Accidental Tourist

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Accidental Tourist, the 1988 film based on the Anne Tyler book. The novel is called "Accidental Tourist" because the main character, Macon Leary, is a writer of travel guides for people who don’t want to travel - for those on business trips, for example. He himself hates travelling, and he seeks out all of the places in his destinations where American food can be found, where American people and culture can be found, and where the "accidental" tourist does not have to interact with the people of the country he/she is visiting. The name of this blog was inspired by the movie. I am truly an accidental bike rider. I started going out for rides about eight months after moving here from the United States out of shear boredom. After my first ride, I realized that biking though the countryside was a great way to familiarize myself with my new surroundings. I am somewhat of an accidental tourist as I never intend to be a tourist while out biking, but because I am so new to the area, most of what I am riding past is new to me. So I often stop, look around and sometimes take pictures. The many Germans who are out on the bike routes do flash me stange looks at times when they see me taking pictures. Finally, while I don't intend to avoid interactions with the locals here, clearly spending hours biking does accidentally accomplish that. I almost always bike alone and rarely stop to talk with anyone. And even I did stop to talk, I'm not sure they would understand my broken German.