All posts tagged bike

Life Choice # 7: Bicycle or Car?

This might just be the easiest choice of this series for me: bike! I’m even known for getting angry when someone hurts my bike. I’m that protective. My bike, it’s my buddy. It takes me anywhere, as fast as I want (or can go), and will take me home whenever I want. No need to pay to park it somewhere. You can go almost everywhere. It’s so easy. Cars are so different. They can’t do whatever they want, because you can’t just drive in a street where you aren’t suppossed to drive. You have to find a parking spot and pay for it. Fuel is expensive. You can’t stop as quickly.
And so on.

There are only a few reasons why bikes suck: when it’s raining, you get soaked. It isn’t always easy when wearing a skirt or dress. But it will also wear out your pants. Recently my best pair of jeans got ripped because of wear and tear. It’s still my favourite pair though. Looks badass. (I don’t wear it in public anymore though…) So I admit bikes aren’t perfect, but for me they still win. I must also admit I don’t have my driver’s license yet, so every time I want to use the car, I have to beg a parent to help me out. By now I’ve got to the point I’d rather take the bus than let my parents take me somewhere. But: buses only come at certain moments, while you can get out your bike at any moment you want. No traffic problems. Just pedaling.

Life can be so easy!

So, what do you prefer? Are you more likely to drive your bike or your car?

22 Comments
by No Blog Intended on September 17, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Life, Traveling
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by No Blog Intended on September 17, 2013

https://noblogintended.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/life-choice-7-bicycle-or-car/

The Advantages of University

Or rather, the advantages of living in the city of your university. As you know, I have moved to the city where my university lives for five days a week. I live there in a quite old house with creaking stairs, in a room that’s pretty big compared to other rooms. Plus: I’ve got lots of advantages.

Advantage 1: The house is placed at a little square, with almost everything you could imagine needing around: a doctor, a pharmacy, two florists, a nightshop, a bakery, a French fries selling place (is there really no translation for that?),… Two streets further on, we’ve got a shop. Each Wednesday, there’s a market with fresh vegetables and very good waffles and eggs payed per piece, I’ve been told. Awesomeness rating? High.

Advantage 2: From my window, I can see the pharmacy, and this pharmacy has this cross attached to their wall. This cross lightens when the pharmacy is opened, and shows the hour and temperature. Very useful, because it looks cold and rainy and very winter-like all the time. You wouldn’t think it’s still 18°C. It really looks like trash outside. (I hate that. Just sayin’.)

Advantage 3: This city is not very big, so you can do everything by bike. Yay! Driving my bike for ten minutes is an improvement: last years, I always had to drive at least 15 to 20 minutes.

Advantage 4: There are no parents around, there are not so many freaky people around, so if I decide that Tuesday night is the perfect night to have a drink with friends, I can just leave and have a drink with friends! I don’t have to arrange stuff to not drive alone. Here, at home, we live nearby a city that is too unsafe to drive around on your little bike alone. I simply don’t dare to do it. But the city where I spend most of my time is filled with students, and it feels safe. Plus: no one will tell me that Tuesday night is not a good night to go out. Everyone does it.

Advantage 5: It’s simply not my narrow-minded home town!

16 Comments
by No Blog Intended on October 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Culture, Life, Other
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by No Blog Intended on October 6, 2012

https://noblogintended.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/the-advantages-of-university/

Arriver à temps for the French exam

If there is something I’m bad at, it’s computing. By which I mean: whatever time of the day it is, I’ll always be late. Because I believe in the power of my legs and the speed of my bike. Because I simply have no feeling for computing whatsoever. When having oral exams, that is quite unhandy. My exam was at 11.30. I had been awake for hours already, I was done with studying, I was all prepared…

And yet I waited. ‘It’s too early’ I thought. ‘Ill be there too soon’ I thought.

What was I thinking? That, obviously, but seriously: for an exam, you can never be too early.

That’s what I realised when eventually biking to school. It was way warmer then I had expected, so I wore a jacket (DEAR LORD that was warm). Soon after mounting my bike, I said to myself to I had made the wrong calculations. I wouldn’t have been in time if not the unbelievable power of my legs (and some wind in the right direction). But then, then I had to wait for a train to pass by. I was already eating myself (dearlordI’llneverbeintime) when the train stopped.

It stopped three seconds after having started to move. I mean, trains should NOT stop when you’re late already. Never, actually. I was already telling myself that things would go wrong, I’d be way too late, blablablah, when the train started moving again.

And nothing had happened after all.

I arrived at school in a state of hurried warmth (not to say sweaty), and with my brightest smile (gaspgasp) I said ‘Bonjour’.

I did my exam well enough.

I returned home. Though that sounds easy, it wasn’t. Because the wind that helped to get in school at time, still moved in the same direction. It took me many minutes to get home. On top of that, it almost started to rain, so I drove even faster. My state of hurried sweatiness only got worse.

But when I arrived home, at least my cat lifted his head to see I was back home. The consolation of two listening ears, and the softest fur ever.

 

16 Comments
by No Blog Intended on June 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Humour
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by No Blog Intended on June 8, 2012

https://noblogintended.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/arriver-a-temps-for-the-french-exam/

Twirling, dazzling, tumbling snow flakes

I think that the only reason I like snow falling on my blog, is that it doesn’t snow in reality. It started raining, yes, exactly on the first of December, but we’re still snow-proof. Unlike last year. I remember days we had to steer our humble bikes through white obstacles (snow flakes – gathered). But the worst thing, is when it has snowed, people have cycled through it, and it has frozen. Then you can only do one single thing: follow the vestige the one before you has made. Don’t try to leave the path. You will fall.
That’s not pretty comfortable. But even on a bike, you are way earlier than those people who come by car, because their mother doesn’t work and can drive them to school, or because they don’t mind doing that before they go to work. It’s not fair. Anyway, we are the brave who have no other choice than defying the weather.
Not this year. This year we only have rain. For the moment. So we are happy. Unless it rains when we are cycling, of course. But when being home silently and cosy and warm, I will even take a heavy storm.

 

7 Comments
by No Blog Intended on December 4, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Humour
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by No Blog Intended on December 4, 2011

https://noblogintended.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/twirling-dazzling-tumbling-snow-flakes/