Feierabendrunde

June 25, 2009 - Thursday

"Feierabendrunde" is one of those great German words that doesn't have a fitting English translation. It's what I do many evenings a week during the summer, the after-work drive. Last year I'd go into Aargau a lot; this year I'm sticking to the Mythen mountains in central Switzerland. Yesterday afternoon as Opa's I got a text message from Walti, a 40-something-year-old BMW driver who's a friend of Susanne's. We invited him over for dinner on the Saturday evening of our girls' weekend two weeks back. Susanne praised him as being a very smooth driver with a clean line of sight and said he knew all sorts of backroads in the Ybrig area. So, naturally, it was only a question of time until I went driving with him. We agreed to meet on the Buchenegg parking lot at 1900 hours. My poor neglected Beastie is still covered in the mud and dust of Italy; his 1200er GS has been washed two weeks ago and was a sight cleaner. He promptly noticed my profile-less front tire and remarked that we might just avoid the gravel roads this time around. We did a comfortable Ibergeregg round and he showed me two curvy stretches I hadn't known about. Susanne's evaluation of his driving skills was spot on; driving behind him was excellent practice for me in driving cleaner lines. (Though having a slippery front tire did impede the fun of the tour just a bit.) Around 8 o'clock Walti asked if I'd eaten and invited me to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Einsiedeln, which was very generous of him. The conversation was as good as the food and revolved 90% around motorcycles and 10% around work. Afterwards he escorted me to Biberbrugg, and I arrived home before 2300 hours. Mom will be home late tomorrow night, and I have babysitting at the same time. Saturday is predicted to be rainy and gray with the sun and warmth returning on Sunday. On Sunday Florian and I will be attending a four-point motorcycle safety course, so I arranged a tire change with my mechanic for tomorrow morning, instead of on Tuesday with the service. I'm gonna work through next week as fast as possible; on Friday is the United dinner; the following weekend might bring the trip to South Tirol. Next week I gotta remember to ask about the jacket stitchery and the Blaster-V, if those two companies haven't gotten in touch with me by then.