Decide What to Be and Go Be It

     The days of me solo in Europe are coming to a close.  Tomorrow is the day I head back to the good ol' US of A.  Traveling alone, and with the vast portion of my traveling being in a country where I didn't speak the language, I've spent a lot of time with me.  I know a lot more about me now than I did before beginning this journey.

I now know that I'm actually pretty good at figuring out how to get places...  I know that even though I know I'm good at it, I will always be nervous about not being able to figure out how to get places...  I know that I will always arrive way too early for an event that may be remotely important, like catching a plane or train...  I know that I have the worst sense of direction...  I knew that before hand, but I didn't know I was this bad.  I know that I over pack...  Especially when it comes to toiletries and underwear.  I know that I can be content in awkward situations and not allow the awkwardness frustrate me, which is very important...  I know that I can live in harmony with spiders...  I know that I can learn a lot of things by simply observing...  I know that I don't want to spend my life doing something I "don't mind doing"...  I know I don't want to settle in life...  And I know I don't have to.  I still don't know everything about me though.  I hopefully still have a lot of time of growing and learning and adventuring left in my life.  So, there's no need to rush things.

On the plane from Boston to Dublin, just starting this trip, I was sitting there, like ya do on a plane, listening to my iPod and the song, "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" by The Avett Brothers came on and the lyrics really struck a chord with me.  "There was a dream, and one day I could see it.  Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it.  And there was a kid with a head full of doubt.  So I'll scream 'til I die and the last of those bad thoughts are finally out." But the words that really hit me and had me thinking about this transitional phase I'm currently going through in my life come right before the chorus, "Decide what to be, and go be it".  I may not know what I'll be doing in ten years or even where I'll be doing it.  But for right now, I wanted to go to France.  So, I went to France.  I wanted to volunteer with WWOOF and experience a different way of life.  So, I did that.  I wasn't the easiest thing to do by any means.  It would have been easier if I had chosen an English speaking country, but I didn't.  It would have been easier if I had a familiar person with me to lean on, but it was just me.  But I can't let certain aspects of life or situations stop me from being who and what I want to be.

There is another song on the same album by The Avett Brothers, "Incomplete and Insecure".  That song is the complete antithesis of Head Full of Doubt.  It opens up, "I haven't finished a thing since I've started my life.  I don't feel much like starting now."  It exemplifies what I strive to never become, incomplete and insecure.  I never want to look back and wish I had done something but chose not to because of convenience or comfort.  If I miss out on something amazing it had better be because I am creating other and possibly better memories.

So, in my search for my perfect theme song, I have come to the conclusion that maybe "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" may not be the song that will define my entire life, but for right now I think it fits.  And even though I will always have a head full of doubt, I can not and will not let it discourage me.  And since "nothing is owed, deserved, or expected..." you have to choose your own path determining whether or not your life will be "Incomplete and Insecure", or a "Road Full of Promise".  The choice is yours.

The Avett Brothers - Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise

I See London, I Saw France, I'm Coming Back with Only Half of My Underpants

     Here I sit, in an old courtroom in London where Dickens once sat.  Well, possibly.  He apparently worked somewhere in this place.  It's only a week until the Olympics are set to start here so the city has been prepped and cleaned before the mayhem of tourists and press and obviously athletes will inevitibly destroy it.  And as cool as it would be to attend an olympic event, I am so glad I will not be here for it.

But I am glad I decided to extend my stay in Europe to visit here.  I actually really like London.  The season of Summer does not exist here but you do get quick glimpses of sunlight and they are very enjoyable...  The rain is blah, but it's not unbearable.  It seems like there are actually more cyclists here, braving the rain, than there were in Paris.  And here people actually wear cycling helmets.  I thought it was kind of strange that in Paris I only saw a handful of people wearing cycling helmets.  Here you only see a handful without one.  

Getting here was a pretty enjoyable experience, as well.  Two thumbs up to the Eurostar people.  Comfortable seat, quite trains, not over booked and over crowded.  The train ride from Toulouse to Paris was 5 hours of crap.  It was overbooked so I didn't have an assigned seat so I spent half of the time sitting on the floor by the cafe.  I felt like a stowaway.  On the Eurostar I didn't even have anyone next to me.  So, two seats!  Woo!  

Repacking in Paris was an event though.  I always overpack when it comes to toiletries and underwear.  Two items you never want to run out of.  So I pack them like I'm supplying soap and underwear to small villages along my journey.  For some reason I highly overestimated my soap usage before this trip and I ended up leaving two unused bars of soap at the farm.  I'm still using the same bottle of liquid soap that I've been using the entire trip...  I also wasn't certain of the clothes washing situations I would run into so I packed pretty much every pair of underwear I own.  You can rewear a lot of things.  Underwear is not one of those things...  And it was a good thing I did that because that is the situation I've found myself in currently.  I was able to wash my clothes while at the farm, but now with staying in quaint hotels and hostels, clean laundry is something I haven't smelled in a couple of weeks.  But, being the panty hoarder that I am, I was left with a laundry bag full of dirty underwear and a pack full of dirty clothes along with plenty of clean underwear! And who wants to carry around a laundry bag full of dirty underwear???  No thank you.  So, I trashed them.  And look, I just made a little extra room in my pack!  

London, with the exception of Westminster and Buckingham Palace and places like that, isn't as picturesque as Paris, but I guess it's quite unfair to start comparing every city to Paris...  Unfair for the other city, I mean.  Paris is amazing.  I really loved it there.  I can't wait to return.  There is so much I didn't get to see!  And lots of stuff I didn't want to stop looking at!  But there are still so many other places in this world that I have yet to see and experience.  I can't wait to see more and can't wait to find the next "Paris".  I think I can find things to love about every place I go.  Except Sasebo, Japan of course.  That place just blows.  

First Night in Paris

     Life on the farm has come to an end.  The language barrier may have been a struggle at times but I am very happy I decided to take the plunge and actually go through with it. It was a great experience and I made memories that I will keep with me forever.

Now I sit in a quaint hotel room at the Hotel Edouard IV off the historic Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris.  I've always dreamed of coming to Paris and now I've made it a realization.  Even though I've been in France for well over a month now, I feel like I'm in a different country again.  The differences between the south of France and Paris are enormous.  And as much as I like the laid back feel of the countryside, I always feel more at home in the heart of a bustling city where movement is constant and noise is abundant yet I can feel so still and alone with my thoughts as I sit at a street-side cafe with my coffee or glass of wine and watch the city as it passes by.

Last night I went walking around the neighborhood of Montparnasse, wandering aimlessly and just taking in everything there is to see.  Wandering aimlessly is something I am very good at.  Wandering with a purpose, that's another story.  I possibly have the worst sense of direction known to man.  Even with my iPhone and Google maps, I went in the wrong direction at least ten times.  There was even an instance when I was trying to head south and ended up going north and after realizing that I turned around.  Five minutes later I checked again and I somehow was headed north again...  Tricky streets of Paris...  But I did manage to stop at a little place called Le Doucet on Rue D'Assa for dinner.  I had the tartare de boeuf, salade, et frites.  Paired with a fantastic glass (actually two...) of vin de Bordeaux.  It was a superb meal to welcome me to this lovely city.

With so many sites to see and my brain working overtime trying to take it all in, I was finding it more difficult to focus on my route back to the hotel as I can sometimes become easily distracted.  Take for instance when I was walking down the street and I came across two GIGANTIC sparkling green doors with HUGE golden door knobs in the center of each door.  First thought that comes to my mind... "That must be the door to the merry ol' land of Oz!"  So then I had the song, "Merry Ol' Land of Oz" stuck in my head...  Then that sparked an internal debate of, who's gayer? The Tin Man or The Cowardly Lion?  Then I started thinking about how different the characters where from The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz...  Then "Interpol" zoomed by and I wondered whether they were chasing Catherine Zeta Jones or Matt Damon...  Then I realized I was going in the wrong direction again.

But getting lost isn't without it's perks.  I got to take in more of the architecture and I came across some awesome statues that I wouldn't have seen if I had known where I was going.  I didn't know I was walking towards the Eiffel Tower since my hotel was the opposite direction and, Wham!  There she was.  All lit up and glowing in the night sky.  Beautiful.

Paris is beautiful!  The architecture, the sculptures, the high-fashion boutiques, the people hanging out at the cafes, everything about it.  I've been here not even 24 hours and I know why everyone falls in love with Paris.

The countryside has the natural beauty.  And it's amazing.  But Paris is where the beauty of humanity is celebrated.  C'est beau!

The Good Terrorist

Today I am sitting out going to the market in Montbrun Bocage.  Not really because I wanted to, but because I'm lazy and didn't wake up until 9am and Marie leaves at 7am to get there with plenty of time to set up.  It's a really fun market to go to.  Lots of different people from all over Europe go to it.  There are always lots of hippies from the area that are either doing their weekly produce shopping or selling whatever they have to sell.  Also, there are always lots of bourgeois tourists from the UK on holiday that come I guess just to check out a different way of shopping from what they're used to, i.e. supermarkets.  So it goes from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other.  From hippies in jalopies to well off tourists in Land Rovers.  I like to think I lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.  I've been called a hippie by lots of people in my life, but no, no.  Not a hippie.  I like to shower too much.  

Last Sunday when I was there I had a very interesting conversation with two guys, one of whom was British and the other was from Nicaragua.  Byron was the guy from Nicaragua and I forget the British guy's name so we'll just call him Jasper, because he reminded me a lot of the character Jasper Willis from Doris Lessing's novel, The Good Terrorist, a squatter who was trying to revolutionize the world and an avid believer in the ideas of Marx and Lenin.  Byron was a very easy going guy who sounded more like he was Jamaican, and was very friendly.  Jasper, on the other hand, was very outspoken on his views of the bourgeoisie tourist who flocked to Montbrun Bocage.  He was very articulate on why he didn't like Americans and the British (he, being British).  He talked about overconsumption and the unimportance of money.  He grouped me in the category of over consumers based on the fact that I had taken a plane from America to France and the amount of gas that planes, cars, and trains use is disgusting.  While I agree with him somewhat on that statement, I didn't understand him excluding himself from that category after taking a plane to France based on the fact that he had been in France for four years…  So, according to him, if I were to stay here for a certain amount of time without flying anywhere I could possibly be excused as well…  Hmmm…  

He also complained about the majority of the British and Americans being mono-linguistic.  So I brought up the question of, if we are to only travel as far as we can walk or bike, how the hell are we going to learn other languages???  That made Byron laugh and Jasper just reexplain the importance of stopping over consumption.  It was fun to find holes in his theory of a new, better life that everyone should follow and watch him get flustered and make Byron laugh again.  It's not that I didn't agree with him, because I do.  It's just his ideas were just a tad extreme.  On the topic of the unimportance of money, he didn't need money and had gone a long time with hardly any of it.  He didn't even have to pay rent.  Because he was a squatter and lived in an old building illegally.  He may have even lived in the ruins of the castle that I would go up to every time I was there.  I didn't ask about what he ate.  He just talked about people growing their own food for sustenance.  I had a feeling he himself did not grow his own food.  Oh, and with him you had to grow your food a certain way.  No gas using machines could be involved.  To say the least, it was a very interesting conversation that lasted quite a long while.  Byron, being the friendly one, even offered a few drags off of whatever it was he was smoking…  And since I didn't want to be rude…  

So we three, a Brit, a Nicaraguan, and an over consuming American, sat there on the steps of a church that was built thousands of years ago in the south of France smoking and discussing the woes of the modern times.  I'm not exactly positive what we were smoking since everyone here rolls their own cigarettes, but I was feeling very relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon.