阅读下面短文，按要求完成各题．

　　Why are you doing it? Why did you do it? Everyone asks the same question and I give a different answer every time: adventure(冒险), travel, time for thought, solitude(独处), challenge, curiosity(好奇), historical research, freedom, fun…all are true and good enough reasons. But why go round the world? And why on a bicycle?

　　For many years I was the headmistress of a private school for girls in the south of England. In January 1983, when I was fifty years old, I was on holiday with two friends in India. One day I looked out of the bus window and saw a cyclist, a solitary European man, riding across the Great Thar Desert. And I was filled with envy. I wanted to be out there myself on that road on a bicycle, alone and free, feeling the reality of India, not looking at it through a pane of glasses. I was not athletic. I was not young. I wasn't a keen cyclist and I didn't even have a bike. I had no idea how to mend a puncture. I hated camping, picnics and discomfort. In fact, my qualifications for a long cycle ride were very poor. But it was the bicycle which had immediate appeal(吸引力).

根据短文内容回答问题．

1．What does “it” in the first line mean?

2．What was the writer then?

3．Why did she begin to travel by bike?

4．When did she begin to like a bike ride?

5．The writer knew the European man, didn't she?

Linda is telling Joseph how to get to some places in Beijing using different kinds of transport. Complete their conversation.

Bus　　underground　　taxi　　bicycle