The march of time has been accelerated by travel. After our Danube bike tour, we helped install our daughter in Munich just in time for Oktoberfest. My wife and I attended shows on Rügen and in Nürnberg, a concert in Munich and a play in Berlin, all to see friends and relations perform. We were in Poland for Christmas, at Easter in Brussels for an extremely jocular civil wedding. March saw commuted to Krakow because of the medical emergency and death of my mother-in-law, Janina Stempak. We squeezed in long bike rides in Brandenburg, Vorpommern and Bavaria, logged some two-wheeled K’s in Graz and Amsterdam.
In my accumulating tenure as card-carrying pensioner I have managed only three times to obtain a modest senior-citizen discount. Such perks have gone out of style in Germany and I caused a scene trying to convince a Berlin bus driver to grant me an old-timer’s discount. However, one advantage of retirement was not denied me: being able to stay up late to witness the U.S. primaries and candidates’ debates, the Euro Cup soccer and Olympic basketball tournament. I just managed to find the time to learn enough Croatian to get by during a week with my spouse on the island of Vis. Some of those cycling kilometers were achieved by braving Airedale halfpipes,