Route change!

As some of you may know, I was originally signed up for the Providence to Seattle route, which goes, as one would expect, from Providence, Rhode Island to Seattle, Washington. However, I recently switched to the Southern U.S. route, which starts in Jacksonville, Florida and ends in San Francisco, California. The new route is about 200 miles shorter (3534 instead of 3765 miles), but we'll be spending a week rebuilding houses in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. And we get to bike along the Grand Canyon and across the Golden Gate Bridge! yay!

So, besides my obvious love of 100+ degree weather (hahaha), I had signed up for Bike and Build with my roommate and best friend Rebecca Bainbridge. (She's awesome, you should support her too!)
Unfortunately, it is apparently not easy to access fax machines while studying abroad in Berlin. Long story short, we were not placed in the same trip.

This made us . Then I switched trips. Now we're .
Hooray cross-country bike trips for charity!

Also, I guess that means this picture is outdated:


Hm . . .


There. Much better. :)

Welcome to my Bike and Build blog!

Hi there!

Here you shall find the online journal of my preparation and eventual trip with Bike and Build this summer. If you're wondering what Bike and Build is, here is a brief synopsis:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS (warning: may contain spoilers)
Being an easily excitable 20-something college student, Nina felt that her standard student schedule of work, schoolwork, and more work was not demanding enough. By chance meeting, she comes across a bright, young non-profit called Bike and Build. Bike and Build makes her a proposition: she can go on the coolest summer trip of a lifetime, biking across the United States in two months and stopping to build houses along the way. The catch? She must raise $4000 for the cause of affordable housing before the summer begins. No problem, Nina says. Comedic hilarity and dramatic training montages ensue.
***spoiler***
You, the reader, help Nina raise more than $4000 for affordable housing, and lots of people get new homes! Yay!
Also, Roger Ebert gives the film "two thumbs up" for feel-good family fun! Shocking.

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