And I still can't understand half of what old Hans was saying in his songs. Austrian and bayerisch are still Greek to me When I first arrived in Germany (Fulda) with my college German I could not understand a word anybody said. I remember thinking, "this is not the language that I learned in school." And now I speak with an east hessisch accent. Well, I did 20 years ago. Now I stutter and stumble along.

Funny thing though, I didn't have a bike when I lived in Germany and I don't recall seeing anybody riding a bike either. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. There was some city in Germany that I visited where I saw a lot of bicycles, can't recall for sure now which it was...Heidelburg maybe? Sure as heck wasn't Fulda. I probably missed a great opportunity there though.