I want to ride my bicycle....

And now that you are humming that classic Queen song, we can continue with the rest of the post. :)

I need a bike. I do. I am moving to Germany, the land of bike lanes and farmers' paths, and little roads that lead to little markets. It's practically a requirement of living there. 

But not just any old bike. A cute bike. A girly bike. With a comfy seat. I do not plan on Touring de France on my bike. Just looking cute riding around my town. 

I finally found the right bike at www.beachbikes.net.

The Firmstrong Bella, in baby blue (hereafter known as Carolina Blue).

Perfect.

I ordered it and it came in less than a week. In a very large, very intimidating box.

I wasn't even sure what some of those required tools were. 

I had a short, panicked, "I need my husband!" moment but then determined I could do this. I dumped the contents out and found the manual, which I read from front to back. I'm like that.

There are several videos on the website detailing the assembly of the different parts. I watched them all. A couple times. Found the tools, got some water (it was HOT out), and set to it. 

One of the videos shows a girl in a dress assembling her bike in ten minutes. Ok, first, her bike didn't have any gears to figure out (mine is a 7-speed). Also, her bike started out more assembled than mine. And it was obvious she had assembled bikes before and probably already knew how brakes work and how to attach a chain. SHE WORKS FOR THE COMPANY. Not fair. It's like photoshopping perfectly arched eyebrows and skinny arms on magazine covers. Those aren't real people. That girl probably just stays in that little room assembling bikes all day long. Let's see a real person walk in off the street and do it! Let's see some sweat dripping off her nose-let's see her try to figure out what a "fork drop off"  is! Let's see some tears and several rest breaks....that's real, foks. 

So....we skip ahead a couple of hours and voila! 

I

Now I just need a basket......