the cloud prayer

Back.

The two weeks out of Germany were good. Somewhat more stable than the previous weeks I'd spent out of Germany since August, but the trip didn't disappoint--- still managed to produce loads of new things to churn over. I've been 'home' for about four days now, but have been hesitant to write about any of the previous week's proceedings. I had trouble with this when I got back from my first trip, back in October. These sort of things seem like the things that I should spend the most time laboring to define and set down somewhere for progeny's sake, but for some reason its the hardest. Let me ramble on about how much work I should be doing, and I can fill up pages. Ask me about Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, London, Birmingham, Wellesbourne and the conjugation of my traveling heart and I'll point you to some pictures and think that even if I could make the words come out right, it wouldn't be what I wanted.

Nonetheless, I've got to say something. Its trickier here because I am not really writing just for me to read (because that gets boring anyhow), but I'll do my best.



At around 6 in the morning on Thursday, December 15th I left on a german train headed to Cologne. At Cologne I changed for a french train and by 4pm I was in Paris. Luckily I got the Scare of the Trip out of the way early- thinking I was on the wrong train headed for Cologne, and freaking out silently to myself while German Freethinker across from me confidently read the newspaper. After I'd read the complimentary train itinerary that was lying on the seat next to me a good fifteen times, I stopped kicking myself and instead just marvled at my own glorious inability to let myself appear like a dimwit. After Freethinker left, I swallowed my pride, of which I didn't even realize I had any left, and had a nice little chat with a train conductor. I was informed that I was not on the wrong train (because really, I am too smart to get on the wrong train), but merely on the wrong end of the train- that being, at the next stop the train was splitting, and one end was going my way, and the other, not. The importance of looking to see what car number you are in has now been firmly embedded in my consciousness. After that little respite from sanity things went smoothly.

My cotravelers, Colina, her friend Melissa, and Melissa's friend George, were to meet up with me in Paris that night. They ended up not getting in till around, gosh, I don't remember, but not until somewhat late. So the majority of that day I was free to adventure on my own. I began my romantic affair with the urine-soaked Paris Underground, wandered my way around a couple districts, in attempts to find the hostel realized just how bad my leftover high school french was, took way too many "Paris at Night" pictures, fooled some store-owners into thinking I could understand French, and witnessed a couple break up on the bench over from mine. Once the folks joined me, we went out to dinner and wandered around a little before setteling into our drafty low-cost-hotel room (which was pretty much a hostel). If nothing else, it was worth it to stay in that hotel room for three nights just so I could experience the Worlds Smallest Door Entrance. I have to say I've never seen a shower positioned in a room like that.

The next two days were spent seeing the sights, reaffirming my distaste for the scent of urine, realizing I could understand a lot more french than actually produce it, realizing that next time I come to France I really want to know more french so I don't get kicked out of any more french convience stores or have my food spit in by any ornery french garcons, and yeah, spending a lot more money on necessities than I would have liked. I was aghast by how expensive everything in Paris seemed; this was a problem coming to England in October after having spent two weeks changing currencies throughout bits of Central/Eastern Europe but not really losing all that much money. In hindsight it was just naivite, Paris being not only the french capitol but also one of the biggest tourist destinations in Europe I should have expected it. But gosh.

All in all, Paris was a nice city, but it just sort of left a bad taste in my mouth. Honestly I wasn't prepared for the rudeness we constantly were surrounded with. After not too long we realized it was better for Melissa and I to join our high-school french and try to use that as much as possible. At least with our poor french they were able to swallow their hatred somewhat and show us a little less scorn than if we just spoke english. If I forget about the people, I liked a lot of what I saw in Paris. Since we are still Americans, we set off to see the Eiffel Tower the first morning. In unconscious efforts to be even more touristy, Colina and I yelped when we first caught sight of it from afar (she actually yelped because I was like, ah!, and apparently that was a frightening sound for me to emit). It would have all been a lot more beautiful if we weren't there in the depths of a gray winter, but it was still cool to see. But it just added to my sentiment that Paris just really wasn't what I expected. I'm not even sure what I was expecting, its not like this was my Dream Pilgrimmage Come True, but for being such a hyped up city I was surprised it wasn't filling me with greater wonder. Don't get me wrong, it was still really amazing to see, but I guess Life puts in things to help you be happy where you are- ie, still liking Germany a hell of a lot better.

Anyhow, I think we saw most of the major sites, which was fun (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triomphe, Champs de l'Elysee, Moulin Rouge, Le Louvre). I guess thats really the first time I've gone somewhere here in Europe and really made an effort to see 'all the things to see.' I think the Notre Dame and the Louvre were my favorites. We spent a whole afternoon in the Louvre. We actually got in for free because there was a worker's strike that afternoon, and so with just a handful of people in front of us, the line was stopped because of the protesting. But we waited it out, and with the help of this french guy in front of us, were able to get in for free.

After my two and a half days in Paris we headed for Brussels. We actually rode first class on the train to Belgium, something about us being under 26 made it cheaper to go first class than second. It was my first time riding first class (correct me if I'm wrong), and it was really nice. The best part was the really good meal we were provided- Lina and I were saying that it might have been the best food we had in France. I was excited to go to Belgium because I had read that the country has three official languages: french, dutch and german, and uh, I was getting tired of looking like the terrible Ami tourist. I'd rather speak somewhat mixed up german any day. Unfortunately, I hadn't taken into account the two cities we were planning on visiting are both located in Flanders, the northern, french speaking section of Belgium. Wallonia, the german speaking portion, has as of yet not seen hide nor hair of me. So, alas, two and a half more days of fighting through french. Luckily it turns out that dutch is just a really nerdy form of german, and so it was actually easier for me to try to read through the dutch and figure things out than mess with the french.

It was also fortunate to find that Brussels, our homebase, was populated with nicer folk than those we had encountered in Paris. As soon as we had emerged from the Brussels Underground and began to wander the streets looking for our hostel, I already was falling in love with the city. I like to use that term somewhat loosely, but Brussels is a really beautiful city. I don't think it'd be too hard to argue that Antwerp is a nicer looking city, but both have the most amazing architecture I've ever seen. I have literally hundreds of pictures of buildings. I could really bleed you to death with my romantic portraits of the architecture, but I'll let you rest assured that I was quite impressed. I got my first glimpse of it as my train to Paris passed through Belgium from Germany, and I was already excited for it then.




Once our packs were off and safely stored in the hostel, we set out to wander the city. Around sunset we found a nice cathedrahl, and outside of it a belgian waffle stand. More wandering. The next day we went back to the city center that we had finally found late the night previous. One of the nights we made friends with some Australians over a game of pool, and one of them, June, wandered about the next day with us. I felt sort of bad for not being more social with her, but I was tired and it seemed like George was handling it. I did have an interesting chat with her about the rioting, or whatever you want to call it, that went down a couple of weeks ago down on the coast by Sydney. Always interesting getting the opinion of a local. On the last day Colina and I were in Belgium (Melissa and George ended up staying in Brussels for another week after we left due to monetary difficulties) we all went to Antwerp for the day. I really liked the city, and visiting it reminded me that it'd be a good idea in the future to visit more towns within a country before moving on. Learning, learning.

On December 21st Colina and I flew into London Heathrow. We had a couple of hours to wander about London before our coach left to Birmingham, where we were staying for the night. It was cool to be able to see the two versions of da Vinci's Madonna on the Rocks within days of one another (one in the Louvre, the other in London's National Gallery). We got back to Birmingham about 11pm, and got up a couple hours later to meet Colina's family at the train station. From there we all took a train to Leamington Spa, and from there a taxi to Walton Hall, where we were staying the week and spending Christmas.

Walton Hall ended up being way out in the countryside, which was nice for pictures and bad for getting around. I was lucky enough to be able to spend the holiday with one of the families I am closer to in the world, and enjoyed their hospitality for the week I was wedged in a bed with two of their daughters. It was an experience to be part of a family after spending the past five months either by myself or primarily with people my age. And the signifier that I really am older: Christmas really felt like practically any other day for me this year. I don't know if it was the absence of blood-relations, my removal from the country where I've spent the past twenty Christmases or just the travel-tired that begins to follow you around after a couple of days out of your own bed, but it didn't really bother me much until the night of the 25th when I went out into the hall to call family and close friends. It was just one of those times where you feel very, very far away.

A couple of the days during our time at Walton Hall were spent in Birmingham and London. On the day-trip to London with Colina's family I saw all the sights, some for the second time, some for the first. Colina has a love affair with the city which I don't entirely share, mostly because I think I am attached to other places. I really do like England, and London at that, though. I am continually amazed that every person I've met there is really friendly, nice and willing to go out of their way to help you. The accent doesn't cease to be charming, either. I think England would look a little better in that dress if the pound-dollar conversion rate were better, though. Other than that and the fact that the whole stereotype of English food being terrible is one of God's sad truths, I have no bad words to say againist England. All the turn-arounds would make it fairly impossible for me to drive a car and stay somewhat sane, but thats just the southern Californian in me talking.

On the 29th of December my mom and her boyfriend Scott flew into England. Thats the day it started snowing in England, so after a couple morning-hours of running around in the fields ahead of Walton Hall, following geese and throwing logs into frozen rivers, I saw my mom for the first time in five months as I was washing my hands in the bathroom. Sort of surreal and familiar at the same time. That is the longest period of time I've ever gone without seeing my mother, at school I come home at least twice- for Christmas and spring break, and then again for summer.

That day we rested, and the next Mumsie and I went shopping in Birmingham, had her tooth fixed in Coventry, and ate dinner in Leamington Spa. The next day we flew out of London Stanstead to Hamburg-Luebeck, where I actually ran into Melissa and George, who were waiting for their flight back to London. There was some rental car fiasco that required me to throw myself back into german to get the Turkish cabbie to get us to the downtown rental car place. It was superior timing to come into Germany, for it was practically snowstorm weather, and Scott had to fight it the whole three-ish hours from Luebeck to Goettingen. Luckily we made it safe and fine (with the help of the car's navigational system, thank you Technology), and luck was with us again when Jacky was able to secure a hotel room in the hotel that is literally right next to my dorm. I went in a couple of months ago to try to get Mom and Scott a room for their stay here, but they told me they were all booked up, and that the only other hotel in Goettingen was closed for the season. I had somewhat claustrophobic visions of fitting two people in my decidedly one-adult bed, but worries were cleared. We got into Goettingen really late, and coming back to my room was once again strange.

The next day I showed Scott and Mom downtown, and Mom and I ended up doing some truly superior shopping. I'd never done such shopping in Europe! Birmingham disappointed me this time around, because the hordes of post-Christmas shoppers was just too great for me to retain any of my strength, but luckily Goettingen came through for once. We had a nice lunch at Kartoffelhaus, walked around a bit some more and then retreated to the hotel. The next morning as I was walking over to the hotel, the ground was blanketed in crisp white and as I showed them around the Uni and surrounding area the next couple of hours, it provided a beautiful backdrop for many a picture. That night Jacky joined us for a nice New Year Eve's dinner at Nudelhaus, where Scott sweet-talked a Turkish bartender about finances, and then free drinks. After that we were sort of beat, and both Mom and Scott were fighting illness, so we went back to the hotel and watched some truly weird german television that reminded me why I love german and everything that entails.

Later Jacky and I rode into town just in time to catch the fireworks, and luckily eventually escaped to the Irish Pub with our lives. New Year's here is like our fourth of July. I had a chat with Lars in the kitchen last night and it was revealed to me that the reason for this extreme revelry is that fireworks are made legal here for just three days. Hence the 1945 Dresden-like appearance of the city on the last night of 2005. If I had known that there were plans to go to the Irish Pub I would have dragged Mom and Scott along, but I sort of didn't know what was happening with the night and was also worried about them getting up and to the airport safely and on time. At the Irish Pub Jacky and I met up with Steven, Duffy, Keinst, Rita, Emily and David, all Californians. When the live musician downstairs began to play Sweet Home Alabama, we all yelped, and ran downstairs to sing along, dance and just generally make fools of ourselves. "The only time in my life I've ever wanted to be from Alabama," was the sentiment shouted next to me. We stayed down there dancing and singing long enough for the people sitting at the tables near us to stop thinking it was cute and start looking somewhat annoyed. But the good thing about that is that we didn't care, and it wasn't until 4 o' clock that I found myself back home. I stayed up another hour so that I could say goodbye to Mom and Scott once more, and see them off on their way.



Towards the end of my traveling I was having a hard time enjoying myself at points because I would start fretting about all the work I was needing to be doing, and what a terrible, depressingly wintry month January was going to be. Being with my mom again was unspeakably nice, but also somewhat challenging because I was having to fight off feelings that I haven't been in the space to entertain for some months now. How upsetting it would be to say goodbye. But like I told you, only a couple of months till Spain.

And that sort of leads me into what this trip, these past weeks, have been for me. For many different reasons I really just now realized what the past five months have done to me. And that is sort of one of the Unexplainables, but to shed some light I'd have to say something about independence, self-reliance, not just growing up but growing out. I mean all this in a lot of different senses and ways, and honestly I don't even know if I understand what I mean. How much older can you get in one year?

My joys of the New Year are having been able to spend time, albeit too short, with some people I've been missing dearly. The recent discovery that in my absence they installed a heater in the shower room, and the new washing machine downstairs are also small triumphs for 2006. I am looking forward to a year with less worry, more discovery, with eyes wider and heart fuller. I hope, at the very least, the same for you.