10 days till European Tour (Written by Gala)

You’d think that on the evening of your departure for a 2 month long cycling trip through foreign countries… on the evening of your embarkment on a journey that one year ago you never could have imagined yourself doing… a journey that relies 100% on having your bicycle endure the entire 15 hour plane ride from Vancouver to Paris, and then another 4 hour train trip to Amsterdam, all inside a cardboard box… you’d think that as an amateur at this profession, you might get someone else to dismantle your bike and assemble it neatly into that cardboard box for you. Because probably somewhere along the line, someone told you it wasn’t that easy to do.

Well, as usual, I found myself learning things the hard way, and after 3 hours of loosening bolts, twisting handlebars, loosing important miscellaneous small pieces under the porch, removing tires, not so easily removing pedals, finding makeshift tools to do the job with, and grunting and screaming as I realized the bike just doesn’t slip easily into the stupid box (because I think my bike shop gave me a child sized box, i swear…) it worked. well, lots of packing tape, but it worked.

23 hours, 2 planes, and 117 tiny steps up a narrow french staircase near “sacre coeur de montematre” later, and my home for the next 10 weeks is sitting in a closet waiting for the train ride to Amsterdam next tuesday.

At this point, 10 days will come too soon for my liking, but there is definitely no backing out now. Besides, it’ll be nice to stop paying $6 for a shot of espresso.

a bientot!