ok… so happy! my motorcycle is out of the shop!! i picked it up this afternoon. i am also now mostly outfitted for my road trip. tomorrow i will do a sample packing. it shouldn’t be hard since i’m not taking much with me. i need to pick up my granola bars and whatnot.

before i went to pick up the bike, i went to world of knives in hopkins, which is where mike has a discount for his students. the guy there, mark, showed me a bunch of knives. i picked out a small folding knive for my pocket, in the style we’ve been practicing with, and a neck knife, because it was cool. both are tiny. i really like them. i was a little worried mike would laugh at me and tell me to return them and get something else. but he didn’t. he fully approved.

i now have knives.

this picture has my hand in it so that you can all see just how tiny they are. 🙂 isn’t that little neck thing sweet? i LOVE it.

so we did some practicing with the knives themselves today in class. i need to practice opening the pocket knife quickly. mike recommends that i tape the blade a little so i don’t cut myself while i’m learning.

so, tomorrow is my last day of training here in minnesota. it’s been fun. now i can feel prepared to find a place to learn more in maastricht. not such a pansy.

on a side note, matt’s parents have a full, professional massage table. rock on.