Today was a big taking care of business day. If you can believe it, I finally got my bank card. It’s hysterical because for the past two weeks I’ve been receiving all this mail from the bank with messages about “top secret” numbers… so many numbers!

Customer ID, verification number, Customer password… and they keep reminding me how important and confidential this stuff is, but this was all happening during the period when they hadn’t even “confirmed” my address. How does that work?

I also finally got my Student Card. It looks so much cooler than my Georgetown student ID. If you look at the picture of both my bank card and student card (I blurred out all the numbers you thieves!), you’ll see both come equipped with a gold chip-looking thing. How European am I? I believe it is these chips that render American credit cards useless at many retailers.

A friend from Krav Maga managed to get me a bike for my stay in Strasbourg. I am so grateful. Today was my first day on the bike, and wow- whizzing by all the places I normally go on foot made me realize how much time I can save by using the bike more.

I was told the bike’s name was “Didi” but he is being renamed to “Progress.” As you can see, his name is even written there. Progress- because I am making progress in French, making progress with websites, and making progress in general :) I also got a bright blue shiny lock to attach Progress to any post when I need to walk somewhere. Bikes get stolen 24/7 in Strasbourg, so if you don’t have a lock you’re basically donating your bike to vagabonds.

I also went to the supermarket and got a baguette, two packages of salami and cheese. This will serve as nutrition for tonight and then throughout the weekend. I also managed to get some weights that I had been looking for… what had prevented me was this notion of Kilograms, how am I to know how many pounds that is? I ended up with two 3Kg weights, which, according to Google, is 6.6 pounds. Yay for high reps!

The afternoon ended nicely with this sablé confiture cookie, which to me was always a Linzer tarte, but now I have learned a Linzer is totally different….but anyway this sablé is basically the best pastry in the world. I had thought I was the excessive cream, chocolate, fruit combo kinda-girl but it turns out this marmalade filled, powdered sugar amazing baked treat just hits the spot.