MUNICH, GERMANY -- Here are just a couple profiles of people I've met on in Germany so far.

Reinhard Peter, 58, sat next to me during our eight-hour flight from Dulles Airport to Munich. "Ooh ja, you'll have a great time in Munich," said Reinhard, with a thick German accent.

Reinhard was a bigger, teddy bear of a man with a salt and pepper mustache and thin rectangle glasses that clung to the end of his nose. "You go to the Alps, ja," he said enthusiastically grabbing my map.

We talked a good hour into the flight about how the weather would be comfortable, most Germans spoke English, and about my bike.

"You have cheap gears?" asked Reinhard. I told him was still using my bike from high school but I upgraded the parts and now had 21 gears. "You have 21 cheap gears?" he said. After the second time around I figured he wasn't saying cheap gears he was saying G-P-S.

My bad.

I had a similar experience at baggage claim. I was assembling my bicycle and the maintenance man came over to clear away my bike box. "Toogen engen" is what he smiled and said. My challenged German brain picked that up as two engines, as he referenced the wheels.

I smiled, nodded and did some lame reenactment of a train conductor pulling on the cord of the train whistle and I let out a toot toot, for lack of anything better to say.

The round faced happy man just nodded, grinned and probably thought I was drunk.

I met Frank and Annette while biking around Munich this evening. I stopped to take pictures of this German quartet with really long horns. They were playing for the Siemens group, a company gathering held that night in Munich.

As I stopped to take pictures, I threw a question at Frank and Annette and the next thing I knew I was talking with them at their table. "Wisconsin? Isn't that Green Bay Packers," asked Frank, spot on with the No. 1 reference to the dairy state.

I asked their opinion on American politics. Frank thought the election system was absurd and didn't talk about Hillary or Obama as much as he did the process.

They agreed, Munich and Germany overall was bicycle-friendly. Although it had been for years, the $8.25 for a gallon of regular has helped the cause.

After the Park-Cafe I got lost in Munich. Asking directions led me to Joe and teenage homies who were downing their share of Augustinerbrau Munchen beer with a bottle of Jagermeister as a chaser. Matter of fact, the blue-haired girl who had a lot of piercings in her lip and looked like she fell face first into her jewelry box, dropped one of the eight bottles she was trying to carry.

The bottle cap cracked open and beer started spraying the group until the purple mohawk teen picked it up and ripped off the cap with his teeth.