2014-05-26

Europe, take 3, scene 3

Here's my gulden fiets, as a Dutch guy once called it ("gold bike," he told me), atop the Gavia. My steed was still smarting from a broken chain on the way up (easy fix) and some derisive comments an Australian Pantani doppelgänger had slung at it at the summit. Damn those beer-swilling skin-cancer children-of-prisoners! "Put a shrimp on the barbie, mate?" was on my lips, but it might've led to a Harry Dunne/Mary "Samsonite" Swanson snowball duel, which wouldn't be good for my manicure. Emotions aside, I took the fiets's portrait in front of one of the worst attempts at rendering a bicycle in Italian history, which, in that unfortunate schadenfreude way, brought up both of our spirits. That narrow path in the background, by the by, is the semi-paved-ish road/streambed I came up.
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