Yeah!

(The picture above is not from today, but was the only picture of my bike that I could find. Biking update follows below.)

It was my first time to bike alone today, I mean, ever in all my 23 years!! (Yeah, I'm one of those late bloomers, cheering at her own newfound skills like moms do to their drooly babies) I suppose it wasn't so much of a feat, really. Not where everyboody else learned how to bike --not to mention do bike tricks!-- when they were 5. And here I am, too afraid to even take my hands off the handlebars to say "hi" to anybody. I was even having nervous second thoughts about biking alone today. Thankfully, I didn't have any good excuses not to (it's biking season again), and the excitement of a new experience was too tempting.

At any case, even if no one else really cared or thought I was cool, I was actually swelling with self-pride as I pedalled away to do my errands (around 6 kilometers back and forth I think). I loved the feeling of freedom, of getting someplace by my own, of looking about at people doing their everday things, and having the wind on my face. I wanted to imprint in my brain every sensation I was having: how, getting there, I liked that I could feel my legs work hard uphills, and feel the bike move slightly from side to side for every pedal; and how, going back, I really enjoyed the feeling of anticipation before a downhill, a street crossing, or a sharp turn. I also felt a bit more independent and self-assured --like the feeling I had on the first day I was allowed to drive alone to school-- and that alone is an important feeling if you're newly living in a new place. It's strange that coming from country where biking in uncommon, you realize that simply riding a bike can give you all these feelings. Perhaps to the Vietnamese this "whole new world" of biking in Europe is not so special at all.

Anyway, I was definitely experiencing something new in my own Leibnizian internal universe, even if every pedestrian and ever car driver I passed by thought they'd seen someone just like me doing the same motions thousands of times before. Obviously, I thought the event important enough to write home about anyway! Oooh, and I love biking (both outdoors and indoors, nowadays). I'm glad the winter wasn't too long and that it's spring again. :-)