Bike riding

I started this post a couple of weeks ago....here is a short continuation and an additional bit at the end.

With the move of my work location from Hørsholm to Gentofte I have been able to trade my hour long bus commute into the country-side for a 7km bike ride. Up until now I have not taken full advantage of all the biking opportunities Copenhagen has to offer - special lanes and traffic lights on nearly every street for bikes as well as the smooth, flat terrain that is Denmark.

After leaving my bike 'Old Red' outside, unused and unloved from November to May, I thought it best to take her in for a tune up prior to my first ride to the new office. Poor girl was completely rusted out. I had to get the chain replaced and even the bell had lost its ring. My co-workers, all avid bikers who hold their bikes in quite high regards, would have been very disappointed in my lack of attentiveness. Oh well. 100$ later and my bike was in as good shape as she would ever get.

So here is a summary of my week commute so far:

Day 1: My bike was still in the shop, so I took the bus in the morning and ran home (I guess this does not really support my post title too much). -1 for me

Day 2: It rained, so I took the bus. -1 for me

Day 3: Biked in at 5:45am so I could have a little run before work. The wind was really working against me but it was so early that there were no other bikes on the road...so I felt I was going fast. Bike ride home was nice ride beside the highway....nice ride, but again the wind was going against me. I guess I just do not have my bike legs yet....i was passed by a very old guy on a much crappier bike then mine. He seemed to be having no problem with the wind! 1 point

Day 4: More wind today. its funny how this danish wind makes little inclines seem like monumental mountains. Today I went in a little later and kept getting stop by the school crossing guards that monitor the bike lanes....ugh. and I passed my first bike lane roadkill - a poor squirrel was hit (i guess) by some speedy biker. Awesome. So windy though that the huge doormat outside of a chinese restaurant blew right out in front of me while i was riding up one of those HUGE inclines (sarcasm?). Not to worry though - i think i could have walked faster than I was riding so it was not too difficult to avoid. 1 points

Day 5 - I am tired and my legs and ass hurt (i guess it takes a couple of weeks before you can really get used to sitting on the seat). Today on my ride in I managed to swallow two bugs. Disgusting - but on a positive side I guess it is a good source of protein and perhaps it means that I am biking faster. 1 point

So all in all the first week was ok, but I am looking for some harsh improvements.

new part!

Now I have been biking to work for just over a month now and I must say that it has gotten much better. 7 km each way is not too bad. The weekend after my first week at the Gentofte location, Ben and I visited Aero Island for a weekend break. While on the island we decided to rent bikes and bike around for the day. Good idea in principal, but without the proper map and good sense of direction, our rickety rental bikes and us ended up climbing the main island 'highway' to the highest point of the island instead of following the so called leisurely path along the coast. While we did eventually find the correct bike path, our 40km bike ride that day wore both of us completely out. I guess we still have some work to do....

Shoppers Drugmart vs Apoteket

On Ben's many trips back to Canada this year he has been able to bring back some of my favourite products. From clamato juice to kraft dinner, I am very lucky to be endowed with quite a few bits of Canadiana here in CPH.

One Canadian icon (which I would not have called an icon while living in Canada but have since switched to a different tune) that is impossible to join me here in Denmark is Shoppers Drugmart. Oh the reliable drugstore that always has a location near you that is open 24 hours a day! Just in case you get that middle of the night migraine and need to rush out for some intense tylenol. Or if you are on your way to work at 6am and decide now would be an amazing time to get a prescription filled. And of course, my favourite, the boxing day shopping deals! When all the boxed christmas sets of my products go on sale for half price....heaven!

The drugstore system, or Apoteket as it is called, is nowhere near as seamless as my good old Shoppers. Take my experience yesterday getting a prescription filled. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday, birds were singing and people were out and about enjoying the sunshine. Not me though - it was off to the Apoteket which is inconveniently open between 10am and 3pm and not at all on Sundays (wtf?). For people who spend their weekdays working this timing allows a very small window to get prescriptions filled. Ok...to be fair, the Apoteket is open until 6pm on weekdays...but really, when you compare this to Shoppers Drugmart it means nothing!

Anyways, so 11am off to the Apoteket I go. I walk into the store and immediately take a number. I get 72. The pharmacists are currently serving numbers 58-60. There is no telling how long I will have to wait. So I grab a chair and wait. And wait. And wait. You may be asking yourself "Why grab a chair and wait? If this is a pharmacy, can you not spend your waiting time perusing the shelves and shelves of many wonderful products....like at Shoppers?". Nope. There are no shelves and shelves of wonderful products here. Well...there is one shelf that has some fish oil, baby products and fiber...nothing really fun to look at. So I sit.

Ultimately I wait half an hour before a pharmacist is ready to serve me. Within another 3 minutes I am out the door (I am a pretty fast customer compared to some of the people waiting ahead of me in line). Number 66 was STILL standing at a station.

While half an hour is really not a big deal out of teh grand scheme of things, when I have the Shoppers Drugmart system as a benchmark I cannot help but be annoyed. At Shoppers you spend a couple minutes dropping off your prescription then you go off to shop (i used to go across the street and buy fruits and vegetables). 10 minutes later I would pop back in and my prescription would be ready. No waiting, no taking numbers, no muss no fuss. And if I did decide to wait in Shoppers I would use my time wisely perusing makeup, candles, cards, hair products, chocolate and magazines. Perhaps someone not raised on the Shoppers system would question why so many un-pharmaceutical related products belong in a Canadian pharmacy? My answer: to make the waiting painless.