June 10, by Marina

Instead of walking today we went bicycle riding with our friend John, and that was good until the seat started to hurt our butts and then we felt like we couldn’t sit down anymore. First we rode around some canals. The trees were absolutely beautiful in two straight lines along a single dirt road. I found bicycle riding much more fun than driving because you can see more around you and you can go as fast as you want as long as you’re in control.

The only bicycle that wasn’t the same as ours was mom’s. Mom got this bicycle that had three wheels. It was actually really hard to steer because the tuning is different and you don’t have to balance as much as on a normal bike. And it had this REALLY big basket in the back between the two back wheels. I tried to ride it and I almost drove it straight into the canal. Missy tried to ride it and she almost fell in to the canal as well.

I asked John why he moved to Russia, and he said it was because he didn’t like the lifestyle of Americans. I thought that sounded reasonable.

By the end of the riding, I thought my legs were going to fall off, my butt hurt, and I had no more strength left to hold myself up.  Then I hear John say that we had bicycled for 5 hours today!!! Who does that besides him???!! Then we had to take two different types of transportation, and metro, and a train. I took a nap on the train but it’s not that easy to fall asleep on the metro.

When we got back, I was soo glad!! I had a lot of fun and I’m really glad we did it, but I was just so exhausted from traveling in five different ways in one day. But we still had to have dinner somewhere. We literally walked in the hotel and then walked right back out to get dinner somewhere.  We went right across the street into this little café. The dinner cost almost nothing compared to the other nights, and then I asked the waitress for the check (in Russian).  But now I’m thinking that I’ll bike around Denver when I get there! It’s better than wasting gas and its good exercise.