Since my last post, I have learned that there is free wireless internet here at the Peace Love. My message was so brief yesterday because I paid a euro for fifteen minutes of internet on this very odd computer attached to a wall; the keyboard was all metal and the buttons were spread apart, so that short post was about all I had time to write.
Well, I've been spending my time in Paris on the go. I've spent some time at the Peace and Love -- primarily to recooperate between outings -- but for the most part I've been exploring on foot and on the metro (an extensive subway system, for those who don't know). The metro is incredible. You really can use it to get just about anywhere in Paris. I think I've bought five tickets the past two days (for a total cost of 8 euros), and with that I've seen all sorts of different Parisian neighborhoods. A few highlights: Pere Lachaise (a huge cemetery), Pont Neuf (famous bridge), Notre Dame (very cool and less crowded at night), Eifel Tower (pretty cool but very crowded during the day), and le Cite d'Architecte (or something like that; it's an architecture museum that happens to grant free entry right now).
While those places are highlights, my absolute favorite thing to do in Paris has been traveling, eating, and living among actual, normal French people. Because people don't really talk to anyone else on the streets, I haven't spoken all that much French yet. Despite the slight disappointment at not being able to test my language capabilities, one advantage of people not talking to each other is that no one really knows if I'm American or Canadian or Russian or what. As far as anyone can tell, I'm as French as the next guy on the metro. (Of course, they might have some idea I'm not from around here; I've counted literally only four other people wearing a white jacket. Apparently the other 11, 999, 995 have black ones.) Filing in among the city's anonymous, I have felt rather at home -- as at home as a wanderer can feel, that is. If any of you end up in Paris, I'd encourage you to hop on the metro without a particular destination in mind and just ride. It has to be one of the most real cross-slices of Parisian life. Men in suits on their way to work, chatty women just done with shopping, high schoolers going to school, weird guys who seem to be thinking of stabbing someone, men with guitars or violins expecting spare change for their unsolicited musical performances, pretty young women by themselves who will never, ever look at you, people on their cell phones, people absorbed in their mp3's, people who stare at nothing, people who bustle, people who apparently can't wait to get off the metro, who stand at the door with their hand on the latch well before the train stops, who get off as if they're characters in an action movie, people who make you wonder (always without answer) what they're moving to or running from, why they move with such purpose.
So, just in two days I've grown accustomed to walking fast wherever I go, even when I don't know where I'm going. I walk fast off the metro, I walk fast onto the sidewalks (usually choosing a direction at random), I walk fast past a street that looks interesting, so then I walk fast to the next cross-walk, cross the street fast, and walk fast back to the place of interest. Maybe everyone thinks I am just another Parisian fast on his way to some engagement of utmost importance. Or maybe they see an American tourist who simply walks unusually fast. Either way, like most in this city, I'm now a man on the move.
Next stop: Montpellier. I leave tomorrow by train. It's been a good visit in Paris, but I'm ready to get somewhere where I can stay still for a while.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Arrivee!
Just a quick note to anyone wondering: I have safely arrived in Paris and at the Peace and Love hostel. Now it's time to explore! I'll put up another post once I get a chance in Montpellier, probably sometime on Saturday.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Peace and Love
The weather forecast for Denver, Colorado: a high of 45 and low of 19 today, partly cloudy; high of 21, low of 0 tomorrow, cold with light snow; and on Thursday, a high of 11 and a low of -8, "COLD!" according to the Denver Post. I think I've chosen the perfect time to leave.
Tomorrow's the big day. I'll fly to Detroit, hang out there for a few hours, then fly to Paris. I'll be staying at the Peace and Love Hostel in Paris for a few nights -- you can definitely expect a blog post or two about that place -- and then I'm off to Montpellier. Even once I get there, I'll still have over two weeks until classes start on the 25th. I plan on getting used to the new time zone, exploring the city a little bit, and maybe taking a short trip somewhere in France, perhaps to see my friend, Audrey, in Aix-en-Provence.
As you may be able to tell, I'm looking forward to the independence I'll have while abroad. I am going to be totally on my own, no one there to tell me where to go, when to go there. This is, imaginably, both exciting and scary. I will say, however, that when people have asked me over the past few weeks if I'm nervous or scared about this trip, my honest first reaction is to say no; I'm ready for an adventure.
And I shouldn't say that I'll have no one there to tell me where to go and when to go there, or at least to give me some sort of helping hand. I'm not journeying to the center of a desert or the depths of the Amazon; I will be surrounded with people nearly all the time. Granted, I won't know most of them, but even asking in French for help or directions from a stranger is a sort of adventure. What's more -- quite a bit more, in fact -- is that God is here with me as I type this, and He will be with me as I fly to Detroit, and as I take the train from the Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris, and as I talk with other travellers at the Peace and Love, and at literally every single moment of this trip. It's a tad funny that some people try to escape their pasts or find themselves or start totally anew by fleeing to a different country; I wonder if they realize that there is no escaping God, who does not change, not even when our messy lives move from one place to another. And, somewhat similar to my impending independence being a source of both excitement and fear, I think the ever-present nature of God can be both a comfort and a sort of burden. You can read Psalm 139 as the greatest of love letters or the most distressing of stalker notes. Just one day away from my departure, I am taking the assurance of God's closeness as absolute comfort.
I hope others realize that wherever they are, even if after Christmas and New Year's they find themselves in the same place they were before the holidays, that God is with them, ever with them. I have the fortune of facing great displacement in my life and therefore see with greater clarity than I usually do that hardly anything in life is constant, immovable. In a constantly moving world, we should cling to those constants -- or, I think more accurately, to the one Constant.
Tomorrow's the big day. I'll fly to Detroit, hang out there for a few hours, then fly to Paris. I'll be staying at the Peace and Love Hostel in Paris for a few nights -- you can definitely expect a blog post or two about that place -- and then I'm off to Montpellier. Even once I get there, I'll still have over two weeks until classes start on the 25th. I plan on getting used to the new time zone, exploring the city a little bit, and maybe taking a short trip somewhere in France, perhaps to see my friend, Audrey, in Aix-en-Provence.
As you may be able to tell, I'm looking forward to the independence I'll have while abroad. I am going to be totally on my own, no one there to tell me where to go, when to go there. This is, imaginably, both exciting and scary. I will say, however, that when people have asked me over the past few weeks if I'm nervous or scared about this trip, my honest first reaction is to say no; I'm ready for an adventure.
And I shouldn't say that I'll have no one there to tell me where to go and when to go there, or at least to give me some sort of helping hand. I'm not journeying to the center of a desert or the depths of the Amazon; I will be surrounded with people nearly all the time. Granted, I won't know most of them, but even asking in French for help or directions from a stranger is a sort of adventure. What's more -- quite a bit more, in fact -- is that God is here with me as I type this, and He will be with me as I fly to Detroit, and as I take the train from the Charles de Gaulle airport to Paris, and as I talk with other travellers at the Peace and Love, and at literally every single moment of this trip. It's a tad funny that some people try to escape their pasts or find themselves or start totally anew by fleeing to a different country; I wonder if they realize that there is no escaping God, who does not change, not even when our messy lives move from one place to another. And, somewhat similar to my impending independence being a source of both excitement and fear, I think the ever-present nature of God can be both a comfort and a sort of burden. You can read Psalm 139 as the greatest of love letters or the most distressing of stalker notes. Just one day away from my departure, I am taking the assurance of God's closeness as absolute comfort.
I hope others realize that wherever they are, even if after Christmas and New Year's they find themselves in the same place they were before the holidays, that God is with them, ever with them. I have the fortune of facing great displacement in my life and therefore see with greater clarity than I usually do that hardly anything in life is constant, immovable. In a constantly moving world, we should cling to those constants -- or, I think more accurately, to the one Constant.
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