Bicycle touring has a price: I can't shake the vaguely guilty feeling I have for not doing something more productive. When I'm dealing with the challenges of riding every day, camping, fixing things, etc... I don't really feel it but when I stop for a while it catches up with me. I often ask myself what this means. Should I pack it in and set about building a more stable life? Or is it societal pressure that I should ignore as I pursue what I want to do? There is a choice to be made, I can't have it both ways (or at least I have yet to discover how to both tour and be productive). There are still so many places I want to ride to but I can't seem to fully enjoy it with these nagging doubts.
There was some drama in the hostel this morning. I was sitting with a German guy eating breakfast when the woman who runs the hostel with her boyfriend came downstairs and asked us for help. She wouldn't really tell us what was going on, her boyfriend might have hit her, but at any rate she was throwing him out. He had some papers in his backpack that she didn't want him to take. We didn't know what the story was so we just stayed with them to make sure it didn't escalate to something more serious. Eventually he left in a huff.
I had the bike cleaned and the cables changed. When I picked it up the mechanic pointed out that part of the front derailleur was missing. I looked around trying to find the part but everyone said it wasn't sold separately. I found a new front derailleur today and had a different shop install it. This has delayed my departure by a day, no big deal, it is freezing cold today so perhaps I'll have better luck with the weather tomorrow. I used the extra time to do some shopping and had a hole patched in one of the rear panniers.
