day seven: lunch break in a walnut plantation

in this picture, you see our very first actual “lunch break” which lasted more than 15 minutes. after 8 days of biking, we started to feel that we didn’t quite consume as many calories as we should, eating mostly muesli bars all day.

that day, as we drove through lots and lots of walnut plantations, anton remarked “haha, ‘wine country’… all we can see is apple trees.” from that point on, he only made very general descriptions of the vegetation (as in “trees” or “landscape”). :)

the short but perfect bicycle track along part of the rhone river

song of the day: maná – en el muelle de san blas

day six consisted of an incredibly beautiful route along the rhone river, which we had to leave behind near saint-genix-sur-guiers in order to go further south. [more...]

• believe it or not: we've raised 25.000 euro for kenya through our choir concert! http://bit.ly/1LX5uP #
• RT @qikipedia: who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time? BILLY CONNOLLY #
• RT @donttrythis I'm totally blown away by this: http://bit.ly/13lVdp Eric Testroete is an awesome 3d artist. #
• forvo offers pronounciation help for everything, including place names. very cool. http://bit.ly/1WcwRM #
• have figured out how to automatically geotag our bike-trip pictures using gps data and open source software. :) #
• …speaking of which: we will be talking about our 2200 km bike trip (w/ photos & big screen) on nov. 20. if you're interested, let me know. #
• how on earth am i ever supposed to finish remodeling if something as simple as changing door handles requires heavy machinery? #
• a timeline of the universe (2 versions). http://bit.ly/3H64Eq #
• WOW: movie character interaction charts for lord of the rings, war wars and others. http://xkcd.com/657/ #
• almost took anti-inflammatory pills by accident today, just because a pack was lying on the breakfast table. wow. #
• would anybody like a nebul.us invite before i delete my account? #
• RT @Apfel_Zubehoer Neu im Blog: Österreich: iPhone 3G mit Wertkarte http://bit.ly/4Yi19 #iphone #
• just spent 4 hours in an ikea store by necessity. i think i've picked up a slight swedish accent. #
• RT @serafinowicz: Vegetarian zombies love cauliflower #

day six: the broken chair in geneva

the sight was chosen after looking through a postcard stand, which proved to be a useful resource for photo background scenes. :)

when we arrived in geneva, (1) we were half a day late because of a cold front with heavy, continuous downpour and (2) all our stuff was double-waterproofed because of (see 1). of course, as soon as everything was twice repackaged into plastic bags, the sky cleared up.
…which is why we decided to at least enjoy our waterproofness one last time and drive through the nearby united nations fountain. [more...]

day five: giant hay bale bike

on our way from neuchatel to geneva, we drove by this giant hay bale bike. we saw lots of bike-related things like little statues throughout switzerland and, later, france (especially since part of our route coincided with the tour de france, which was 10 days earlier), but this was the biggest of them all.

• …brains… http://bit.ly/2bzA3n #ichc #
• very interested in the htc hero. can anybody give me first-hand experience and/or let me play with it for 5 minutes? #
• wow, i was approached by both scientologists and jehova's witnesses within 24 hours. tried to convert them all to atheism. didn't work. :( #
• RT @serafinowicz Scientology convicted of fraud in France. 'Real' religions still allowed to operate. http://bit.ly/3Okzko #
• google is doing it again: free mobile gps navigation app to cut nav companies at the knees http://ff.im/-aER7W (via @instantwebmeets) #
• "i just hope god's not listening" – http://bit.ly/2J6q7h (via @robertpopper). youtube-comment: "i think this guy just re-killed jesus" #
• calculus fail – http://bit.ly/UunOG #fail #

• sunday is the most stressful day of the week. closely followed by saturday. …and i'm not talking about time off! #
• http://twitpic.com/m62kz – long day of field work. very cold at times, exhausting at times, but …good times! :) #
• subwoofer cat: http://bit.ly/3sAUls #ichz #
• first vegetarian spider known to science – http://bit.ly/1toUIF #
• unreleased paul mccartney song – http://bit.ly/na5l (via @serafinowicz) #
• RT @serafinowicz Amazon's shopping carts don't work outside of the store. #
• benefizkonzert der wiltener sängerknaben für eine schule in kenia am 23.10. http://bit.ly/1NQjfj (bitte retweeten/facebook-sharen!) #
• dsl connection not working today. online via gprs, and slowly dying while trying to load a single webpage. #
• RT @oewf Wow Martian Dust Devil tracks http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html #
• bought an oebb vorteilscard (austrian train discount card), came home, and found one already sitting on my desk. doh! #
• stimmgewaltige hilfe für ugari, kenia – http://bit.ly/45APDc #
• if things don't change very soon, i'm afraid my head's goig to fall off. #
• RT @instantwebmeets Animating the XKCD "I Love the Internet" strip http://ff.im/-afxNq #
• a flowchart to determine what religion you should follow: http://is.gd/4w64I (via @hemantmehta) #
• it's an extraordinary day. i'm even wearing my classy belt. :-p #
• little boy in my train compartment: "there's an OLD danube? HOW old is it?" #
• 8-year-old-boy's mom: "what are the austrian provinces?" – "umm, dornbirn?" #
• mom: "we're coming through [city], we could stop by your aunt." – 8yo-boy: "yeah, that's what i need. i'd rather eat vegetable risotto!" #
• http://twitpic.com/ms5m5 – i didn't think i'd EVER watch a beethoven opera whilst eating kebab. #
• it feels weird quitting an activity after 4.5 years of continuous committment. #