During my almost three years in Budapest I did not do any cycling. The traffic was too hectic and there were no bike lanes near me. But I decided to do some biking later on.

Today I went to the bike station which is Edinburgh's bicycle recycling and cycling promotion charity. It opened at 10:30 AM but I was there a bit later and I had to queue to get in the shop. After checking options I spotted one bike with decent part sets (mix of Deore, LX and XT where it matters). I took it out for a test ride and it felt ok so I bought it and pedaled away.

My problem is now to regain my bicycling muscles and learn how to ride on the left side. Bicycling on the pavement among pedestrians is forbidden here so cyclists should stay on the street. There are good amount of bike lane paintings on the streets but those are often shared with busses. Left hand side traffic is also a bit tricky for me still, while turning left I managed to end up on the wrong side of the divider and finding myself on the wrong side of the road. I was happy that there was no heavy traffic around me. Roundabouts and turning right over many lanes are such maneuvers which are pretty much mystery for me at the moment.

Couple weeks ago I visited art supplies shop with Dóra. I bought a sketch book and some pencils with different hardness. After the shopping I have been filling my new sketch book with various drawings.

I used to draw quite a lot during high school but after that I only filled my lecture notes with some nonsense. But now I had intention to do some serious drawing again. I also knew that Internet is full of tutorials for all kind of pencil techniques. After couple tries my confidence grew and I decided to do something more challenging.

I took a photo of a 73 Corvette from Internet and I divided it to squares in order to get proportions correctly. But that Corvette has plenty of curves which turned out to be pretty difficult to get right despite the grid. Also the photo has nasty shadows and highlights - at least for my skills. This exercise dropped me back to earth. But I try again - maybe something boxy from 80s...

This flat is a bit closer to work and I am sharing it only with Dóra. So things are good but naturally there are minor problems. For some reason leaks seem to follow me and now I found leaking radiator. Because the leak is not catastrophic the repair is scheduled on Thursday. It will be interesting to see if Scottish repairmen are any more punctual than Hungarian.

Edit: For my surprise the repairman came within agreed time and fixed everything in one visit.