Breakfast this morning was quite surreal.

To my surprise there were other guests and I shared the breakfast room with them. While I slowly regained consciousness it struck me that the decor that surrounded or more engulfed us could be attributed to an Italian having taken way too much acid or a similar hallucinogen, then decorated a dining room in a rustic Germanic style. Despite this and the appalling music, breakfast was ok, if a little stingy. I didn’t hang around at breakfast, the music really was ghastly, so I left family fat to bestow adulation on the proprietor on the fabulousness of the decor and breakfast. I suspect they too had imbued some of said hallucinogen.

I headed in my freshly showered and still damp clothes in the general direction of Leipzig. I say general as I didn’t take the most direct route, following the smaller roads to avoid the traffic. It was quite successful and for the first hour and felt as though I had avoided the last century. Sundials on barn walls, stone pillar road markers and a distinct lack of tarmac.

Then passing this solar installation I was fast forwarded back up-to date.

I was very temped to investigate but was already running late for Leipzig and I had said Id be there sometime between 16:00 & 18:00 so I sadly didn’t investigate further.

I did quickly photograph this place, obviously inspired by Hundertwasser.

I passed these two while on a rather short but sweet bike route, Ive named them Paris & Hilton, I think its the mane that did it. Typing this there are now a number of associations now running around my brain and as I consider them they get worse and I am finding no reasonable conclusion or escape route.

The pictures are really for Erte a fan of horses not Mzz Hilton and while Im at it, this is for Libby, who told me to stop and look under the flowers. Not really certain what she meant and it did get me in some trouble in Berlin, but I digress.

Sunflower for Libby

I sent Gertje (my host for the evening) an SMS as Id promised with both my location and eta but, she had already jumped on her bike and was heading in my direction – as I was to learn shes not really someone who sits around on her hands.

This did complicate matters a little and I felt quite stressed, so it was head down arse up and heavy pedalling for a while. I got an SMS saying “Im waiting for you at some indefinable point” outside the town that I was approaching. What it really said was “Im waiting for you on the road to Leipzig” but as far as my map was concerned there was more than one way to Leipzig, so I called her and asked her to meet me outside the Rathouse, pictured below.

She had just cycled over 20km and I followed her back to the city, it was dark by the time we arrived. So while I showered she prepared dinner, the chat over which was very entertaining. When Gertjes daughter arrived, she and I spoke in German and Gertje exclaimed “why the hell have you been talking to me in English!” from which point on the converstaion was in German and it was great for my vocabularly, like Hubert her language use is interesting and challenging, to say nothing of her accent, HALLO SAXONY!

When Gertje is not cycling, she is climbing and if she is not doing either of those shes probably demonstrating about something, the last was against the Nazis in Leipzig, she too has a blog, you can read about her antics here.