Postcards from New Zealand: Day Thirty-One

Today, I learned to ride a bicycle. Or, at least, I learned to sit on a bicycle and pedal, pedal, pedal, and wrestle the handlebars, and not fall down. Our hostess lent us her bike and we took it to the park, where I turned crazy loops around a lumpy practice field. By the end of my lesson, I could stay up on my own, though I could not control more than 50% of the bicycle's direction. This is rather odd, since unlike, say, a horse, a bicycle should not have its own volition.