I GOT THE JOB!!!! I sign a one year contract on Monday or Tuesday. I start the following week. I'm staying in Amsterdam! This is all real!

Pretty much the best birthday present ever. WOW.

The greatest short film ever (under two minutes long). Especially great if you're a freelancer.

Good morning Paris!

Just a brief reminder/update – I don’t really make too many public posts with LiveJournal. I used to always keep my travel writing public, but now I'm probably going to put all that stuff on my other blog. If you care about my day-to-day life and want to keep up with my LJ anyway, just let me know and I'll add you to my friends list.

Anyone is welcome to read and comment on my other blog, and you don’t have to leave LJ in order to do that. Just go here and add “tami in nl” to your friends list. Anytime I update Another American Expat, it will show up on your friends page the same way my normal LJ entries would. You can also subscribe directly with RSS or Atom feeds, if you know how to use that stuff (FYI, if you use gmail the google reader is a really, really easy way of keeping track of your feeds). I've been using LJ for a really long time and don’t intend to stop, but it’s nice to kind of start over with a blog that doesn't include me whining about how much I hate my job from like, 2001. Let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said is confusing.

So! I'm in Paris until Wednesday afternoon, and than I grab a train to Amsterdam. I’ll arrive there around 7:30pm and spend a few days trying to learn my way around, and then I’m off to Barcelona on the 28th for a few days. As of May 2nd, I’ll be living in Amsterdam... hopefully for a long time, but at least through the end of July.

I woke up at Fran and Laura's house today. We had an aweome night last night - Laura gave a 50 minute lecture on WW1, we ate yummy food, we drank cheap wine, and I had a comfy couch on which to sleep. This morning, Fran made waffles. Everything was great, lovely morning, lovely friends. Around 10:30am I went outside to get in my car and go to work. Except the car wasn't there. At all. Just not there. Keep in mind: this car doesn't belong to me, it's Brian's (my mom's boyfriend). It's an Infiniti. In my mind, it's a tan car. After I walked up and down the block, I went back to my friend's place.

People were called. The panic attack started. Fran and Laura took over, called the police and the impound lots, and then Fran took me outside to drive me around and look for the car. Which, again, in my mind.... is tan. I have been driving it for 4 weeks now, pretty much every day.

"That's your car," says Fran, pointing to a green car parked right where I could have sworn I parked my tan car. "That's an Infiniti." Fran has seen my car once before.

"No it's not, my car doesn't look like that..."

Oh wait.

That was my car. My green car. I have a spolier on the back of my car? I guess I do. It's green? Since when is my car green? Fran says it's always been green. Brian refers to it as "jade."

It was totally my car. My coffee mug was in the cup holder, my sneakers were in the back, and it was locked up. I always lock the car. Always. And it has an alarm.

After I finished dying and Fran eventually stopped laughing at me, I got in the car and drove to work. Laura gave me all kinds of reasons for why I'm not the stupidest, most idiotic person on the planet ("you have a lot going on, you're busy, you're working too hard, things happen..."), but in fact, that is exactly what I am. Oh my god. Thank god for Fran and Laura. Thank god. Seriously.

A metrocard was never this much stress.

Dollar falls to record euro low

The dollar has fallen to a record low against the euro as traders bet that further interest rate cuts will be needed to stem a US recession. The euro rose to $1.509 after buying $1.50 on Tuesday for the first time.


How much worse is this going to get?

Wait, don't answer that question.

This story is all over the news this weekend. Kosovo is getting ready to declare independence from Serbia.

The dancing and drum-beating that pulsed through Pristina — awash in red and black Albanian flags with the distinctive double-headed eagle — contrasted sharply with the gloom gripping the ethnically divided northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, a Serb stronghold and a flashpoint for violence.

"We are Serbs and this will always be Serbia," said a defiant Djordje Maric, 18. "We are ready to defend our territories at all costs, including with our lives."

Another tiny little country emerges from what used to be Yugoslavia. I very much wish I could sit down with my Serbian friends and ask them what they think about this. This is a completely fascinating thing to watch from the outside, but I'd rather be there, seeing it for myself. In six months I'll be there - and I wonder if anything will have really changed for the better.

Another article here, from Reuters. There's some good links to video in there as well.

Updated Another American Expat tonight.

Excuse me while I copy and paste some parts from that blog, but it's fairly important and I'm really tired of looking at this computer screen.

A small announcement: I finished a short video project that I started in late November (2007). I have a list a mile long of everything I wish I did differently, of course, but it's a great feeling to say it's done (for now).

Working on my own video project for the first time in years was, overall, a great experience. I had very limited experience with the HDV camera I was using, and I had to more or less teach myself Final Cut Pro as I went along. Several years ago I might have been more confident with a camera and an editing system, but I had no idea how to build websites or upload video to the web. In order to learn, I ask a lot of advice from friends, but mostly I just start trying until something works.

The video project is up on my website, and I'll probably put it up on YouTube sometime tomorrow. It's about raising a child with Down Syndrome, and I interviewed my friend Adine (I've known her for over 20 years) at her house in upstate New York. I didn't really plan anything and only had an hour of tape, so I just asked questions and tried to piece together a story that I thought might help someone else learn. As I interviewed her, I was learning how to ask the right questions and how to guide the conversation - which is part of the reason why I think the second half of the 10-minute video is much stronger than the first half. I was incredibly lucky to have a subject who was so willing to be involved.

I watched my video on a television for the first time last night and started to cringe at all the things that I know I could do better (if I only had one more day to edit!). I even thought about not showing anyone except Adine. However, Adine saw the video, loved it, and forwarded it around to her family. I got an email today from Adine's mother-in-law that said "Thanks for taking on this project. I hope it helps change perceptions about the condition." Honestly, just knowing that Adine and her family like it is good enough for me. It was a great learning experience and it's something that I'm not going to stop doing. I can't wait to keep learning more.

If you get a chance to see it, I totally welcome any comments, suggestions, or criticisms of the video. The only way to improve for the future is to figure out what I did wrong in the past, so feel free to be brutal. I know it seems to work fine for mac users, but if you run into technical problems not being able to see the video (you need quicktime), please let me know. My knowledge of actual HTML programming is still a lot of guesswork.

Okay, there's a lot of reasons I want to live in Amsterdam. But I'll be honest, it's mostly because the Amsterdam flag matches all my clothes.




I got a surprise in the mail today. My lovely friend Christine sent me the book Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak. Isn't that sweet? This is the girl who has also offered me a room in her apartment when I arrive, and invited me along to Barcelona with her in late April.

She's pretty much the best person ever.

This afternoon I spent a few hours at a very cozy cafe in New Paltz, NY and got to catch up with my friend Christine (from Amsterdam) over skype. To be accurate, she's originally from Austria, but has been living in Amsterdam for many years. She was the one who had a mobile phone ready for me to use when I was in Amsterdam this past October, and though I was staying with someone else, she kept offering me keys to her place.

Christine told me today, again, that I was absolutely welcome to stay in her apartment when I move to Amsterdam in April (she even has an extra room!), and that she's having a wonderful holiday right now traipsing around Rome and climbing mountains in Austria, and I must go to Italy with her one day, and so on. Just nice day-dreamy conversation, both of us talking a lot about all the places we would like to go and things we would like to do. Then she says "I just bought a ticket to go to Barcelona in late April." "Why?" I asked. "Because I've never been there, and the weather will be great" was more or less her answer. "I've never been there either," I said. "You should come!" she replied.

And I thought, why not?

From Amsterdam (AMS) to Barcelona (BCN)
Date: Monday, 28 Apr 08
Depart time: 18:35
Arrival time: 20:45
Flight number: VY5174
Terminal: 1

From Barcelona (BCN) to Amsterdam (AMS)
Date: Thursday, 01 May 08
Depart time: 15:50
Arrival time: 18:00
Flight number: VY5161
Terminal: B

Then both of us got really excited and giddy and I thought again how lucky I am to have found a friend like her; someone who will prompt me to buy plane tickets to Spain out of nowhere and who opens up her home to me so freely.

So now I have plane tickets for a short vacation in Europe, but I don't actually have tickets TO Europe yet. All I know is that I have to be in Amsterdam by April 28th, so I can make my flight to Spain!

As I mentioned yesterday, I watched all four hours of Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke. Though Hurricane Katrina is at the center of the story, it's really a film about New Orleans and how that city fits in to the rest of the United States. And that being said, it's a film about the United States that I don't think the rest of the world has ever really seen before.

I moved to Paris in March 2005, but returned to Philadelphia for the entire month of August that same year (for a job). My flight back to France was in early September, so I was in the US when the storm hit. I consider myself as someone who is relatively familiar with NOLA as a visitor. I've been there three or four times, never to just be a tourist, but always because I had friends who lived there. I've stayed in the real houses and apartments, I knew how to get around, I had my favorite bar (The Funky Butt, oh how I miss you), I knew where I liked to shop, etc.

Watching Katrina destroy New Orleans on the news broke my heart. I knew what it meant to have stagnant water just sitting there in a city that is already below sea level. I thought about all the graveyards I had wandered through as a tourist - the bodies are all above ground in tombs. I thought about the disgusting humidity that all Southerners deal with in the late summer, the mosquitoes, the rats, the snakes... That's what I thought about when I saw the floods. I knew that NOLA had pretty much become an open sewer. Everyone I knew in New Orleans had air conditioning, even if they lived in a crappy, cheap, studio apartment and were making minimum wage. There was just no way to survive that heat and humidity without it. Obviously, the electricity was down for days after Katrina, so there was no relief from the heat. The heat... god, I remember being in New Orleans in the summertime and taking three or four showers a day, changing my clothes all the time, and feeling exhausted just walking down the street to the next air-conditioned restaurant.

When I got back to Paris, all of my friends - or even just people in the neighborhood who knew I was American (like the guy who worked at the fruit & vegetable market I frequented) - asked about Katrina right away. They all said the same thing "But... Really? Is it really that bad? Are you okay? Did it happen near you?" Their concern was absolutely genuine. Then they would say "But how did it happen? I mean, it's the USA, you are a rich country...and it looks like the whole city was just destroyed.. How is that possible? Are people really left for dead in the street? In the US?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. THAT is the real United States. That is what my non-American friends don't see in Hollywood movies or on MTV or read about in magazines. People walked for miles and miles in the sweltering heat without food or water to try and leave the city on foot if they didn't have a car... and were told AT GUNPOINT to turn around and go back. Dead bodies of humans, dogs, rats, etc., were left wherever they fell for days. Almost makes it sound like a war, huh? Especially when they start calling the millions of people - the millions of AMERICAN FUCKING CITIZENS who lost their homes REFUGEES. The dictionary definition of a refugee is "a person who flees for refuge or safety, esp. to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc."

Political upheaval, war, etc. I guess "a bad hurricane that everyone knew was coming" falls under "etc." This wasn't exactly a surprise.

Come the fuck on. How are we one of the richest countries in the world, with a super powerful army, big enough to go in and invade/occupy other countries, important enough to world politics so that our presidential election is front page news all over the world... how can all that be true, yet we can still call well-educated, tax-paying, American born and raised citizens "refugees?" Well, maybe it's because as I watched these people try to get the bare necessities for survival (food, water, shelter), I realized they couldn't. Maybe because they weren't free to walk across the goddamn bridge on fucking American soil, from one town to the next. Maybe because after days and days of being trapped, when people did get out on planes they had no idea where they were flying. Maybe because ... there wasn't much difference between New Orleans residents in 2005 and real refugees in war-torn countries.

The way the US federal government failed to react to Katrina did not surprise me a bit. But I can understand why other people just simply didn't get it, especially if they've never been to the US. I understand the confusion. This documentary explains the history, explains the storm, and shows the aftermath with brutal honesty. My eyes kept welling up with tears when I wasn't fuming with anger.

When the Levees Broke was released by HBO in December 2006. I don't know why I waited so long to watch it, and if anyone reading hasn't already seen this film... put it at the top of your priority list. And if you have already seen the documentary... stay angry.

For some reason RFI wasn't on 91.5 WNYE last night. It's the strike! All of France is on strike!

Just kidding. Today it's only the transport workers, postal workers, teachers, air traffic controllers, and hospital staff... oh, and students. But seriously, I felt lost without my dose of RFI so that I could half-understand what's going on in France right now (and I'm still puzzled as to why it wasn't on), so I resorted to reading about things on the BBC website in English.

Fight, France, fight!

I admire the hell out of the way the French strike. I don't always support their cause, but at least they DO something about it, you know? When I worked as a tour guide in Paris, I loved working in a strike-history-lesson into my walking tours of the Marais. It was appropriate, since we would start off at the Hotel de Ville - formally called Place de Grève.

And here in the US, we have the Writers strike, which I completely support (even though I do miss The Office). In NYC, the stagehands are still on strike as well - at one of the busiest times of year for shows. And today I learned from an industry-type newsletter that "Nearly 300 CBS News newswriters who are members of the WGAE (writers guild of america east) and WGAW (writers guild of america west) voted 81% in favor to authorize a strike against CBS."

Wiredsays today "In a surprise move late Monday, the news writers at CBS voted to honor the Writers Guild of America strike and walked off the job. It's a show of pure solidarity and a shock to the would-be objective journalism world as TV news writers are not covered by WGA rules. With the Iowa Caucus approaching, this is a severe blow to any network news operation."

I really love all of this action. I love seeing people care. I feel bad for all the crew jobs that are affected by the writers strikes, I definitely have sympathy for the Paris commuters, and it's a shame that the show can not go on in New York City over this holiday weekend (unless something is quickly resolved). But it is so refreshing to see people do something. Up next for the writers is the International Day Of Solidarity on November 28, with demonstrations taking place in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Mexico and France. More details here.

Long live the spirit of la grève. Passion is always better than apathy.

I was a little late for work this morning - partly because the subway was running slow, but mostly because I was really sucked in to an interview on the BBC World Service, which airs at 9am on NYC's National Public Radio station. The host was talking to a woman in Turkey - and I really wish I had been paying more attention at the start of the interview (I was running around trying to find my keys, metrocard, etc) because I have no idea who the woman was. But his questions were just so to the point. She's going on and on about how Turkey is prepared to fight the terrorists and ready to go to war on terror. The host asks her if this means she supports the American war on terror and occupation of Iraq. She gave one of those politician type responses where she more or less avoided his question altogether. So he responds by saying something like "So I can tell by the lack of clarity in your answer that you don't really know what you're talking about." She tries to point out that Turkey has a very simple plan and a very simple enemy - the terrorists - whereas America being in Iraq is much more complicated. The host says (from what I can remember) "So if it's so simple, than why haven't you already solved the problem, and how is your 'War on Terror' any different from the United States?"

I wish I could find this interview online and I got to listen to it with more focus. His questions were just so good, he wasn't letting this woman get away with anything, but at the same time he wasn't exactly attacking her (as BBC hosts tend to do). I just loved the way he listened to what she had to say and then threw it back in her face and would point out the inconsistencies in her argument.

Any NPR or BBC listeners out there know if I can still find this program online?

Now that I have access to everything from my old computer, I was able to upload some travel photos on to flickr last night. Want to see?




Sibiu, Romania (August 2006)




Switzerland (October 2006)




Vienna, Austria (October 2006). I really love this set - Vienna is such a cool city. If you've never seen the inside of an Esperanto museum... now's your chance! There's also some great shots from the museum of Austrian folklore. I can't wait to get back there one day.

Hi there, internet. I was hoping you might be able to help.

I have a 3-year-old dell laptop that just simply won't turn on anymore. This computer has been slowly dying for about a year now - the USB ports don't work, it was running really slowly, etc. I'm very willing to let this computer go and get it out of my life, but I do have about 3 years worth of stuff that I would like to think isn't totally destroyed. Just documents, photos, and music (only about 4 gigs of music).

Does anyone know the best/fastest/cheapest way to go about solving this problem? I'm not much of a tech person, but isn't there a way I could just remove the hard drive, put it in another dell, and get all my stuff?

Edited to clarify

I am in possession of the following computers:

1. 3-year-old non-working dell PC laptop (the subject of this post)
2. Brand new sony vaio PC laptop with stupid windows vista that makes me insane
3. 4-year-old perfectly functioning powerbook G4 mac laptop that is technically owned by my company but I use it for personal stuff all the time (ie: I take it home at night, I have my music and pictures on it, etc) and have "administrators rights," meaning I know all the passwords and whatnot.

Update:

God I love the internet. The problem has basically been solved before noon. Thanks all!

After over 11 months of staying put in the same country, I'm finally getting ready to use my passport again. I take off for Paris tomorrow on Air India and will arrive on Thursday morning around 10am. I'll spend a few days hanging out in my old home city and a few days running around Amsterdam... The trip is just a total of seven short days.

When I was living in Paris, I never would have dreamed of taking such a long trip for such a short amount of time, but it's fine. It's not like I'm going anywhere new or looking to do anything touristy. I'm just going to enjoy the time I have with my friends and go back to some favorite spots, maybe even discover some new favorite spots along the way. I even have dinner plans on Thursday night with my dear friends Courtney and Agnes! It feels totally surreal and amazing to have dinner plans in Paris in two nights.

Even though it sounds silly, I'm really looking forward to the actual train ride from Paris to Amsterdam. I love those Thalys trains - so fast and comfortable. When you start off in Paris, the announcements come first in French, then Dutch, then English (and I think maybe German is somewhere in there?), and as the train moves through Belgium and closer to the Netherlands, the order of the languages switches around. Those are the little things that I miss about Europe so much. I think the only Dutch words I know (other than "Dank u") is "Dames en heren" (ladies and gentlemen), courtesy of Thalys announcements. When I arrive in Amsterdam, my friend Mark is meeting me at the station, and then I get to to spend the next three days bugging him to show me real life in Amsterdam. I got a pretty good look at it the last time I was there (since I was staying with a Hospitality Club member), but there's still a lot more to learn. And I just heard that my other Amsterdam friend, Christine, will also be in town while I'm there. Hooray!!!

There's a ton of stuff I want to do and see and accomplish with my 7 days in Europe, but I'm also going to make sure to do a lot of hanging out and relaxing.

I CAN NOT WAIT.

In a couple weeks, I'll be riding my bike 75 miles/120 km across the state of New Jersey to raise money for multiple sclerosis. I was encouraged by my friend Ben to do this ride a few years ago and I'm really happy to be doing it again this year. I'm also a tad nervous - I have never ridden my bike that many miles in one day before (the last time I did the ride I did the 45-mile option), but I'm really looking forward to the challenge.

Every cyclist must raise at least $250 to do the ride. My goal was $500, and I'm really pleased to say that I've almost doubled that amount in donations, mostly though the generosity of co-workers, family, and their co-workers. So I absolutely do not need you to donate to me - but I DO need you to donate! All of the money goes to the same place and helps fight MS, so just pick a person and donate anything you can spare (even $5 helps).

I am riding with Team Schmeam this year, which is headed by Kevin/nocoins. Kevin is one of the most avid cyclists I know and is going to do this entire ride on a fixed-gear bike, probably with a giant chain around his waist and a messenger bag filled with stuff on his back. He's insane, is what I'm trying to say, but I appreciate the fact that I've never seen him in a pair of bike shorts. Donate to Kevin here.

Speaking of bike shorts, Ben/schtune is also another crazy person. When I rode with him a couple years ago, he was really, really sick. Only slept a few hours, could barely breathe - really sick. But he got up and out and rode 75 freaking miles during a hurricane. I still can't believe he did that. So if you appreciate THAT type of insanity, donate to Ben here.

The night before the ride, I'll be staying with Karen/wander999 and going to the start line with her very very very early in the morning. I think this is Karen's second year doing the ride, and she's a really good friend and former roommate. One time I saved her old boardwalk cruiser bike from getting stolen at 3am in Philadelphia. She's hot and rides a really cool bike and you can donate to her here.


I have two goals for the bike ride - to finish the full 75 miles and to not get off and walk at any point. Which is very tempting at the end, because in the last 5-6 miles or so we have to ride over two large bridges with steep hills. At the END of the ride, when we're all tired. Even if every single muscle in my body wants to get off and walk my bike up those hills, I'm swearing right now that I won't do it.

Wish me luck!

It's starting to happen. All of a sudden, there are American flags going up everywhere. It's the day before the sixth anniversary of September 11th. I rode my bike past that big, gaping hole in the ground over the weekend, where the twin towers once stood.

A part of me wishes that I could just be sad on September 11th, and not angry. I remember how devastated I was in 2001 - fortunately all my family and friends in NYC were fine, but I couldn't shake that terrible sadness out of me for a very long time, the sadness for the people who lost family members and loved ones and co-workers and friends. I remember driving around in the days after it happened in 2001 and having to pull over because I would burst into tears at the drop of a hat, just thinking about the idea. The idea that you could kiss someone goodbye in the morning and have them not be there at night - and thinking of the thousands of people who had such a miserable death - it was heartbreaking.

And now it's six years later. Thousands of New Yorkers have suffered terrible health problems from living in the toxic air that surrounds "Ground Zero," and if those New Yorkers don't have health care (like me!) then they're fucked. People who did nothing wrong except choose to stay living in downtown Manhattan, when everyone else wanted to leave - now they can't stop coughing.

It was Al Qaeda that attacked us, right? So why is it that 9 more US soldiers were killed in Iraq this weekend? Why is it that six years later, young Americans are dying in our "war on terror" in a country that had nothing to do with September 11? According to the Department of Defense, there have been 3,771 American deaths in Iraq. God knows who has the real statistic for Iraqi deaths, but Iraq Body Count puts the number between 71,000-78,000.

So more Americans have died since we invaded Iraq than died during the attacks on September 11th. And over seventy thousand Iraqis... Can you even begin to really imagine that number? I can't. It was hard for me to imagine 3,000 in 2001. Over seventy thousand people who had family members, loved ones, co-workers - and what the fuck have we accomplished? This country, the US, is like a killing machine. Nothing is safer anywhere and the world is a more violent place. We just keep killing and destroying everything.

At one point, a huge chunk of the world was on our side. Remember? Back in 2001, when the French newspaper Le Monde printed the headline "Nous sommes tous Américains" - We are All Americans. I wonder if the rest of the world would have the same type of reaction today, if something like September 11 happened again. How could they? Here in America, we started referring to our food as "Freedom Fries" and printing bumper stickers that read "Boycott France." Simply because France didn't want to fight in our war against innocent people.

The way my government has chosen to handle the aftermath of September 11th makes it almost impossible for me to feel sad tomorrow. I live and work in New York City, and life here goes on. The debris has been cleared, the memorials are up, people are making money and going out and living. We're at war, but you would never know it here. We're not the ones who are dealing with roadside bombs or curfews or an army rushing into our house to search for weapons. Life in America goes on, as our government destroys it for thousands upon thousands of other people in another part of the world. How can I look at tomorrow as a time to feel sad for my city? I can't. I can't feel sad for New York and I can't feel sad for Americans living here. I thought about going to Ground Zero tomorrow, just out of curiosity, but I probably won't. Where are all the Iraqis or the Afghanis going to go to mourn their dead? Do they have a multi-million dollar memorial site built somewhere, covered in patriotic lights and flags, and a list of everyone's name that has been killed?

I hope that the New Yorkers who lost their friends and loved ones back in 2001 can gather together tomorrow and remember the people they lost in peace. And I wish the same for people all over the world, including the people my country is attacking right now because of that fucking excuse ... "September 11th."

I FOUND AN APARTMENT TONIGHT!

I'm going to continue to live in my beloved Williamsburg, but in the Puerto Rican area (moving from the Italian/Dominican area). My roommate is a small, skinny gay man who makes his living walking dogs and pet-sitting. His current roommate (the one who is leaving) is a French/Israeli woman (!) who works in a pedicab repair shop. Anthony, my new roommate, is friends with everyone in the building and the neighbors. The first thing I saw when I walked in the building was bikes (one of them was Anthony's). There's nothing swanky about the apartment at all - there's sloping floors, a bathroom door that doesn't close all the way, a weird paint job, etc.

But I have two rooms to call my own. Enough space for a bed, dresser, desk, and even a couch and chair. I can have guests stay over even if they're not going to stay in my bed!

And after I was already totally sold on the place.... Anthony showed me the ROOF. The roof of the building where I'll be living, with the view of Manhattan and plenty of space to invite people to hang out.

I'll babble on and on about it tomorrow. Tonight, I drank a small glass of red wine and ate a bowl of ice cream with strawberries to celebrate. Man, it is really good to have that all over with.

I grew up on two wheels. My small town was miles from everything, and all the kids in the neighborhood rode bikes. I don't remember a time in my childhood when I was without my bike. When I was a little kid, I used to ride through the woods and over the "jumps." That's what we called them in Gardiner, NY. There was this big empty patch of land that was basically piles of dirt (today, it's a pizza place/video store/parking lot). To a kid, that is heaven. We had all kinds of bike paths in those piles of dirt, and even though I was always the only girl with a gang of boys (hick boys, I might add) I was never excused from jumping over our highest "cliff" and trying to pop wheelies on my pink huffy with the banana seat. I rode people around on my handlebars without hesitation.

As I got a bit older, I would often ride my bike the 7-8 miles down the old rail trail into New Paltz. I never let terrain stop me from going where I wanted to go. I remember half-carrying, half-riding my bike down this ridiculous hill in the woods, covered in rocks and thorns, but goddammit I wanted to get to the other side of the road and I couldn't find any other way of doing it.

When I went to college, a lot of people knew me as That Girl On The Bike With The Hair. There weren't a whole lot of people at my university that used their bikes to get around, which always confused me. You could get to places faster on a bike. I could sleep an extra 10 minutes because I rode my bike. Who wouldn't want to do that? the "with the hair" part came because I did wild things like dye my hair bright colors and, for a brief period, did the liberty spikes thing.

After college I spent almost a year not riding very often. I lived in the suburbs, everyone drove everywhere, and when I did ride my bike to get to places it was a hassle to find somewhere to lock it up. But when I moved to Philadelphia in 2003, I was determined to get back into it.

I was scared! I had never ridden a bike in a city before. I could handle the woods and dirt and old train tracks for bike paths... but riding in between busses, cabs, pedestrians, and cars? I remember my first ride in Philly - both of my tires were really low on air, so I was going absurdly slow. Still, a cab ran a stop sign and hit me. It wasn't the best introduction to city biking, to say the least. Because I was moving very slow, there was almost no damage at all (he hit my back tire), but after recovering from the shock I cursed out the driver - who in turn cursed ME out, explaining that it was my fault he ran a stop sign and hit me. The older couple in the backseat of the cab looked absolutely terrified at our argument, but I knew what was happening - I was developing a very necessary city attitude about biking.

Since then, I haven't been hit. I've ridden the streets of Philadelphia at all hours of the day - in the pouring rain, 110 degree days, the middle of the winter (I still hate riding when it's really cold out), etc. On my bike, I was never afraid to take a wrong turn and end up in a neighborhood where I didn't really belong. I felt like I owned the city, always able to quickly get away if someone said something. I once filed a police report against the driver of an SUV who tried to run me off the road (nothing happened, of course). Another time I stopped a guy from stealing my roommate's bike at about 3am outside our apartment. I had two bike seats stolen in the two years I lived there, and then I got myself a seat lock and have been fine ever since.

I moved to Paris in March 2005, but it was awhile before I got myself a bike. The bike I ended up purchasing for 50 Euros was totally unlike my US bike (a cheap hybrid). In Paris, I rode a heavy, old, thick-tired road bike. It had a little bell and a basket and a really big seat. I never really got the hang of that thing. The gears didn't work, the brakes were useless, and I never really felt like I had control of it. I did take it out for rides and used it to get around, but I never really loved it (though I really wanted to). There were two times I traveled in Europe and rented a bike - once at Belle Ile en Mer, a beautiful island off the west coast of France. That bike was the bike of my dreams - brakes, gears, hybrid tires - perfect for riding around the island. Because I was on a bike, I could veer off onto paths that weren't meant for cars. Sometimes I would come across a beach, sometimes a hiking trail. I spent an entire day discovering that island on two wheels, and I never had to bother trying to find a place to lock it - no one locked their bikes. That took a lot of getting used to... the bike rental place provided me with a lock that was so flimsy, I could have cut it in half with a pair of dull scissors.

I went to Amsterdam three times while I lived in Paris. The first time I was there, I was with two non-bike-people, and since the three of us were traveling together I didn't feel right about going off on my own to ride. The second time I was there, same thing - the person I was traveling with wasn't interested in biking. Don't get me wrong, in both situations my friends would have been totally fine with me saying "see you, I'm going to bike," but in both situations, I wanted to hang out with my friends. So I walked.

The third time, I was by myself. I finally had to learn my way around (if I'm with other people who take charge of maps and finding things, I tend to not pay attention at all), and I finally got myself on a bike. It was wonderful. Everyone yields to bikes there, and everyone bikes. No matter how old, well-dressed, or young, everyone there bikes. I was in heaven. My rental bike was similar to my Paris bike - big, heavy, with thick tires and a basket - but the brakes worked, which was all I really needed. I never got to take it out of the city on a proper 20-30 km ride, but I rode around parks and neighborhoods that I never saw in my previous trips.

And now, New York City. Again, I was intimidated to ride in NYC. You don't find more aggressive people anywhere in the states. But back on my old bike, I felt good. I forced myself to ride through areas that I thought would be challenging (ie: Chinatown, Harlem), and tried to stay calm as I rode over the Williamsburg Bridge for the first time (to be so high above water, with traffic moving at 60 mph to my left and nothing to my right... scary!). After a couple weeks, the city was mine.

So this weekend, when I went to Philadelphia, I wanted to bring my bike. I rode from my office to the Chinatown bus on Friday afternoon and for $10, me and my bike arrived in Philadelphia about 2 hours later. I got drunk at a show on Friday night and rode through unfamiliar streets in Fishtown (biking at 2am in Philly is one of my favorite pastimes) to get to a friends house when the night was over. I took my bike on subways and buses, carrying it up and down huge flights of stairs and over hoisting it over turn styles just so I didn't have to give up a weekend of riding. I did a lot of Philly biking, but I also did a really enjoyable suburban ride around a lake in south Jersey, and tonight I spent over an hour biking through Brooklyn.

Am I the best cyclist in the world? Hardly. I'm not that fast and I hate wearing a helmet. I'm not the biggest fan of hills, though I'm getting better. I only have one pair of "real" bike shorts, and I haven't worn them in years. My bike is rusted, the seat has this sticky thing on it that won't go away, and I've never changed out the tires or tubes.

The happiness I feel when I'm on my bike - even when I'm lost in Brooklyn on a Sunday night and still carrying around all my bags from the weekend - I can't compare this feeling to anything else. I just feel right. I don't really know if I'm cut out to ride my bike around the world, but I'm always going to own one.