Sticky Apple Kisses

Tomorrow is hopefully my last test of the year, and then we shall see if I take another module or not. I am registered for it because I want to have all my courses finished in November so I can start working on my thesis early and then I can be finished in time for us to start our world trip next June. And then hopefully I will have more time to start doing things like checking out term life insurance rates, that I need on a longer term basis, but is quickly moving into pressure for short term!

Are a dream combination I swear. (I almost missed my train stop yesterday I was so sucked into the frigging book. The worse part is there is a part of me that screams how dorky it is and stylized the writing, while the other part of me is transported back to being 16 again when I wished I was Anne Rice and had those characters living in my head). But I digress.

The other news of the week is the fact that I am again questing for a bike. Betty remains my baby, she is my love, and though we have scarred each other I think that just proves how deep our love is. (after all what major love affair doesn’t leave you mangled in some way even if you do stay together). BUT, I was somehow bribed into family skiing, I get Enduro training for Easter if I go skiing in Switzerland. I am a disaster on skies, worse on a snowboard, but involved with a family of ski and snowboarding instructors. As in all of them are, not just the boyfriend.) Anyway, I have never lied about my ability to be bought, and so I now get Enduro training the weekend before we leave for Cuba. (Which will be very handy for Iceland indeed!)

The general consent is however Betty will be too heavy for me to enjoy the training. I argued that Betty is the bike I will be riding, so I should in fact take her, but the German feels I should get the techniques down on a lighter bike.

Betty is not so small (in comparison to me anyway, I know full well from every other guy I have met that the 650 is a “tiny” bike. I’m 5″1 people!!!!)

The problem is that the lighter bikes are a little tall for me: (Ignore the flip flops and jogging pants, I never had any intention of riding the bike, it was just to check out the height factor):

Versus my heavier, but feet touching, Betty:

But the quest is on, while I sit here reading about vampires I hear German in the background with the occasional “she is so small” or “sie ist sehr klein” as he tried to explain that I need a low bike. (And I know that there are plenty of women who ride tall bikes and do the one foot stop thing, but I just dont think I am talented enough to handle it in a group where I will be burning with the fear of embarrassment at the very thought of dropping the thing, and not in the mud, but rather while just standing there).

In other news, if vampires and bikes are not your thing, but your lovely is a plant person, check out this link: Persimmon trees. For V day I will give the German a plant, and I can say that here because he doesn’t actually read the site. heh heh. But I LOVE their website. I never thought botany could be sexy before, but I have been proven so wrong.

Side note to Alix:  I have been agreeing to anything and everything I like the idea of with a `Hell Yeah!` and no one gets it except for Patrick. I have yet to write it in a note, but still.

Ok back to the topic! As yesterday was our last day of freedom (if a Sunday before a work day could ever be referred to as a day of freedom) we sat down and pulled out the bank and credit card statements from the trip. Now was the moment of truth (or an hour of it). We had planned on 30 dollars a day for our budget to cover our trip. We were back 2 weeks early, but we still wanted to know if we hit our budget. I feared that gas prices in Turkey (at almost 2 Euro a litre) had shattered our budget. When we finished calculating it was 25 Euro a day per person. That was everything spent on the trip and included the accident, (which was the visit, the pain killers, the cleaning, the stitching, the X ray and the after care. Cost - 40 Euros. I cant even claim it on my insurance because its too low) repairing the bikes, food, accommodation, everything! AWESOME.

That does not cover the costs before the trip, such as the bikes themselves, shots (of the immunization kind, TICKS!!!), the motorcycle equivalent to car insurance, (but our regular yearly insurance covered all the countries we visited so no extra cost there, just the yearly one we would have spent with or without the trip), or the down payment for my brothers wedding in Cuba. But I am a happy happy girl at the moment, since the trip cost even less than I thought, and means we can do two bikes for 25 Euros a day each! (and lose 25 pounds while your at it, which has not gone back on despite being a month surrounded by Swiss chocolate or German bakeries). Of course tomorrow is election day in Canada, this mood may not last……..

The other thing I was going to write about was auto insurance quotes, its a day for insurance quotes. But I am going to change what I was going to write a little to talk instead about going for what you want. Especially since on my trip I had an accident that ripped my knee open, I wont post the “moment of impact“ shot, but I will post the first week shot followed by one that I took a couple of weeks ago.

There are certain people I know who received a sense of validation from this accident. Which in itself is sick. If you dare to step out of their daily drudgery that they hate they attack you for it. (Read Revolt Of The Masses, excellent book about how people turn on anyone who is different or who dares to think for themselves instead of merely accepting the cultures values).

But basically the accident happened because I was an idiot and I did not have knee protection on. Combine that with bad luck and you know you will have disaster. I hit a mountain curve that was covered in loose gravel, lost control of the bike. My arm was badly bruised, but I had arm protection and I was Ok there, the bar hit my face, but I had my helmet on and got to keep all my teeth. My knees however only had the pants without knee protection. And I ended up tearing open my knee.

I was very lucky, it could have been much worse, I could have slid on a different curve and went off the side of the mountain itself.

These were all things I knew about before my trip. I did it anyway because I want to live my life now, while I can, to its fullest. Should something serious had happened it would not have been a case of regret for me. I can say that I life my life, that I try to make every second count (it doesn’t always work). Its true when I was younger I took that to its extremes and accumulated A LOT of debt (mostly in the forms of student loans). But now the debt is almost gone, and all my trips are paid for in cash, without incurring more debt. I am happy with my life. And I am willing to take those chances to live it. I have no regrets, and knowing what I know now I would do the trip all over again, and I am planning my next motorcycle trip even now as we speak.

Basically I am trying to say that there will always be people waiting and hoping you fail. Ignore them, and if you fall at least you lived before hand, something most people can not say they´ve done despite living for 100 years. Those who gather to laugh are to be pitied, not listened to.

(A picture taken after the accident).

I needed to pass on my linky loves for the week that I have been neglecting. This also means I have been neglecting friends (both of the flesh and blood as well as the online variety) blogs. Im still reading them even if I am not commenting as often as I use to! Its just with so much to do the past 2 weeks, and of course still looming tomorrow, the only reason I am even really online at the moment is to pass on a link for anyone who wants to buy memory, because when all is said and done, I have 3 months of living on savings and linky love coming up!

I will be posting from the road, and I hope to have more time as we are bringing a computer  with us as we are both hardcore computer geeks, me of the online type, and Patrick of the “I enjoy Java” type.  So some of the nights will be spent typing in front of the fire, because we are just sad like that.  :-P  But that means cut and paste prewritten blog entries for everytime we find internet!!!

So if there are textbooks out there on planning and going on a major trip, the number one point would probably be never expect to really leave when you say your going to leave. Our bikes are so not ready. The good news is that we are out of the apartment, I have my German motorcycle license, and Oma feeds us and lets us sleep here. Work said goodbye, my boss even hugged me and told me to come back safe, they need me. So since tomorrow is raining, a good nights sleep is in order, and finish packing and bike stuff tomorrow, and Sunday gerade aus!

So it is official! We leave Friday, which means yes, I PASSED On Saturday morning, (which was only yesterday morning, which is sickening in that it seems like 2 weeks ago!!!).

After a night of nightmares, and being so nervous I literally feared I was going to vomit into my helmet, I passed!!!!

I had been told to expect about 45 minutes, and 2 of the compound exercises. Some instructors take you to the highway, others the back roads, usually in combination with some driving through town. But they COULD do whatever they felt like to you. 1 hour and 15 minutes later I had driven through town, through the side streets of town, the highway, and the back roads where they do that whole what the speed limit ISN’T. And of the 6 possible exercises on the compound, I did 5. The only thing not asked was circles in second gear, which is fine by me, as how useful is the ability to do giant circles around trees anyway????
Before you go thinking I can now drive however, I have to sadly state that this is Germany, and nothing is so easy! I was given a piece of paper that I now bring to the drivers license office, and they take my old license and give me a new one with the permission to drive a motorcycle on it. Originally I had thought this was fine, I would at least be driving on Monday. Now I check the office hours, and I had forgotten all about German bureaucracy, with its office hours as limited as the paperwork is extensive. 8 30 - 12 30 every day, where I work 8 30 - 12 15 ALL this week. Thursday is the only day they are open past 1 30, and that is the day I am suppose to have lessons with the landlord.

Hopefully they will let Patrick pick it up with my passport, as we leave Friday for 3 months of motorcycling through Eastern Europe into Greece and Turkey and back!

Even with the frustrations, I am beyond elated, and its more fun than an xbox 360.

We here in Deutschland have two choices when it comes to movies, see it late dubbed in German, or wait a few months and hope the only original language cinema in the area (at least the only one that does not involve me prepositioning solders) picks it up half a year later. And tonight was the big premiere of Kung Fu Panda, which considering it was only a month late is not so bad. And I must confess I loved it. To the point where I was hee hawing my cackle (much to the dismay of all around me, but as I went by myself not to the public embarrassment of my friends. You should have seen me at Juno, the girl I was with threatened to move.) But this evening saw me alone as everyone else had something else to do besides hang with me, and despite the fact that the money I now have must do me for the next 3 months as I travel from here to Turkey and back, I decided to indulge myself. One of the nicer parts about living in a tent instead of opting for luxury vacations, 10 Euros may be a room with a shower, but then biker boots kind’ve make the whole clean thing moot anyway. Bring on my fat kung fu pandas!!!

Wheeeeeeeee, I have the day off today, after putting in 25 hours of work in 2 days today is freedom. Which gives me a chance to catch up on everything I have to do before leaving, including checking out travel insurance (or does my insurance cover everything because I am currently covered in Europe anyway? Turns out that my motorcycle insurance covers all the countries I want to visit without having to get extra).  I also need to enjoy this sunshine, so not TOO much internet time today. 

This describes German roads in a way I never could. Good for a giggle, and come July 5th should I fail (which I am not planning to do, but who knows in this country what I am actually SUPPOSE to do on the roads at any given point in time), well you have a better idea why I might have.

So yes, July 5th I dance the happy dance, or I scream cry and curse.

I really hope its the happy dance.

 German Signs Do Not Tell You The Speed Limit

I despise this:

German Traffic Lights Are Directly Above Your Head

and finally:

Germans Drive Binary  (I have had my instructor yell at me for not racing up to a red light at full speed,as well as for not accelerating at “full gas” when I see the yellow about to go green.)

Sigh, I may be able to start the bike on a mountain (a requirement of the test) but if I fail because I dont fly out of a red light I will dropkick.