When one door closes

Our Chinese class is held at a Women’s International College at the top of a steep hill on the South side of the city. Last week, I finally accepted Josh's offer to ride his fancy bike up the hill. Within two days, I had a fancy new bike of my own. I have now joined the club of gear-shifting. smooth-cycling elitists. The downside is that I can't just lock the tire and park it anywhere. I have to find something to lock it to. And I feel just a little tension in my chest every time I leave it for fear that it won't be waiting for me when I return.
In any case, I now float across town barely feeling any resistance as a I pedal. My other bike was a great source of exercise, it felt as though the brakes were always in use--coasting downhill was a little slow, pedaling on flat road felt like uphill and pedaling uphill was unforgiving!
Fortunately, just as the mobile exercise bike left my life a new gym has opened up in the Foreign students building. The only requirement to join is that you be a foreigner. Its a little pricey, but well worth is. With the current state of air quality here, running on the treadmill beats running outside.

Life here is becoming easier and more rewarding as our Chinese vocabulary expands. Just last week, I had three honest to goodness Chinese conversations not involving the purchase of anything. I was able to communicate to our land lady that our office chair had broken (the word for 'broken' is one we learned early on and tends to come up in conversation a lot around here) and that we needed a key for the door to our porch. The sense of accomplishment was thrilling.

Last night, we had "jay-guh" for dinner. That’s when we just point at and item on the menu and say the Chinese word for "that" (it sounds like "jay-guh" so we have termed that kind of dining as going out for "jay-guh"--always a surprise!). Last night both of our jay-guh selections had a particular sweet chili on it that doesn't agree with me. I called the waitress over, pointed to a vegetable in one of the dishes and asked for a dish that was only that vegetable. It worked and I was jubilant.
Sometimes when I am speaking my broken Chinese, I become nervous and fill in the gaps with Spanish adverbs and articles. I imagine that my default foreign language folder must be set to Spanish.