On the 8th day, our second week began. What's a better start to a day than a proper breakfast? Family Gilles surprised us with an enormous variety of cereal, which made my (Tilman) heart beat faster immediately. After breakfast and having packed up everything and after everyone tried the tandem (a tradition, that we so far implemented with all our hosts), unfortunately we had to say goodbye. We cycled to Schwerte and from there to Hagen along the river “Ruhr”. A noteworthy city, but not in a positive way. Two days before, we thought Paderborn is a terrible city for cycling. However, we've been taught by Hagen city that it can be even worse. Paths changed every 20 meters between the street or the sidewalk and would, like the Avatar, vanish when you needed them the most. To avoid all of that (and to avoid losing time for a testimony in case of witnessing an accident of overtaking in a turn), we hurried fast and finally: as soon as we crossed the border to Gevelsberg, cars drove more carefully. After a short break, we continued the tour to last destination of the day, Schwelm, where we had some cake and coffee including some singing, nice chats. After that, we took a shower and started to prepare dinner.

Small note: I just checked the city ranking from “ADFC” 2020: Lippstadt (Grade: 3.56 I Position 12/110, category 50-100K residents) is not only in our ranking better than Paderborn (Grade: 3.97 I Position 15/41, category 100-200K residents); Hagen (Grade: 4.86 I Position 41/41, category 100-200K residents) is indeed the second worst city for cycling (out of 1024 in total) and by far the worst for more than 100K residents.
Small note on the small note: German grades go from 1 (best) to 6 (worst)

Day 9 began with a prepared breakfast (even though it might seem like it, that is unusual!). After that, we started directly (of course not without letting Gitta test the tandem!). We took on the battle getting up the “Balkantrasse”, counted e-bike cyclists (32), normal cyclists (4) and racing cyclists (6) but realized there was a bias in our method (of course, more e-bike cyclists would pass us since they are faster), so we focused on the oncoming cyclists (20 - 2 - 3) and arrived in Lennep. On the Balkan route, we could fully use the tandem. We sped up to 35 km/h, oncoming traffic faded into undistinguishable numbers of e-bikes and normal bikes and we enjoyed the roads being car-free for a while. Sadly, the fun is quickly over when cycling fast and from "Opladen" on we cycled through the empty (due to the weekend) premises of "Bayer". Against all reason, we decided to cycle the last few km to Bonn along the Rhine. In Cologne, completely annoyed by the “nice-weather-cyclists”, we decided to cycle on the road directly to Malte, Hannah and Kaya.
Arriving in the garden, we had water, icecream, chatter (e.g. planning the next tour with Malte. The route of the "Aldi-Tour" will be planned, such that at any point or time, all "Aldi-Nord" will be north of us and all "Aldi-Süd" will be south.) and a shower in favor of us all. In the evening, we made lasagna out of savoy cabbage, played "Dog" and went to sleep comfortably on the couch. Since then we haven't move at all, at least it looks like that on our map...
But it had a reasonable cause. I had an doctors appointment on tuesday! But first: The Monday. With the 9€-Ticket [translator's note: temporal very cheap train ticket in Germany. you can take any regional train for a month] we travelled to Aachen, to visit my classmate David. It was an extremely hot day, so quickly we found ourselves in a park with one (or maybe two?) icecream. After a little sighseeing (did I mention the extreme heat?) we went back to David, played "Terraforming Mars" for the rest of the day and made pizza. Getting up early, we went to the doctor (if you don't want any further information just skip to the next paragraph!). Right before we left for the tour, I made a self-diagnosis with haemorrhoids. Of course, self-diagnosis isn't ideal, so back in Haldensleben, I went to the doctors, who confirmed it. With a recipe she send me off and said, if it wouldn't be gone in a week, I should go back to a doctor. Well, that wasn't the case and I wanted so solve this p(r)o(o)blem [translator's note: sorry, this pun works better in German...] before we went abroad, I got an appointment at a proctologist. He quickly came to the conclusion, it was more of an anal thrombosis. It will be treated with an ointment and in 3 months, I will hopefully report you, that all will be back to normal. Fortunately, no surgery. As they say: All's well that ends well.

Now, you are probably wondering why we are still in Bonn. This is for three reasons. Firstly: Kaya. After we first met and carried her around, we couldn't seperate from her. Secondly: The heat. We wanted to wait for the heat wave to end. And Ida was worried cycling along the edge of the forests, and as it's not expected to get better in August, we got a little more time. And thirdly: "Neukirchen". Last year, Malte and I rode through every "Neukirchen" in Germany (look at the Neukirchen Tour for a much better written and funnier blog) and just near Bonn, there is a beautiful "Neukirchen". But not for its church (it's one of the two "Neukirchen" without church [translators note: "Kirche" = "church" -> "Neukirchen" = "new church"]) or the village itself, but because of the people we met last year. Of course, we wanted to visit them, as we are staying closeby. But before that could happen, Malte had to give a lecture and had to submit an assignment, so we planned the meeting for Saturday.
Until then, (nothing) much happened: night walks and star gazing (with IDA™, now available in your hometown!), walks through the botanical garden, playing games, thunderstorms which made the air more tolerable, stroller shopping and cooking/eating pozole.

One thing we can recommend to all of you, who are in Bonn (or want to visit), is the "Haus der Geschichte" [t/n "House of History"]. A fantastic museum with a well thought of and interesting exhibition about Germany since 1945. But bring much time, Ida and I needed two days for everything!

Last but not least, another little constellation lecture with Ida. This time: Cygnus, the swan constellation, which we did not only found on a museum toy but also on our night walk.

Have you ever looked up in the night sky and asked yourselves, what can be seen besides the Big Dipper? Then, at least you have asked the right question! Today, I want to introduce you to a constellation with which you can impress your companion on your next nightly stroll :) The constellation of Cygnus is typical for summer. It's located in the good to be seen summer triangle (not an actual constellation, but good to recognize by, you may not believe it, three bright stars of other constellations (Deneb in Cygnus, Vega in Lyre and Altair in Aquila, the eagle constellation)). But how do you find the summer triangle and its constellations? Just use Maltes method: take of your glasses and you'll see 3 bright stars! On top left will be Cygnus, which you can see sketched on the rocket. If you want to learn more: visit your local planetarium, or accept the ride: I know a very good one in Potsdam :) (Urania Planetarium)

Until next week and stay hydrated!
Tilman & Ida :)