2013-06-22 47 8

Location

Hermikon, just outside Dübendorf.

Participants

Plans

Be there at Saturday-meetup-o'clock. How you get there is your problem. ;)

I'll come by bike. --Chris 47 8 (talk) 11:01, 21 June 2013 (EDT)

I'm in. I'll probably come by bike too. --Calamus 16:30, 21 June 2013 (EDT)

Expedition

Calamus

When he opened the garage door for the first time in almost a year, Calamus could immediately sense that Steedy González wasn't very happy. His bike stared at him in scathing indifference. "So you remember I exist", he said quietly. "And I'm sure you expect me to take you to a random place in the middle of nowhere, without even asking me where I'd like to go. Well, it's not gonna happen. Not after it took you a year to have this idea!" "It wasn't mine, it was Chris's.", Calamus said and jumped onto the saddle. "Who the hell is Chris?!", Steedy exclaimed, but Calamus was already pedalling his way out.

During the whole journey, Steedy wouldn't stop niggling about how Calamus had allegedly packed on some weight since their last journey, he deliberately hardened his saddle to hurt Calamus's backside and then made some very inappropriate jokes about that. Calamus tried to ignore all of this and sought his way out of Zurich.

Even though there was a settlement at the site of Dübendorf during the Stone Age and a Roman estate later, continuous settlement prior to the sixth century cannot be proven, so the place doesn't have much of a history. Even its only castle has burned down four houndred years ago, and nobody bothered to reconstruct it ever since. The most (and maybe only) interesting thing about Dübendorf is its name, derived from Tuobilindorf "Idiot village". Hermikon is a part of Dübendorf today, and still has remained an agricultural village, while Dübendorf has become a town by now.

Calamus reached Hermikon just in the nick of time and was glad Chris wasn't here yet. He hated to keep people waiting. Right after he'd placed Steedy under a tree ("I hate shadow!") and taken a picture of the hashpoint, Chris arrived on his bike, having ridden all the way from Winterthur. It had been almost five months since they had met for the last time, and they had both grown beards in the meantime. After a mutual warm welcome and exchange of recent lifestory chapters, they realised there was no pub within eyesight – for the first time in four meetups. It was soon agreed they needed to find one to have some beer and ice cream.

In this moment, a farmer came by and asked them what they were up to. Chris managed to explain the basic concept quite well, cleverly omitting the Dow Jones and MD5 part. The farmer was quite interested in the whole thing and explained he had done a similar sport in his youth, using public transport to reach random points scattered throughout the city – so he was kind of an old school geohasher. After a discussion about Chris's bike (which probably made Steedy rather jealous), he recommended a nice restaurant next to the river Glatt. The party thanked and headed in the direction he had indicated.

The restaurant was part of an ice rink and had a big terrace with view on the river and some woods. They both ordered a beer and a walnut sundae and talked about hashing strategies. But not for too long, for Chris had been chosen to be the DJ at a stag party (not his) this evening, despite having absolutely no experience, which he seemed to really be looking forward to.

So they parted ways after finishing their sundaes and rode back to their respective cities.