C'est la vie dans la grand ville
Or "A sad, sad day in Bucharest"
For a week or so now, I've been looking forward to posting about cycling in Bucharest. I borrowed a bike from a friend of a friend, and I was loving it. It was so nice to ride around the city. Riding alongside the traffic was a little bit scary, but I wore my helmet and kind of enjoyed the rush. Mostly it was just great not to be dependent on the bus or metro lines or taxis. And Bucharest traffic can get pretty backed up at certain times of day, so it was great to speed past all of the waiting cars and buses and just get where I was going.
You may have noticed that I'm using the past tense a lot here. Today, I went out to get on my bike and go to the library, and it was gone. I had locked it up in the parking lot behind my apartment building last night. Sometime during the night, someone must have cut the lock. In retrospect, it seems so obvious that I should have found a way to lock it up inside the building.
As you can imagine, I'm pretty broken up about it. It wasn't my bike, and I feel terrible for losing someone else's bike. I'll have to pay for it now, which means that money will be tight for the rest of the summer. But really the money isn't that important. What's much worse is the guilt I feel over losing my friend's bike and the prospect of getting around Bucharest without a bike for the rest of my stay. It won't be a problem to take the bus and the metro or to walk, but I was having so much fun riding!
I talked to the police (in Romanian!) and filed a report. Hopefully they will find it, but you know how these things go... Wish me luck. As my junior high French teacher used to tell us "C'est la vie dans la grand ville"--that's life in the big city. And I suppose she's right. That's life. And it goes on. It doesn't stop me from feeling pretty terrible about it today, but I know that it's not the end of the world. These things happen, and I'm alright. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself of something? Maybe I am, but just a little bit.
Don't miss the (much more upbeat) post about Sulina below!
For a week or so now, I've been looking forward to posting about cycling in Bucharest. I borrowed a bike from a friend of a friend, and I was loving it. It was so nice to ride around the city. Riding alongside the traffic was a little bit scary, but I wore my helmet and kind of enjoyed the rush. Mostly it was just great not to be dependent on the bus or metro lines or taxis. And Bucharest traffic can get pretty backed up at certain times of day, so it was great to speed past all of the waiting cars and buses and just get where I was going.
You may have noticed that I'm using the past tense a lot here. Today, I went out to get on my bike and go to the library, and it was gone. I had locked it up in the parking lot behind my apartment building last night. Sometime during the night, someone must have cut the lock. In retrospect, it seems so obvious that I should have found a way to lock it up inside the building.
As you can imagine, I'm pretty broken up about it. It wasn't my bike, and I feel terrible for losing someone else's bike. I'll have to pay for it now, which means that money will be tight for the rest of the summer. But really the money isn't that important. What's much worse is the guilt I feel over losing my friend's bike and the prospect of getting around Bucharest without a bike for the rest of my stay. It won't be a problem to take the bus and the metro or to walk, but I was having so much fun riding!
I talked to the police (in Romanian!) and filed a report. Hopefully they will find it, but you know how these things go... Wish me luck. As my junior high French teacher used to tell us "C'est la vie dans la grand ville"--that's life in the big city. And I suppose she's right. That's life. And it goes on. It doesn't stop me from feeling pretty terrible about it today, but I know that it's not the end of the world. These things happen, and I'm alright. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself of something? Maybe I am, but just a little bit.
Don't miss the (much more upbeat) post about Sulina below!
posted by Erin Kay at 5:24 PM
2 Comments:
Sorry to hear about the bike, Erin. Don't feel like you did anything wrong here, though. Even when bikes are parked and locked inside bad guys (yes, bad guys) can find them. Who knows, maybe you'll find a lovely, affordable used bike shop around the city one of these days :)
Thanks, Martha. That makes me feel a bit better. If I had a dollar for every person who's told me "You should have known better than to lock it up outside," I could buy five bikes...
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