Today was a bike riding day. Sounds easy enough, and the actual bike riding part was, but the prep, pre-biking riding, not so much. We got off about 10:15 a.m. and as we walked out the door I looked at Lucia in her long, skinny, body conscious, black dress and asked her if that seemed like a good idea since we were going bike riding? Seems like sensible shorts and tennis shoes would be better. Nope, she had a snotty comment about how everyone rode bikes like that and to leave her alone.
We went to a total of three bike rental places. The first had none available, and he sent us 10 minutes up the road to another bike shop. That shop didn't open until 11:00 a.m. so we killed some time in the playground and then at 11:00 a.m. showed up at the bike shop (aptly named "Cool Bike Shop"), where we rented 5 bikes. It took forever, in part because the shop was small, it was hot, and there were new people coming in every minute. Finally we wheeled out with bikes, and within 3 minutes Gia's bike chain fell off. Back we go. He fixed it, told her not to switch gears (huh?) and we were off again....until 5 minutes later Gia declared her bike was broken. Her seat was wonky, and the handlebars were far forward making it hard for her to avoid leaning in (which contributed to the already wonky seat getting even more wonky.) So we go back yet again, and I send Gia in to tell the guy while we stayed outside with our huge bikes. I remind her to speak French. She goes in, and comes out with the same bike, supposedly fixed. She goes 10 feet and the seat does it again. I march in there, tell them her bike is broken (I didn't bother trying to speak French because by that time I was really frustrated). He then tells me there are no more bikes. OK, fine. I give him her bike back and we go to yet the another bike shop down the street, and rent a new bike for her.
FINALLY, after all that, we got onto the bike path by the river and started actually bike riding. To my further annoyance Lucia is not hampered by her long skinny dress one tiny bit. Instead she looked like all the other chic Frenchie women on their bikes, and I felt like a frumpy mother with sensible tennis shoes and biking appropriate pants.
All that said, we did have a nice time, and we meandered up and down the river front, stopping back home to make baguette sandwiches and then taking them back out to the riverfront to eat a picnic. We rode for a solid four hours, until my butt was killing me and then we called it quits and returned the bikes.
We went home for siesta time, and then later in the evening, after dinner, we took the tram back into the center of town for ice cream a carousel ride and some time strolling around, stopping at the reflecting pool so that the littles could play in the water and we could watch the break dancers doing their jam on a little makeshift dance square near the pool.
We jumped on the tram to go home and were back and relaxing by 9:30 p.m. Our schedule is leaps and bounds more reasonable here than in Spain. It's also easier because John's not here and he's the night owl who maintains that eating earlier than 8 p.m. is simply not civilized. I prefer to think eating earlier might allow me to put the kids to bed early enough that I might actually get an hour of peace and quiet to myself.
Lovely day all around.
Signed, ME {lv}
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