What's in a bike

There's a bicycle chained to the rail just outside my front door. It's nice. Of the mountain type, blue with a white basket on the front and light reflectors and a little bell. A kickstand, even. It's been out there for two months now, neglected and bound to the rail by a bright orange, snaky lock. It's mine. I got it in March from a former volunteer and since then, I have been giving it a sad smile every time I walk by, which is at least twice a day. I finally tried yesterday to take it out for a ride, envisioning the breeze in my hair (through the pc required helmet, of course), a smile on my face and my eyes, closed, turned up towards the sun, coasting along the smooth dirt road to one of those random little villages I've been wanting to check out. It was a lovely illusion. Before I could embark on this adventure, though, I needed to spruce up the bike a bit by scouring off the rust that had accumulated after a winter spent outdoors and fill up the tires some, for which I needed a tire pump. Not knowing the Romanian words for tire or pump, I headed to the store, confident in my ability to pantomime. I had been to this store before when I purchased the orange bike lock, which only took twenty seconds to gesticulate. The same lady as before sat there, chin in hand and leaning bored against the counter. Her expression turned a little fearful as I approached and she stood up straighter, removing the chin from hand. I got as far as I could with Romanian. Bună ziua, am nevoie de ceva sa pun aer în asta. Hello, I need something to put air in this, as I point to a handy bicycle's tire. I openly admit that I have a really hard time pronouncing air in Romanian and my statement was obviously unclear. With a confused expression, she rooted around behind the counter for a while and came back with a tiny black nubbie that caps the air thingy. Not a tire pump. Hmm. I shake my head and repeat, not sure how else to say what I need. More rooting and out comes an inner tube. I start to get nervous. This is tougher than I had imagined. I smile shyly and shake my head again and start looking around the store for a pump. She follows my every move, trying to figure out what I'm looking for, but clearly annoyed by my lack of communication skills. She makes an Ah-ha! sound and darts into the back room and triumphantly returns with something shiny and tiny and not remotely pump-like. I shake my head again and her face falls with disappointment. Another customer comes in and as she helps him, I work out in my head how to pantomime using a pump to fill a tire, even though I never imagined I'd have to stoop to such levels to express myself after being here for a year. As the customer leaves, with his simple 30-second purchase comfortably in his hand, the clerk turns her attention back to me. I smile and go for it, squatting, I act out screwing the pump onto the nozzle of a tire and I lean back and pretend to pump up the tire for a few seconds, a bit sheepishly. I stand up, hopeful as she still gazes at me in confusion. O pompă? She asks. Finally, I get to nod. O pompă. A pump. There are many words in Romanian that sound very similar to their English counterparts and I've successfully guessed at several translations, but it never crossed my mind to try a guess at pump. And it sounds nearly exactly the same. A minute later, I'm headed home with 13 lei less in my wallet and a tire pump in my hand.

Back home, I successfully pumped up the tires, lugged the bike down three flights of stairs, fitted the helmet to my head, rolled up my pant sleeves and walked the bike to the dirt path along the river. In the states, I always felt weird walking with my bike because I almost never saw anyone else doing that. People walk their bikes all the time here, maybe cause they're sick of riding it or something's wrong with it or they're just using it to tote a 100kg bag of potatoes around. Nobody stares at you strangely for walking your bike, which soothes my already high strung nerves. After a few minutes of walking, I found a decent stretch of dirt road that was sufficiently void of people, so I hopped on and started peddling after maybe 4 years of not riding a bike. At all. It felt pretty alright, but two things swiftly became apparent to me. 1) The back break doesn’t work and 2) the cute white basket swings wildly each time I make a tiny handle bar adjustment, making me feel like I'm going to biff at ANY second. I continue shakily on for about five minutes, but then decide my heart can not handle such stress. I hop off and walk the bike back home. As I walk, the breeze still blows through my hair, my face enjoys the sun and I feel a smile. I'll make it to one of those mysterious villages next time, after just a few more minor adjustments.