Technology baby!

So I figured I would go ahead and add a worth telling filler blog between huge ass blog entries. Soo many gargantuan blog entries, so beauty in simplicity right? Well without further a doo doo here it is. I'm writing this on a Finnish computer so pardon my lack of spell check.

I've got a bike that my fellow American gave me before heading back to the states, but I haven't ridden it in weeks. No it's not because I'm an American, cause I know that's what you all are thinking! Specially you Americans.... Anyways. It's generally mostly because the dang thing, although it was an awesome gift, has had a small slew of problems since I got it. Apparently the other guy who came here last semester bought it brand new, then got into some argument with his girlfriend or something, and went into a blind rage......on his bike? That's what I've been told, and that's the best reason I've got as to knowing why the bike didn't stop when I first rode it.

So my tutor took me to a bike repair shop and we got'er all fixed up. The bike shop/fixer guy only spoke in Finnish it was fine because my Finnish tutor(really more like a person that helps you with stuff, not academics) was there. So I go riding it. It's hard to ride in the snow! Really hard! Too hard! It takes me like 40 minutes to get to campus when it only takes me an hour to walk! Other people didn't have a problem, I guess that's another part of being Finnish. That you're a beast at riding a bike too! I mean I hardly get out of my slightly up hill neighborhood before being pretty out of breath. I've done some pretty harsh biking stuff too. In Croatia I willed myself up a mile and a half of switchbacks up a mountain without stopping and having been previously out of shape, and this is this hard!? Well I soon, well give it over a week actually, derived that I had a flat tire...Motherf*** I'm an idiot!

And so today I decided to again take my bike into the shop after a failed attempt to pump it up. I know you can do patches and stuff yourself but I figured I would take it in on the off chance that there was some sort of legit damage to the wheel frame since I've ridden on it with a flat tire. And I don't know damn about bikes. I still livestrong though. So I take it in on a slight whim without my tutor, figuring everything will go smoothly and easily with the bike guy who couldn't speak english. Nope. I go up to the bike guy and say I don't speak Finnish, but (points at tire). Then he starts raddling off in all kinds of Finnish I have no idea what he's saying. He's not even speaking slowly, which is minimum requirement even if I knew Finnish at an intermediate level. We're standing outside the shop at this point and he waves me inside still speaking a continuous stream of Finnish. I follow him in with my bike and has me come over to the computer. He pulls up google translate and then we just start communicating almost instantly. He typed in something that translated to "bike is at 13 after," which I assumed meant something like the bike is ready at 1pm. I wrote in google translate, "I can be here at 14:30, is that okay?" He said yes yes and I wrote "How much will it cost?" He wrote down and said 17 euro(I understand numbers, but that's it). I wrote "great! Thank you very much!" and he responded with a bunch of Finnish but I heard the phrase for you're welcome in there somewhere. We got off the computer and both said thanks, bye in Finnish and it was done.

Wow. Now that's crazy. It was such a strange feeling going from no communication/complete confusion to almost perfect understanding, just because we were typing our respective languages into this black box. Technology people, ridiculous. We truly live in a new world these days, even compared to 10  years ago. Nuckin futs gang, nuckin futs.