The gray days are counted!

• Über den Wolken muss das Grau wohl grenzenlos sein (german saying)
• Grau in Grau (german saying)
• Alles Graue kommt von oben (german saying)
• -36 Grad und es wird noch kälter (german saying)
• Ab in den Regen (german saying)
• Über 7 kalte Nächte musst du gehen (german saying)

• … after the weather was constantly gray, wet and cold with headwind for over a week, we had to somehow keep ourselves in a good mood and joked about what the new blog title could be called – yay, luckily the title has not become one of the above selection, because now the sun shines in our faces again.
• We spoiled ourselves during the cold time with good food (homemade spaetzli, stick bread over the fire or delicious pasta dishes), at least one fire a day to warm up and exciting podcasts (Leben am Limit from SRF, which was very suitable from the title 😄) to distract us.
  
  For our “Tips and Tricks” box, here’s some advice for listening to music, podcast or audiobook together:

We both have the Apple AirPods Pro headphones, with which it is possible to share the audio output. This way, one can buy an audiobook and by sharing the audio output, both can listen to the same part of the book/podcast at the same time.
Instruction: https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT210421

Here are a few impressions:

What else kept us on our toes besides the low temperatures and the bad weather due to Corona:
Public toilets often closed, drinking water difficult to obtain due to closed cafes, fountains not yet running or difficult to access, and shower facilities not available.

We find a solution for everything 💪🏻:

The beautiful moments and encounters outweigh everything and the hard days now let us enjoy the beautiful ones much more intensively.
A huge boost was the acceptance of Meike and Herbert in Ingolstadt (Warmshowers). Finally we could wash our clothes again and enjoy a hot shower. The two could give us a lot of valuable tips on the way, because they themselves have already cycled halfway around the world. The icing on the cake was that they even arranged for us to spend the night after next with a colleague in Regensburg. With Michl we spent fun hours and strolled with him through the city, which is otherwise flooded with tourists – Corona has not only disadvantages, but also very many advantages, you just have to see them!

From Regensburg the temperatures rose to incredible +10°C and sun, wonderful!!! That’s the way to live:

So we slowly approached our next milestone, Passau, the border to Austria. We had planned a rest day here, but it fell through due to a lack of warmshowers. Thus we planned the second, not quite legal border crossing with a small detour over a green border (see Komoot route on the home page). Once again we realized that this was possible without any problems and breathed a sigh of relief. We were greeted with a beautiful sunset in our 3rd country of travel.

Now comes the hammer:
Short introduction for all new blog readers, Beni had a bicycle accident one week before the start of our trip and bruised his shoulder.

Imagine you are “illegally” in a country, actually have to be in quarantine for 10 days (we are there anyway – tent, forest) and now have to go to the doctor. That’s what happened to Beni when he googled (you should never do that 😅) his shoulder injury, which still has swelling and it matched the description to a shoulder joint dislocation. This would mean that one or more ligaments are torn and may need surgery.

What do we do now? What if the shoulder actually needs surgery? What if the doctor asks for the certificate of entry? What if we have to take a break for one or even several months (we have no accommodation)? How does it work with the insurance, since the accident still happened in Switzerland? …
Our faces became paler and paler and at the same time, as if this were not enough, Beni`s mattress banged loudly twice 😂😭, the bonding of two air chambers has come apart.

Now for the resolution:
We got a doctor’s appointment the next morning without any problems, no one asked for an entry certificate or proof of a Corona test. The doctor’s summary of the condition of Beni’s shoulder was (as they say in Austria) “passt scho”, it just needs a few more weeks to heal 😄. Our day was saved!!!

About the mattress:
After clarification by phone it is a material defect, the mattress would be replaced free of charge, however, in the current situation there are production backorders and in my size it is not available worldwide for an indefinite period. At least I can still use it, only the head area is slightly higher, which makes it not necessarily comfortable, but the main thing is that the shoulder is whole, everything else is secondary.

Now we are back on the fast track, and how!!! A few hundred meters from the medical center, Andreas approached us, who was on the road with his bicycle and said enthusiastically “wow, you are the first touring cyclists I have met in months, that makes me very happy”. It turns out that he and his wife Barbara are also Warmshowers hosts. Spontaneously he invited us to his home, where we are now allowed to stay for 3 nights. It was also great that after a joint lunch we covered the remaining 29 km to Linz together with a side trip to St. Leonhard’s Church with one of the most important wood carving altars from the 15th century. Now we enjoy two relaxing days in Linz before we continue towards Vienna.