fiets!

I have a bike! (It's the green one in the photo.)

After spending 175 euros on the bike, the bungee cord straps, and the two locks (the second being the handcuff on the rear tire), I have to say, I miss hand brakes. On the first day, I fell off. Twice. I definitely need to practice stopping and starting before I try biking in a skirt again. And forget about putting Casey on the back there.

But all the bikes have neat mechanically powered lights. When it starts getting dark out, you can engage the little gear that uses friction with the front tire to generate enough electricity for the small front and back lights. And it doesn't feel like I'm losing that much efficiency to the light while pedaling. I also don't mind having only one gear: there are no hills, and without a helmet I don't want to go very fast anyway. So once I get the starting and stopping down, I'll be all set.

Here's my quick guide to Dutch pronunciation. Like in German, "ie" is pronounced like a long "e" sound. So "fiets" ("bike") sounds like the English word "feats." And "drie" ("three") is pronounced... well, I don't think I'm the best person to describe the pronunciation of this word, because every time I ask for three zones on the tram, they think I'm asking for two. (When Casey does it, they think he's asking for one, which is even weirder.) Right, so, "twee" is pronounced kind of like "tveh" might be in English, and "een" is... something like "Maine" without the M. We can't figure out why they're confusing those three words when we say them.

One more word for today -- five is "vijf," pronounced like the little piccolo instrument (fife).