cycle scribbles: yodelling bavarian-style

A beer called "Radler" (cyclist) (actually, it's a shandy) and some mini golf (I lost rather appallingly)

On Friday, it started to rain and more or less continued to rain over the whole weekend. On Sunday, while cycling along in the now easing rain, we paused to look at the map and were approached by a friendly stranger asking if we were lost. We got chatting and he (Zafer was his name) said he was in the nearby boat with a group of friends, on their annual boat trip which they have been doing for thirty years. Currently the boat was stuck waiting for the water in the Danube to lower, as it was too high to allow the boat to get past one of the barrier-crossings. He invited us over to see the boat and we were quickly ushered in by the boozy and enthusiastic group of about ten men, given a big ceramic flip-top decorated traditional-looking mug of beer each and spent the next hour or two in what felt like a mini beer festival with lots of singing, laughing and clashing of beer mugs. One of the group, who was wearing a baseball cap with a solar light heavily duct-taped onto the peak to form a make-shift head torch (in the middle of the day), sang us some traditional Bavarian songs, then taught us how to yodel Bavarian-style. He had a nice voice and it sounded lovely, something like "hola-roo-aye, hola-rad-ee-oohhhh". He explained that yodelling was an old folk tradition here which originated with people calling to each other across neighbouring hills/mountains using echoey yodels. We had a fun afternoon with all the amusing characters on the boat and eventually departed more than a little tipsy, practicing our Bavarian yodelling as we wobbled down the Danube. Below is a picture Matthew took of me with Zafer as we were leaving - unfortunately we didn't get any of the boat and it's rowdy occupants!

Matthew hoeing into a big German currywurst & pomme frites, me eating a spaghetti icecream (!? icecream squeezed to look like spaghetti strands, with berry sauce for bolognese sauce.. a strangely popular style of icecream around here)