Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Monday, November 02, 2009

First things first

Girona, Spain

As I try to piece together what can be made of a desperate grasp at life in Europe I consistently run up against a problem with my land lord this year. At the start of this season I came over specifically with plans so that I could spend the year completely sane in an apartment that I felt comfortable in for the indefinite future. After several weeks of sampling different apartments and speaking with different agencies I found a place that overlooked the city with splendid balconies looking both east and west and furnished to rent with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage and everything in between… I even negotiated 50 Euros a month off the price. It was like an apartment dream, bundled into a little apartment present for Christmas. But then in the stocking above the fire or maybe in the fire there was a little flame called Francisco Gil. He is my landlord, and he is infamous and notorious as a hell monger. He pops up at the most inopportune times in an effort to impede anything that could be referred to as “your life.” At first I was sympathetic with his perspective thinking that if I owned an apartment and rented it out I too would be worried and weary of what my tenants were up to. But then he hammered on and eventually I lost my patience with him and began to feel like the poor helpless peasant under the repressive rule of ‘Franco’ the compassionate Spanish dictator. As of late I have made it my mission to overthrow his tyranny, and instead of cowering under his wrath I have had an audience with local authorities and taken my case to despatx d’advocats garriga pradas (attorney- garriga pradas). Not because I prefer to stay any longer in his apartment, but because I feel now that the unyielding nose of his in my life is a complete and total invasion of my privacy as a tenant in any country, and that he ought to feel what it feels like to be held helplessly against his will- whatever that may mean...