Bike Love

When I was a little girl, my mother told me that Tanja was a Russian princess. Today I found out that Tanja is a hippopotamus at the zoo in Amsterdam. There are no certainties in this life. 

Amsterdam is full of surprises for me. While I ruined my perfectly coiffed hairdo with an ugly bike helmet in San Francisco, I no longer use one in Amsterdam. No one wears a bike helmet here, though it may be wise for tourists who wander naively on the bike lane to do so. And perhaps they should wear shoulder pads as well. 

I am having a blast on my bike here. The first hour on the bike lanes was scary. You don't have to fear cars here but you have to beware of the other bicyclists. They ride like mad men. It's a dog-eat-dog approach and bicyclists are hyper-competitive. They cut each other off and ring their bells. But after an hour or so, I realized it's actually a game and I started to participate in the bell concerto. It's so much fun once you get the hang of it. 

The first days were tough because I was borrowing Annelien's foldable bike and it proved to be a flaky bike. It had collapsed on Annelien before and I wasn't sure it wouldn't fold on me. But then my sister Saskia gave me a beautiful present. She had saved my old bike when we moved to San Francisco. I thought it had been stolen or lost and I had forgotten about my beautiful Peugeot. But this year for New Year's, Saskia repaired the bike and gave it to me as a present. You should see me race around town now. 

(Many young parents have a "bakfiets," a very sturdy bike with a cart in front of the bike. Some parents transport as many as four kids in the "bak.")