'Sorry I'm Late, My Bike Broke Down...'

I wasn’t particularly nervous for my move to the UK. After all, I’d lived in South Korea for half a year and spent a summer interning in Kenya and Uganda (such white girl, much wow), speak English pretty fluently, and I wasn’t afraid of being culture-shocked in what’s pretty much a neighbouring country to the Netherlands. I was determined to act professional, starting my MA, to blend in with the Brits and stay far away from ‘situations’ I’d encountered in my previous episodes of expat living.

For the vast majority of the past four months, this has worked out pretty well. Apart from not knowing some foods/sayings/celebrities, and people wondering out loud about my mixed accent, I’d like to think that I managed to keep my head down, and not flaunt my ‘otherness’ to my surroundings.

With one exception: my bicycle.

I can easily go without most Dutch things; the cheese here is surprisingly satisfactory, I am loving the British charm in comparison with our ‘direct’ bluntness, and who needs 'hagelslag' when you can have Reese's spread?! However, I felt truly handicapped during the first week of my stay, when I didn’t have a bike yet, and had to either walk 40 minutes or take a bus to get to uni. I never realised that the biking habits of the Dutch are mainly a cover-up for their laziness. My current housemate walks almost an hour to her school every day, and for almost everyone else I’ve met so far, a 30-40-minute walk to get somewhere is completely normal. Most Dutch people I know will take a bike if the walk is longer than, say, three minutes. Including me.

From the moment I arrived, therefore, I frantically started searching for a second-hand bicycle; anything to avoid walking the two miles to town every day (or paying two whole pounds for the bus; speaking of Dutch stereotypes). To my happiness I managed to acquire a black beauty five days after I arrived. We’ve been inseparable ever since. My classmates have gotten used to the fact that I come in slightly panting - zigzagging on the left side of the road in between unforgiving cars is quite the exercise - and already tag me in every bike-related post on Facebook.

I was horrified, therefore, when earlier this week the chain of my beloved baby fell off, just as I was about to leave for class. I panicked for a while, before deciding taking a bus would be the best option. After a frustrating ride (the bus took forever and for once it was sunny and bright outside – perfect cycling weather), I arrived at my new course, fifteen minutes late. They had just gotten to the end of an introductory round, so I sat down, apologised for being late, told them my bike had broken down, and went on with my day.

Come lunch time I had set my eyes upon four guys my age – a rare specimen in my field of study, what with the ten women and one married man in my usual class – and had subtly forced myself upon them for lunch. They asked about my bike, and when I told them what was wrong, I saw disappointment dawning onto their faces. “Ooh, it’s a bicycle!”, one of them exclaimed. “We thought you drove a motorbike!”. This immediately explained why they had invited me to the pub so easily. Reluctantly I clarified that I had simply been referring to my – grandma style – city bicycle, and was not nearly as cool as they thought I was. On the contrary; nothing close to a tough biker girl, I merely was (and felt like) a silly Dutch cyclist.