Beach, Ladies' Night, Bike disaster.

For the first time in my life, I can now say that I have been to the beach, in 34 degree heat, on the 12th October. I'm not even kidding. I even got a bit sunburned, thanks to my English mindset that any sunshine in October couldn't possibly be that strong and couldn't possibly burn you. Turns out it can be, and it did.

Ladies' Night: here you go girls, you're finally all getting a mention! Wednesday night was LADIES NIGHT, meaning it involved lots of wine, lots of dancing, and everyone trying to think of songs with 'ladies' or 'girls' in the title. We only managed 'Here come the girls', 'It's ladies' night' and the classic, 'Girls just wanna have fun'. Any other suggestions, answers on a postcard. So at the club, the night being all about the girls, we ignored all male advances and danced until we couldn't move anymore.

Lynn, Katie, Marie, Me, Lies - happy now, ladies?!

So after a successful night out, I decided to use the Velomagg (the bike system) to get home. The idea is that you pick up a bike at one station and deposit it at another one. Sounds simple, right? DISASTER. First of all, getting onto the bike was a mission in itself; they're huge, and I'm not. Challenge number two came from the fact that I can't actually remember the last time I rode a bike, so there's me trying to figure out what to do while the girls are falling about laughing. I finally, miraculously, managed to cycle home with both myself and the bike in one piece, and was starting to feel quite proud of myself. Only, I try to lock the bike into the station outside my house and completely fail. So there I am, feeling quite desperate and not actually knowing what on earth I'm going to do, and I'm looking at this goddamn bike and wanting to throw it under the nearest tram. Eventually, I had to stop a passer-by and beg for help - thank God they stopped and didn't just think I was a crazy person and walk on past. So, a journey that should have had me home and tucked up in bed in 10 minutes ended up in 40 minutes of panic, desperation and a good Samaritan. We finally managed to get the bike locked into place and I went home feeling sheer resentment for that stupid bike.

Decided to use it again last night. Turns out it's really easy to lock into place. Great.