Premature nostalgia

_{Thick, chunky ice}

This should be our last year in Strasbourg, if all works according to plan. As such, Amynah and I have found ourselves saying "We're really going to miss such-and-such a Euro-thing" with greater frequency. I've been going out of my way to take photos of images from our daily life, as insurance against future senility.

In any case, one of the things we're going to miss terribly from Strasbourg is the bike paths. There are hundreds of kilometers of dedicated bike lanes in this city, and drivers actually respect cyclists rights to be on the road. One case in point is the Rhine-Rhone canal, a short, tree-lined portion of which serves as Amynah's bike route to her work in the suburb of Illkirch.

Most mornings, we both hop on our bikes and pedal the seven and a half kilometers to her lab (I go along for the exercise). The nature of the paths mean that we need only share the road with cars for one kilometer of virtually traffic-free road between our apartment and the lab.

Yesterday, on my way to French class, I paused and snapped a few shots of the waterway, which has been more-or-less frozen over for the last few weeks.


_{Thin, smooth ice}

The town is small enough that you start to recognize the other cyclists on their way to work, especially now the weather has eliminated all but us and the hard-core bikers. My favourite is an older lady, who manages to be out on the path with her two dogs both in the morning and in the evening when we return. The long haired, high-strung poodle-like creature she keeps on a leash, but her bulldog needs no restraint: every time he sees a cyclist coming, he freezes, terrified, as if any movement would invite an attack from this strangely speedy, legless species of humanoid.