Duesseldorf Digest and Bonn Blog: I have mastered knee landing

I bet everyone has heard the expression: once you learn to ride a bike, you do not forget. Well, I’m sorry to break it to y’all, but that is a HUGE lie, and I can prove it.

This week we had the trip to Norderney and it was AMAZING!!! I’m from an island, so being here reminds me a lot of home, except for the wind, we don’t have that much wind where I’m from. We left for Norderney early on Monday and arrived there in the afternoon. The first thing that hit me was the smell of the ocean. I had really missed it. As soon as we got off the ferry we dropped off our bags and got on the bikes. I’m not a good bike rider, or a bike rider at all, even though I learned when I was around 5, and then when I was 13. I practiced a little in the backyard of the place where we got the bikes and then headed out to the hostel. After getting on and off my bike a quite few times, a few almost falls and a couple of hyperventilation attacks we got to the hostel (I arrived at least 5 minutes after everyone else but at least I made it there). Later in the afternoon I with some friends headed out to the town in our bikes (I could really use the practice). The town is a little seaside town, it is just beautiful. We walked around for a while, and got some gelato. The ride back to the hostel went pretty smooth, and just when we were entering the hostel I DID IT!!! While making a left turn I braked too hard, and gravity did its thing and I fell. I was fast enough to realize I was falling and used my right knee as fall-breaker. Thankfully I did not get really bad scratches, just a couple of small ones in the knee, but no big deal. At night we had one really special Tai Chi session at the beach, and we got to see the sunset while we were exercising a little, and it was just beautiful.

On Tuesday we had a really relaxing day. We biked to the Bade: Haus. There we had first a guided tour of the facility, in terms of technical matters and a tour of the spa. Afterward, we had a really interesting lecture about the island, its history and the medical benefits it has. Honestly, it was really interesting, and it was great to learn about all the little things that take place at Norderney that people don’t even know about. After the morning lecture, we had an EXTREMELY relaxing afternoon in the facility. We got to enjoy pretty much all of the services the facility offers. I personally spent a couple of hours just floating in the main pool. By the end of the day, I honestly did not even want to leave the SPA. In that afternoon we also had a BBQ at the courtyard in the hostel. It was a really good time. After, I and some friends headed to the beach and took some sunset pictures and talked and it was also great.

Wednesday was a big day of this excursion for many reasons, one of them being my argument that people CAN actually forget how to ride a bike. Early in the morning, we headed out to the town. Once there we divided into two groups and we went to the Bademuseum and in a little guided tour around the town, these both activities were amazing. After we walked a little more around the town individually and after went back to the hostel to head out to mud flats hike. Here, things got a little complicated just to say. The weather was not cooperating with us, and it made the experience a little harder to enjoy. The tour was really interesting, but by the end of it, everyone in the group was soaking wet (even though most of us had rain jackets). I’m convinced that this experience would have been amazing if it wasn’t because of the rain. We literally got the full combo: cold, wind and rain, these three together obviously made the experience a little hard to enjoy. After the excursion was over is when I had my biggest fail ever. The trip back from the mud flats was a combination of flat land, and hills. To me as an inexpert bike rider going uphill is kind of difficult, but as an engineering student, I used what I know to make the trip easier for me. My thought process was the following: going downhill gravity will help me, and going uphill, gravity will be my enemy. I decided to use the downhill to gain a greater impulse that would help me go easier uphill. And it worked. I pedaled really hard when gravity was in my favor, and the impulse helped me get uphill easier. But I definitely did not account for the very last hill, which is really steep, and going down. When I was going down the last hill, my bike started to gain impulse and speed, and I tried to slow it down, apparently didn’t try enough. When I got to the end of the hill I was going really fast and I had to go through 2 barriers, but I was too close to one of them. When I tried to get away from the barrier in the rain, with the wet floor and bad riding skills, I lost my equilibrium and fell off the bike, landing, once again, on my right knee. At first, I didn’t feel the pain, and it looked to me that the damage done to my knee was not that bad. I just got back on my bike and rode to the hotel. When I showered as soon as I got to the hotel I realized that I had scratched my knee really bad, and it looked a lot worse than what I expected. At this point, I’m just glad I did not break it, and that it is actually healing really well.

I’m not a person who is easily stopped, and my bad knee definitely did not stop me from going to Italy right after Norderney, AND IT WAS WORTH IT! Italy is a beautiful country. I got to visit Rome, Vatican City, and Florence. Three days are not even close to being enough to enjoy everything these three cities have to offer, but I least I got a really good idea. I think it is safe to say that the food I had in Italy is the best food I have ever had!!! Every dollar I spent in food there, was a well-spent dollar. The great variety of places in Italy made it hard to decide which ones were the ones we should visit.

Even though we did not get to see everything we wanted, we did see some of the must-see places, including the St Peter’s Basilica, which was an amazing experience. We also visited the Colosseum and The Vatican Museums where we saw the Sistine Chapel. Florence was by far my favorite Italian city (that I got to see). It just a nice place, it felt amazing being there. In Florence we got to see a parade of people wearing medieval customs (with horses and everything) which was not even planned, it was just a great coincidence. In Florence, we also visited the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, which was also an extraordinary experience. In the basement of the museum, they have a workshop where visitors can interact with prototypes of some of the Da Vinci’s designs which my inner nerd though was the COOLEST THING EVER!!!!!

Sadly, we only had three days in Italy, I hope that someday I’ll be able to go back and enjoy more of Italy, and Italian food! (:-P)