Georgia

Today in the midst of work slowly being grinded out, I found myself not working but rather looking at maps of the world. I've spent the last 11 weeks in French-intensive courses learning not just about the French culture and language but that of the 18 other students with whom I share my coursework including those from the states. As with all things, there are aspects to spending most of my time abroad with the same group of people that get monotonous and unfailingly frustrating. In such a spirit, I began to find the countries of origin for each student in my class - starting with Tchetchenie, a small country located in Russia just north of Turkey. For most everyone else I know where they come from off the top of my head, no problem but when I first heard the name of this country at the beginning of the semester I thought it was a made-up land next to Oz. Finally, today I found it: small but not unnoticable. Okay, check. Seen, known, registered.

South of Tchetchenie is a country by the name of 'Georgia' in English or else საქართველო in their language, pronounced Sakartvelo. I was so intrigued by this language. An art form every time pen touches paper. Is this the way they view the Latin alphabet (used in English, French, etc.)? I certainly don't, to me it's a form of communication, art in the form of words not lines, but they've allowed language and it's sounds to take over the paper. The movement and beauty of each word, the value of language isn't lost for sake of function. My next wave of thoughts was that I had no idea that this country existed, nor it's people, nor the beauty it holds. It was likely that they knew not necessarily who I was or where I came from but they knew of my home. They'd heard of it and it had affected them at some point in life.

It's not that I have a negative perception of this but more that I am more acutely aware of where I come from and privileged life I live. Perhaps sometimes the oblivious life I live. Being abroad and having the opportunity to expand my boarders isn't an opportunity everyone gets or takes in their lifetime, in the US only 2% of university students study abroad during their higher education and I don't think any one who has, returned quite the same as when they left. My knowledge of foreign frontiers was theoretical until I was given the opportunity to expand beyond what I had known. Now, having been given the chance to taste a bit of what I have at my threshold, I'm grasping for every extremity I can to keep pushing my boundaries, to keep exploring, and to keep finding. I would like to visit საქართველო (Sakartvelo) in my lifetime and I would like to keep finding places I never knew existed.

There isn't really anything better than to let the world unfold itself before you and for you just for the grace of being discovered in wonder.

Foundations

Being 19 and abroad renders one many things, I've found. 

From the time I was 15 I knew France was where I needed to land - at some point, for an extended period of time preferably one year or more. My freshman, first, scariest [by nature] not altogether unpleasant year of college was spent in exploration. I lived, for the first time, on my own with responsibility over my own education and my own bedtime. I also had full responsibility over my friendships. This, here, is where I get sucked in and stuck a bit. Senior year of high school, or the bac, or any last year of schooling before adult-hood begins to set in is kind of a joke. The first year out, figuring out your surroundings. Year 2, who am I? Year 3 - Abroad. Am I who I think I am? Year 4 - better get my shit together, graduation is soon. [syke! Add another year for that bit of self-exploration in Europe or Asia, Antarctica if you were brave enough.]

So instead, we've skipped level 2 and jumped right to level 3 without any real foundation. What's here is maybe a rocky start from high school and a few first attempts at college. And a dwindling supply of chocolate. I don't think I'm the only one who molds into the personality of the people around me. What scares me is what happens when no one is there. Is this a reflection of who we are? Are we a collection of the things we like in others and then mirror onto ourselves, branching out ever so often to grasp onto something making it more permanent that the rest? Are the aspects about ourselves that we like only apparent when we seem them lacking or abundantly spilling forth from others? Or are they always there? Where does true happiness lie? Is it a place to approach on foot or on thought? 

Being 19 and abroad renders one many things. An amateur, naïve philosopher to name drop a bit. The term 'abroad' comes from a middle English phrase, "widely apart". I don't yet know how I feel about trying to solidify my 'foundation' whilst widely apart from everything that is natural. It's very blunt, like a fjord - not impossible, just dramatic.

Parisian Paradise

I'll be talking about these last few days soon enough but first, today. And sorry about my last blog - and all its length. We covered a LOT of London, therefore, there was a lot to write about. It's been pretty hot and dry here, today it was 30° Celsius. I've met a few friends, noteably a large group from various parts of Norway, my German neighbor Fiddi and all of her friends, and the administrative bots and café tots I've finally gotten the hang of talking to. I had dinner last night with my Norwegian friends and they invited me to the beach today after their classes ended and lunch at noon. 

I woke up this morning around 9 (oh my gosh the circles under my eyes are fading!) and slowly got ready for the day. I ate a light breakfast, meandered a bit, kept eating some fruit. By about 10 I went out under the tree that's just outside my window and had a mini picnic of fruit, baguette with honey, and orange juice. I let the chapters of Eat, Pray, Love flow around me in unision with the words of the passers-by until I was done with my pic-nic, not really caring about time. Might I mention I haven't worn a watch since I arrived. Nor did I know what day it was until about 30 minutes ago. 

I cleaned my dishes, and walked through campus to a little coffee shop at the Maison d'Etudiant, or Student Office. There, I had a double shot of espresso with sugar because that is what a "big coffee" is here. The French know how it's done. I was supposed to meet Gérard (it's the name his French teacher in Norway gave him and he uses it here because his real name is really difficult to pronounce/ remember. Truth.), Martha, and the others for lunch before going to the beach. Buuuuuuut I was full from eating here and there all morning and didn't want to pay for a full meal and not eat all of it. I waited outside for a bit before going in to get a yogurt, baguette, and a banana hoping I would only have to pay the ,95 euros that it actually cost for all of it. False. Students get a full meal for 3,15 euros flat and that's what I had to pay for my yogurt, mini baguette, and banana. The woman didn't understand what I was saying and thought I was nuts because I wasn't getting a full tray of food. Then she thought I couldn't understand her when she told me to go back and get more food, the gentleman behind me in line started translating what she was saying into English and I told him I understood perfectly, which I did, and I told her I just wanted what I had, but that it should be only the ,95 euros. I had to pay 3,15 in the end. Blasphemy. The US needs to get on it with the value of our dollar. I walked into the seating area of the cafeteria, tray in hand, and saw all of my Norwegian friends leaving as I was trying to find them. 

So I ate by myself. And got weird looks for my weird lunch. And didn't go to the beach. But I walked around town and took some really cool pictures of my really cool new home. 

 You walk through the entrance of the Château de Caen and see this, the Chappel Saint-Georges. 

 And here lies the moat, never having been filled with water. It was just dug for limestone to built the castle itself. Maybe we can pole vault into the castle instead of swimming to it. 

 French Billy Balls! I actually don't know the name of this flower, it's probably a weed, but it's everywhere and I love it. 

 My university! Kind of ugly compared to the rest of the city but who goes to France for the studies anyways? It's the rest of the town we're more interested in - and there's much to see. 

 What's left of the Château after the bombings of WWII. 

This is one of my favorite buildings in Caen. It stands alone right off the University. When the sun hits it just right, it's the perfect shade of summer yellow and the symmetry is magnificent. With French architecture to make your mouth water, who couldn't fall in love with such a parisian paradise? Au Revoir!

Fish & Chips

I will begin this by saying I have done nothing but speak French in clips the last few days and my English is suffering poorly for it. Bear with me.

Well, I'm not in London anymore - alas that is the topic for discussion. There were no tears [that Megan and I saw] at the airport and we were all giggles and smiles as we made our way to London. Once we arrived, it was about 8.30 am London time and we were dead-set on beating jet-lag so we napped and such on the plane. We took the tram to our hotel in Paddington,  St. David's Hotels. 

It was THE CUTEST hotel and the location was great - a little bit off the beaten path but in a nice neighborhood and more to itself. The hotel served breakfast in the morning, a traditional Danish breakfast of every meat you can think of, beans, eggs, and roasted mushrooms and tomatoes. I had the vegetarian option sans meat. It was incredible. And with the best coffee in town (we wouldn't know of any better coffee because everything else was too expensive to actually pay for) who could ask for a better way to start the day? Speaking of starting days, back to our arrival at the start of London's day. We got to the hotel, got our room and set everything up, freshened up at a bit and by that time it was about 11-11.30. We set off down the streets of London, maps in purses (because only tourists walk with maps in their hands). We walked and we walked and did the touristy thing - you know, snapping pictures. 

For lunch, we went to a small café and had incredible sandwiches on the best bread we had eaten thus far. Talk about freshly made. We people watched to our hearts content and listened to the menagerie of languages surrounding our ears. If you think the states are diverse, visit London.  We walked and we walked, getting ourselves purposefully lost on the beautiful victorian streets until we came to a small pub. Here, we bought our first drink abroad. We sat for the next hour sipping on Stella Artois and having pleasant conversation with a man whose name we never got. In fact, we never got the name of anyone we held conversation with. It's a shame we didn't think to be more polite about that because we did meet some very nice people - Whoops!

So we kept walking, eventually landing ourselves at a healthy eating place (like much the rest of Europe has) called 'itsu' and managed to land ourselves about 15£ worth of free food. In dollars, about $20. For some reason the man behind the counter really liked talking to us and that we talked back. Didn't get his name either. We ate really well that night, great soup, fruit, rice cakes covered in yogurt. They even offered us free frozen yogurt. We were way too full to accept it. 

We got back to the hotel that night, slept like rocks and woke up at the ripe hour of 5 am, fell back asleep and woke again at 6.30. We had a delicious breakfast and were out of the hotel by 8. Kinsington garden is about a 15 minute walk from our hotel, so we had a plan. Go see Princess [Dutchess, Queen-to-be?] Kate, the royal baby, and Prince William at Kinsington Palace, make a circle and go to Buckingham Palace and see the Changing of the Guards, go up to Westminster Abbey, see the London Eye or take a boat tour (whichever is cheapest), eat at some point. There were all kinds of things we wanted to do. This is what we did:

1. Eat. Breakfast was incredible, I've already talked about it but it deserves a second standing ovation.

2. We walked around Kinsington Garden for an hour. We had our tourist cameras at the ready snapping pictures as we skipped along the copplestone. We came to a little cottage that was too precious to leave uncaptured. Voila.

There was also "La Place Des Homeless" that we thought was magical and couldn't get enough pictures of. I'll leave it at two.

But really, if you tipped it upside down, homeless people would fall out of it like salt falls out of an open salt shaker. They weren't as enthused about the garden as we were. Or that we were taking pictures of them. We continued cordially. Going along we met 2 couples, a Father and Mother and their daughter and her husband visiting from Australia and paused here to talk and take photos for them. The mother had been to London in the Garden before and in the heart of the garden is a statue depicting the story of Peter Pan. The group had passed by the statue and the woman wasn't sure if it was the same one and after looking at it for a few minutes, memories of the statue in her childhood came back. I asked them if they wanted me to take a photo of them as a group, so they all got into their 'sorority pose' and said cheese. We continued walking until we were sufficiently lost and then we found the palace - on the other side of the garden. We had been walking the wrong way. So we trucked across the grass and made a new path for ourselves until we were facing the grand doors.

Well, close to them.

And then we realized there was a statue guarding it... A very royal statue. 

3. We saw a memorial for the anniversary of Princess Diana's death, it was moving and patriotic, and there were volunteers dressed in British flags informing passers-by about the event and why they needed to put a boquet of flowers and a letter on the entrance of the palace. It was sweet, and very good to remember Princess Diana, may she rest in peace. 

4. We had seen the tower of a Cathedral but couldn't remember what to call a Cathedral besides a 'church' and 'old church' so when we decided to make a small detour to go see the church, we didn't know how to get there or what to call it. We found an alley that looked like a good idea and found a few police officers. We approached. They raised their guns. With peace [hopefully] in our voices we asked how to get to the 'old church'. In response, they looked at us like we were stupid, looked up and pointed at the cathedral, 'That one?' We told them yes, and they pointed us around the corner with their riffles. We got there, in time for Saturday prayers and the pianist to ignore my polite 'Good Morning!'. 

Worth it.

5. We walked and thought we saw the Wellington Arch. 

But then you see, there's a Buddha in the center of this one.

Maybe if we had known what these iconic pieces of architecture were before we came to London. Should have done our research. Another whoops! Voila the Wellington Arch. 

6. We kept on, trying to find Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. When we arrived, we sat on the steps overlooking the palace for 30 or so minutes until it was after 11. A man was coming around telling the people that there would be no changing of the guards for the day but the cavalry would be changing at 11.30. Our one day to see it! Oh well. 

7. We walked down The Mall which is a street just off of Buckingham Palace and it is a beautiful walk. There are trees and people and I'm not sure what this next building is but I really liked it and it looked really important. Plus there were two statues outside of it. One with Queen Elizabeth and another with King George VI I believe. I could very well be wrong. DO NOT QUOTE, I repeat do not quote me. But I think that's right. 

My picture taking was not very grand here, this is of the statues. The Queen is below the King. The neck that turns the head. 

8. The changing of the calvary. We walked to the Horse Guard where the change took place and watched from a distance.

9. After we watched the Calvary, and tried to catch their eyes to make them fall out of line [no success stories], we went through the arches and found a tour boat on the Thames (pronounced: temmes). 

 'OXO' Talk about interesting advertising.

 The bridge from Harry Potter! Just kidding, it's the Millenium Bridge.

 But really, it's in Harry Potter.

 The International Shakespeare Globe Theatre

The London Bridge (please don't fall down)

 The old fish market in London.

 Ahhh Lunch

 The Mayor's office

They knew I was coming. And look, they've dubbed me a saint!

10. Lunch was great, sandwhiches again on more of the best bread in the city, and more wandering until our feet were numb. We got back to the hotel, napped. I forgot to mention the nap we took the day before. We're on vacation. Vacation means relaxed, and sleeping is relaxed, so we slept a bit. We woke up, wandered around a bit more to find food, we went to Covent Garden. It's kind of like an outdoor shopping centre with shops and street performers and venders. We ate at a restaurant and shared a meal - I ate the first animal I've eaten in 3 years. I ate fish and chips in London. It's a whole new me in Europe. Crazy. We went back to the hotel early, watched a movie and fell asleep in preparation for the long journey ahead of us. More to come!