4th of July Independence Day – showed me the exact opposite of Independence.
It’s a nightmare how dependant we are on our communication devices. To write such a Blog or let’s call it “travel diary” I need to be connected via WiFi or Roaming. So far that shouldn’t be a problem. But as I needed a second cell phone for our navigation the trouble started already there. It needed only a Data SIM card and no telephone service.
Waking up this morning I thought I could simply start with loading up some photos and exchange some data from phone to phone, but as I logged into my data phone it asked for a telephone number and I was tipping in my usual number into the data phone, which logged me out of my actual cell phone. So no one would be able to reach me, as I can’t call from a data SIM-card.
Luckily the Telekom starts at 7:00 am its service in online chats as I couldn’t do anymore calls. Now I was caught in a chat with two different employees for the next 2 ½ hours discovering, that they had sold me two different data cards with different rates, but I had exactly the wrong one stuck in my data phone and the other one at home. In a view hours we would be for the next three months out of Germany and everything would have been even more complicated.
I nearly missed the Breakfast-time of the hotel due to all the trouble and luckily our Rotarian friend Kerstin Duchardt is a smart lady who knows always to find solutions. Two ours later we found us in the Telekom Pro Shop of Sabine Freudling of WM Funktechnik and she was the one, who could help us. I t was not easy, but after two hours the problem was solved. I never had had such an expert service in a Telekom shop before in my life and their team was immediately our Tour Partner.
As we had already lost a half day of being on our bikes we found in Kerstin Duchardt our angel who was so nice helping us out and getting our bikes into her van. She took us directly to Lindau from where we crossed with her the border to Austria. In Dornbirn we were invited to see the private home of Brunhilde and Georg Riesner, which is completely built with bales of straw.
Georg Bechter is the architect and the cousin of Georg R., who convinced them to build in such a sustainable way. The walls are 1,30m thick with a stronger insulation than the three layered insulated windows-elements.
We could have spent much more time there, but we had to leave to be in time for the lecture at the castle of Wartegg. Spontaneously we invited them to join us later and they became part of the guests of the Rotarian friends of the Rorschach-Arbon meeting under the cupola tent in the park of the castle of Wartegg. This castle was renovated by our friend Christoph Mijnssen from 1994 to 1998 and is run as an organic hotel. The surrounding historic park was protected as national garden monument in 2007. Part of the garden is used for their demeter organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. We were spoiled with a delicious dinner during a wonderful summer evening sitting outside under the trees. I had the pleasure to be seated with president Andrea Schöb-Sturzenegger, president elect Emil Huber and secretary Hanspeter Schnüriger.
