Apparently, riding a really small bike around can be a lot of fun. I wouldn’t really know, since I’m not quite flexible enough to actually ride one properly. But the other girls seemed to have fun putting around the parking lot. Hot Rod even races hers at the track! But just meeting Hot Rod and hanging out with the girls in the BCIT parking lot drinking hot apple cider made one of the best Friday nights I’ve had in a…
Took a slow and gentle ride out to see my parents today. It’s nice to be able to go and see them – they live too far away to get to by transit, and it didn’t seem fair to always make them come in. Couldn’t stay long because after dark is still cold, but it was nice to drop in. My stepdad showed me his latest paintings and I think I’ve put dibs on a couple. And I’m working on…
Well, I’m back on two wheels and it’s a bike this time! It’s a BMW F650CS. I fell in love with how this bike looked when I saw one in Paris. I’d seen a used one sitting on the dealer’s website for months and wanted it. I even sat on one for at least 30 minutes at the bike show and knew that I liked how it felt. But my life was too uncertain to make that kind of purchase….
Well, I arrived back in Vancouver as scheduled on October 1st and have spent the time since I got back starting to explore my next options (job here, job elsewhere, more school?), starting to work part-time at UBC (to pay the mortgage and feed the cats while I do the previous item), restoring/imposing order on my apartment and getting back into rugby (got my first bruises already – yay!). But there’s one last little travelogue to be written before the…
St. Petersburg was definitely worth the hassle. I spent four and a half days there and could have spent much longer. There are so many museums and cultural attractions, not to mention that being in Russia is interesting in its own right both because of its history and what it is now (I was there before any of the recent developments). It’s definitely on my list of places to get back to someday. Highlights include the Dostoevsky Murder Route Pub…
I tell you, the trip to Norway was absolute torture. Terrible. On the one hand the scenic little villages, steep mountains, glaciers, glass-calm water and constant sunlight were so photogenic that I wanted to stop and take a picture every time I went around a curve. On the other hand, well, there were a lot of curves and the weather was perfect, and I was having so much fun riding that I just didn’t want to stop. Absolutely dreadful being…
Well, I’m finally about to set out from Umeå. I came up here only knowing that my great-grandfather had come from this area in the early part of the century. I thought I’d meet a couple relatives, get a little family history and be on my way. A couple of days at most. Well, no. I got here and it turns out that my ancestor came from a very large family. My grandfather had 44 cousins, and my mother has…
So, I’ve made it to Sweden, and in Stockholm at the house of some very distant relatives. I took the ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg, Denmark and then rode up to Fredrikshavn where I took a ferry to Gothenborg (where an ex-teammate lives), and then rode over to Stockholm. Denmark was very scary, not because of the roads (nice, well-paved and laid out, mostly flat and straight) or the drivers (good, courteous), but because there was a wind and rainstorm…
I arrived in England 3 weeks ago. I first spent a few days in London, seeing a few of the sites and then spent most of the time since then in the lovely little city of Norwich, staying with friends. Part of that time was decompression – I’d just come out of a rather hectic time, finishing my MA and dealing with a bunch of other stuff just before I left. But part of the time was also setting up the…
I’ve just had sorta a scary outcome from this accident – on Monday night I spent the night in the hospital due to a pulmonary embolism – turns out a blood clot formed in my leg and part of it migrated to my lung. So, I’ll be on blood thinners for at least the next 3 months. As one of my friends just told me, I need to extract the reverse horseshoes from my a** – this is getting to…
I went down again. Yeah. I feel like a real loser. 🙁 It was a sudden stop, and I guess I grabbed too much front brake, and the bike slid out and I went for a ride on the pavement. I think that the fact I need new tires, and that I still was lacking confidence because of the other crash were contributing factors.This happened Sept. 29th. Luckily it was only a block and a bit from home, so with…
Well, finally got my bike back and am riding Felt so good to be on it again yesterday!! Woulda gone out today but I had rugby and I’m always kinda woozy after the game – well, that and there’s something so purely right about beer after a rugby game. The bikes still a little worse for wear, and I need to get new front plastic (well, back’s cracked a little too, but no biggie), but I’m back!