new bike

The picture is of me in front of a pancake boat, a restaurant-boat which sells (you guessed it!) pancakes. These aren't "normal" pancakes, big and fluffy with syrup and butter, but more like a crepe married to an omelet. You can have a large pancake filled with strips of bacon, onions, eggs, ham, or sweet things like raisins, apples and cheese. On the table, there is a giant pot of stroop, which is like a cross between maple syrup, molasses and honey. It's a nice place for brunch.

Well, I may not be going to Finland as planned. The city where the conference is held is a slightly obscure city, which means that traveling for a two day conference may very well take about two days and cost quite a bit of money. So, various plan g's, h's, and i's are being looked into, since all of the previous arrangements of planes, trains and buses aren't working to our advantage.

Julian is now in Las Vegas, the city of lights and various other things for a civil engineering conference. It's a rough life. As sad as I am that we probably won't talk every night as we usually do, I'm looking on the bright side: I'll be able to go to bed early and get more sleep.

Today I bought a bike. God orchestrated a great blessing by allowing me to meet Zephyr a few days ago, who is flying home to Taiwan and needed to sell her bike. I was quite happy to buy the bike from her-- she gave me a good price and bought me extra locks. She even threw in her "pimp my ride" keychain!

*my new bike*

We met at the train station, which is very close to my house, so I was planning on riding the short distance today and venturing out in short "let's get used to riding in traffic" trips at a later date. She seemed very nervous to send me on my way, continually asking me if I knew how to ride a bike. She had me practice riding around the train station a little while until she was more or less convinced that although I'm not a great bike rider, I won't kill myself.

So I set off on the bike path and was riding happily along until I crossed under the bridge where I lived and realized that the bike path would not lead me either to the top of the bridge or to the correct side of the road. Therefore, I would have to ride into the city, turn around and come back. This meant riding next to and around cars, people, other bikes and dealing with the traffic lights which have separate signals for bikers. It's not too overly complicated, but I was riding alongside people who have been biking since they were 4 or 5 and who ride nearly every day. In addition, I was riding the type of bike with a pedal brake, which I kept forgetting about and so had brief moments of panic both stopping and going. I looked like a spazz at the stoplights, but I made it home in one only slightly shaky piece. Then I realized I have a garden! It's filled with trash and rusted bikes, but it's a garden nonetheless. My bicycling adventure has begun!

*my garden/backyard filled with rotting bikes*