bike season opener!

it all happened so quickly...

i have been researching my options for purchasing a bike since mid-January.  i was a little frustrated by the lack of a used bike market here... there is one nearby shop selling used bikes but the guy told me that the Swiss love to buy new things. not old things. there was another option i explored: www.ricardo.ch which is sort of the craigslist of switzerland, however items are sold by auction which makes it difficult to test ride a bike before purchasing. of course i thought about buying another bike, but the thought of having to move 2 bikes after this year (potentially from different countries) was overwhelming, as were the prices. (its switzerland!)

i put it on the back burner for a while.

i'm not exactly sure how much time my dad spent packing up the bike, but surely i owe him for doing such a great job packing it. on monday i received a giant box in the mail with this inside:

i was able to pick up a bit of grease from a local motorcycle shop. a few hours later, as some of you might have been following the progress on facebook, and saw the final result:

i realized i didn't have a water bottle, and with a ride scheduled for wednesday, i decided to take a little ride to a nearby bike shop i read about on english forum, (a great resource for all things Swiss) The Bike.  it is true that the owner is not only an english speaker, but is from wisconsin as boldly displayed by his gb packers sweatshirt.  hopefully soon i can join their thursday night ladies rides- need to get my biking legs back first!

the past two wednesdays i've been lucky to bike with a couple of the gals here, marieke and chantal, for some rides along lake geneva. hopefully we can be ready for some alps rides soon.  (yikes! i realized i've never biked in mountains!)

until next time, here's a glimpse of the lovely lakeshore near morges. (we also biked past the medtronic facility just outside of morges)

hazy winter.

living near a lake has reminded me so much of living in chicago. of course so many things are different, but living just a few blocks from such a large body of water with beautiful lakefront paths really means that life is focused around the water. every run or walk is along the lakeside, and hopefully some biking soon!

but winter has been interesting with this lake. on a clear day there are beautiful, majestic mountains that look as though they're within reach. sometimes i think i could swim to them, and then i remember what a horrible swimmer i am... but throughout the winter there is a constant fog over the lake and many days those mountains that are so close are not even a tiny bit visible.

at first one might feel an urge to fast forward to summer when we are promised to have clear skies and swimming with mountain views. but after watching the lake and the sky change from day to day i've come to appreciate its mystique and moodiness.  many shades of grey, blue, purple and sometimes beautiful pinks and oranges during some amazing sunsets.

here are some photos i took with my phone on a recent run (an amazing run, btw), just before the skies ripped open and it started to pour.  this may/may not have had something to do with me getting sick almost immediately after the run...