think to myself while standing at the Rostock train station. It’s like being a bellhop but without the benefit of tips. It’s raining but we are under cover, waiting for our train to the town of Schwerin. We’ve decided it’s time to fast-forward west, the direction we need to head in order to loop back up into Denmark.

Now we always get a little stressed out when taking the bikes on the trains. There are marked bicycle carriages but you never know exactly where they will be and today, to make matters worse, there are no less than 2,000 people waiting for the same train. Ok, maybe a few less than 2,000 but it is crowded – the most crowded we’ve ever seen – and everyone has a suitcase or a bicycle or a pram, meaning lots of toes will get run over as we all push and elbow our way to the doors. It never hurts to have a lead blocker in these kinds of situations and luckily, I have Gina.

While waiting for our overcrowded and uncharacteristically late train, we met a very nice woman from Hanover, ending a week-long cycling holiday of her own. She is a seasoned cycle tourist herself so we compared notes about how panniers tend to explode once inside nice accommodations and it’s always good to start looking for a place to sleep before it gets too late in the day.

As it turns out, our platform friend becomes Cycling Angel Number Six, for there is a disgruntled woman in the bicycle carriage who keeps pointing at my front wheel and babbling on and on in German, as if I can understand a lick of what she is saying. Enter our Cycling Angel as interpreter. It seems my wheel is in this woman’s way where she is SITTING in the bike carriage while I am left STANDING, the loser in a game of musical chairs. I don’t see how her tiny bit of discomfort is my problem given the overcrowding, but the disgruntled sitter thinks otherwise so I am forced to jockey my bicycle once more so that she can comfortably SIT while I STAND for the next hour like a sailor braced in heavy seas. I’m glad I could make her stay in the carriage more pleasurable, but like any good bell hop, I would have appreciated a small tip.

So here we are in Schwerin, replete with a lake (actually, several), a castle and cute town square, and a lovely room in a neighborhood that Gina insists feels like San Francisco. I’d have to agree with her there, especially if we are talking about summertime in San Francisco, because the temperatures are definitely dropping. Luckily, our spirits are moving in the opposite direction. Germany seems to have that affect on us.