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!

So I have been reasonably well behaved today, I put in about 2 hours of study for my exam on Wednesday, of which I wasted only about 30 mins of it. Considering that I am studying at home, that is equivalent to 5 hours on a normal day. But today is not normal as now I need to get ready to go meet the Germans family in the Black Forest for motorcycle training. Higher levels of safety, added bonus of cheap insurance, and today is just riding and tomorrow is the actual training, so it should be a fun time. The sunny weather we woke up to is gone, but it looks like it is trying to come out again, so wish us luck and a fun weekend! Then Thursday we have the annual family motorcycle trip! Wheee fun!

The thing is, he does not even know if he will even buy the bike, so really I should not be getting my hopes up, and in the end its not even my bike, but I cant help it (mother stop reading), there is nothing sexier than the German riding a motorcycle, and in particular an Enduro. Maybe because I fell for him while he was on a world trip, and Emma was an Enduro (when we borrowed his dads giant touring bike to go to the Ukraine it just did not have the same effect) but, even after 6 years of knowing him (I just found that one out today, BLAAAAA, but read gypsy princess if you want that depressing story. Of course only depressing if you fight against age, otherwise exciting????). Even if the rumor that motorcycle helmets cause hair loss for men, I dont care!

Giant bike mediocre on sexy scale:

Enduro bike off the charts sexy scale!:

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.

Episode 4 is out! And by she drops her bike I mean I can barely get on it before I drop it. I do not hide my embarrassing moments but rather flaunt them for to see! My friend has a great signature to her emails:

“It is true that by playing too much with fire, we take a risk, but we also take a chance: we might get burned, but we might also amaze and enlighten.”
–Robert Lepage

I agree, its my moto for life, and if on that video I sound like an idiot (I had no idea I was such a rambler - ok well to THAT extent of a rambler the German insists its part of my charm), I love that we have this record of what has easily been the most amazing experiences of my life.

I am not above wishing the 15 pounds I lost soon after this video never came back however. But rather than fat burners, I am at the gym, and I have cut down shoko. Cuba in less than 3 months!

I really love this, I think it sums up how a lot of bikers feel, in particualr those of us who leave our jobs for months at a time, or who let our kids ride on back and open up a whole new world for them.  :)  From She Rides A Beemer:

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).

So today we leave Switzerland to head back to Germany, we will spend the night at Oma`s and then tomorrow afternoon collect our key from our sublet and move back in. No, we are not kicking him out. When he wanted to sublet we told him the rent was for July 11 - October 11, or the time we had planned to be on our trip. He needed it for the 1st to the 1st however. So we let him stay on our coach (it turns into a bed), but he still had to pay the rent for when the apartment was free. Now we are back early because of the cold wet rain, (it was hardly the weather one wishes for your Orlando golf vacation, but we enjoyed it nonetheless) and it just works out he need to leave early.  So I am off to pack up the bike again, but for one of the very last times on the trip.

So here are some shots from Sarajevo to hold you over while I pack.

from this bridge the shot rang out that gave the excuse for the first World War.

And the reminders that not that long ago they were under siege.

It is such bliss to be sitting here drinking REAL coffee. For 3 months we have been given nescafe, only in Albania did we actually get proper coffee, probably due to the Italians that flock there for vacation.  (Patrick`s parents have a fancy Jura coffee machines and I have already had to refill the beans once). heh heh And I am just aimlessly checking out blogs and web comics I have missed out on, maybe coming back so early was a good thing. Originally I would have had just the weekend to unpack, settle away, and start classes again on a Monday. It may have proved too much of a shock to my fragile system.

I am also trying to update everything (slowly) as well as semi prepare for the return to teaching. I thought I would share why one needs unlocked cell phones, as after my little knee bump we drove through Istanbul, and I lost Patrick. WHO had no cell phone with him. I had mine, but his was dying and we decided we didnt need it.

uhh huuuuh:

I am quite confident that I have ruined my karmic balance for the next 6 lifetimes over the curses I slung at the drivers of Istanbul. Slow fiery deaths trapped within the confines of their metallic death mobiles being one of the milder I flung at those who tried to run me over, push me off the road, or cement me in between two cars as one refused to allow me my own space on the road (after all a motorcycle doesn’t need as much space as car so why not fit two or three cars into the one lane with me) and the other decided they did not need to wait and could pass on the hard shoulder.

I HATED driving through Istanbul, and this was just the highway through.

And just when I thought that it could not get any worse my worst nightmare came true. Patrick noticed that we were in the wrong lane and did the run of death to get into the right one, as I sailed passed off the ramp and headed into the actual city, now separated from Patrick by about 600 cars and a new highway.

What did your cool calm and collected heroine do?

She pulled over to the side of the road, stopped her bike, and began to scream at the top of her lungs in between inconsolable sobs of grief. When that made me feel a little better I chanced the screams from inhumane howls to random swear words. When I was able to breath again and fought back the panic and the fear (I was lost in a city of 16 million, unofficial count coming in at 24 million, I had no money as Patrick had it, it would be dark in a little over an hour and driving here was as close to death as I have knowingly come in my life).

Patrick had said however that if we got lost from each other we were to head to the toll booth and he would wait for me there. So gathering my wits about me, I took a deep breath and began the battle to the Edirne exit.

4 VERY close calls to death later I was waiting for Patrick where he said I should. He should have been there ahead of me. he wasn’t. So I texted Joscha knowing that Patrick would eventually check his email in his hunt for me.

30 minutes later Patrick was still not there and we had now been separated for almost an hour. Dark was coming fast, I had no idea how many exits from Istanbul to Edirne there actually were, and I knew that even if I could turn the bike around to fight my way back to the city, I would rather sleep at the toll booth than do so.

So I texted Joscha again, told him to tell Patrick I was headed out to the next exit out of Istanbul, and used my last 4 lire (or about 2 Euro) to get my ass back on the highway and out of the city of evil.

the story continues with an amazing stroke of luck. I drove for 30 minutes, took an exit that I was sure was safely out of Istanbul, and as dusk fell I began to look for a hotel that I could stay at until I could make contact with Patrick. I forgot I still had 35 Euros, so that would cover me for the night, and anything extra I figured could be covered once Patrick finally found me again. (Truthfully the temptation to keep driving to Greece was overwhelming, but I fought it off).

I had no sooner pulled over to ask about hotels (and lock myself in there for another fit of overdue hysterics, and to berate myself for not having my own source of funds, stupid stupid stupid move) when my phone rang. It was Patrick calling from an internet cafe. one more hour later, and in the pitch dark, we were reunited, and about to face our second worse fear. Driving in Turkey at night. Potholes and crazy drivers, roads unexpectedly and without warning covered in loose gravel, and bus drivers.

Our preferred camping place: