Just a Taste

It's been almost three weeks since I stepped off the 12.5–hour flight from Colorado to Paris– and what an exciting, enlightening and exhausting three weeks it has been! Four countries and 1,071 pictures later, I now have a bit of time to relax and reflect on my trip, the people I’ve met and the lessons I’ve learned.

The fact that I was leaving the country for five months didn’t hit me as soon as I thought it would. As I said goodbye to Kristin at DIA and boarded the plane to Washington D.C., I felt some sadness but it was as if I only subconsciously knew what was happening but couldn’t yet comprehend it all. When you look forward to something so much for so long, it seems impossible that it will ever actually happen. When the flight attendant greeted us over the PA system and continued, in French, to give the usual safety speech, my seven years of anticipation was replaced with one moment of overwhelming realization. The taste of the delicious, buttery, flaky, truly-French croissant they served us for breakfast evoked the second wave of realization, this time mixed with a feeling of pure elation.

I won’t lie and say that every moment has been as blissful as that croissant and strawberry jam, but I’ve learned so much from the more trying aspects of travel. For instance: public transportation. Navigating the multi-line metro system of a huge city of roughly 2.2 million people for the first time in a foreign country at 6:30 in the morning…well, it’s a bit challenging, to say the least. In all reality, the system in Paris isn’t that difficult to figure out, however, patience runs out much quicker when you have your entire life for the next five months packed in two suitcases and a backpack, walking for hours up and down flights of stairs trying to find the right train platform. (I must give Whitney (my travel buddy J) a lot of credit for getting us where we needed to go because it took me a little longer to understand how the trains work.) Three and a half hours looking for our hostel was not the way I wanted to spend my first day in Paris but looking back, I realize that it is these kind of moments that I need most in order to truly fulfill my goals while I’m here. I never expected every moment to be completely perfect and I think that was an important part of preparing myself for this trip. I’m less inclined to be caught up in the pretenses of the initial bliss that comes with being in a foreign place. There is, most certainly, a feeling of awe every time I see a new monument or famous place, or when I try a new food, or see the street signs in French. Though, I think it’s interesting how fast the “new” wears off. That is not to say that I lose the appreciation for the little differences, only that differences have become the norm.

For now I will leave you all with a few of the most important lesson I have learned so far (compliments of my room mate): eating jelly on your toast with an omelet is not normal; Austrian is, in fact, the language of love, not French; only in Austria do chickens come in white, brown AND black and fly south in the winter; and, in general, Austria is the best. Thank you, Alex!

I will write in more detail about my trip in the next few days but I wanted to at least put up a little something to appease my faithful audience. :)

Love from Vichy!!