Easter Monday is neither a federal holiday nor is it observed here, so it was another week’s begin in that Martin was back at his desk WFH.
It has now been four weeks of shelter in place. How much longer will this go on, does anyone know? While I will check websites of some newspapers here and in Switzerland, I have stopped reading the news and no longer follow it much during the day as I did in the previous weeks.
The weather was especially warm and inviting today, so I was out back indulging in sunshine. Later in the afternoon we went for a bike ride. It was the first time I have been on a proper bike ride since last summer.
We biked to and across the Bay Bridge to the lookout point on Yerba Buena Island between Oakland and San Francisco. It was a roundtrip of 15.5 miles/25 km and took us about 90 minutes to complete.
Martin would have been faster on his own, since he normally rides his bike up the hill to work and is more in shape cycling than I am. But it was good having him lead the way as it kept me pedaling as hard as I could to keep up and riding on.
It felt great to be on my bike again. I had forgotten how much riding my bike was a part of my daily life in Zurich as it was our main mode of transport. It is a quality of life factor that is foreign to the car culture of America.
I can hardly write about bicycles during tough times without thinking of one of my favorite films, Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di biciclette / Bicycle Thieves. It’s a classic of Italian neorealist (Golden Age) and one of the greatest films of all time.
Along the same line of a stolen bicycle, Xích Lô / Cyclo by Tran Anh Hung, Vietnamese-French filmmaker, is one of the most beautiful Vietnamese films I know of. As an art film it requires a certain attention. And like me on my bike today, keep riding on to reach the reward.