Winter Cycling Conference, day 1

Very exciting! There are 39 countries represented here. It’s pretty equally divided among men and women. Average age is maybe between 40 and 45. We heard from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, England, the Netherlands and Canada. amazing things are happening all around the world. And it’s not about the bike, per se, but about making urban areas more liveable and creating sustainable transportation for all. So glad I came to the conference. I met people from Toronto, Montreal, all over Russia, Finland and austria. There is a simultaneous translation. It’s all very well organized and very professionally planned. And the topping on the cake is that the hostel prepares my breakfast for me tomorrow morning. After breakfast I head downtown for my workshop. I’ve chosen to visit the traffic command center. Then we head back to the conference hall for afternoon sessions. Another busy day. I’ve actually been too tired to do any of the evening part events. But that’s OK. The hostel is a nice place to hang, except that my room is unbearably warm. The lady at the desk said it was centrally regulated. She suggested I open the window. All fine and good, except that the windowsill is six inches above my head! Another interesting thing I noticed today was, at the coat check at the conference, you could immediately tell which women were Russian because they gave the coat check guy their boots in a plastic bag before they but on their regulR shoes. Plastic shoe covers were fortunately not required.