Oy my tuchus...

Went on a long bike ride on Saturday, hence the title of this post. Beautiful day for a ride--short sleeve weather, lots of sun, some wind to fight against but not ridiculous. About 1-1/2 hours of riding each way. I had the annoyance of needing to fix a broken front derailleur cable, but fortunately it broke early in the ride, so I could head home to do repairs.

I rode down to Cambridge, Ontario, to the University of Waterloo School of Architecture--they moved a year ago to a renovated mill building on the Grand River; it's about a 25 km/15 mile drive from Waterloo. Some information about this move and the new building is available here.

Cambridge (or properly, Galt--three cities unified to form Cambridge in the 70s) is a very nice town, at least down by the river. I guess it's distinguished from many cities I have known, in that its defining feature is a river, as opposed to a superhighway. It has a somewhat European feel, I think, looking at the architecture and infrastructure. I am somewhat embarassed to admit, however, that "European" is linked in my mind to, "could be a set for a World War II film." To wit (photo I took below):

War Documentary Narrator: The village of Srbdryc, shown in a 1938 photo, held a road bridge over the Mrgdv River critical to the Allied advance. Although spared by intial shelling, fierce house to house fighting resulted in the destruction of most of the city center. Lead elements from Patton's 3rd Army engaged the defenders on 23 September, 1944...

Enh... this is what I get for having watched a movie about Hitler's final days (Downfall (Der Untergang)) on Friday. Actually, I was quite surprised that the theater was practically sold out--that many people wanted to see a Hitler movie on a Friday night? Yeah, sounds like a perfect 'date' movie to me...

As for other updates, I'm still not making progress on that report I need to finish before the end of the term. Grr.