Bordeaux-Paris-London

 (I'll edit this tomorrow some other time.)

Okay, so I want to talk about an experience I had maybe four-ish years ago when I was in France. This is just one of many stories I feel I should write down, but I feel like talking about this one now. It's pretty complicated. I'm just gonna spill it out.

Alright. I'm about two months into the TAPIF program and Toussaints is coming up. I plan a trip to London. I have two friends in London, let's call them Oliver and Camille. Oliver offers to let me stay at his place. I book a train from Bordeaux to Paris, then from Paris to London. I do this all on the Eurostar website.

Some time before the trip, I go to the local SNCF office to pick up my physical tickets, and the guy working there says that he can't access them because I booked them through Eurostar, and there is no Eurostar office in Bordeaux! I have to get my tickets in Paris through a Eurostar office, which is stupid and beside the point, because one of the tickets I need to pick up is the one that gets me to Paris! He asks me to pay €20 to "buy" a new ticket (a nominal amount for the ticket, but absolutely not something I should've needed to pay because I had already bought the ticket). He handwrites this note and tells me to go to the SNCF office when I'm in Paris after visiting Eurostar, show him my tickets, and get a refund.

(I'd actually forgotten this part until I started writing because it's not the main part. Hahaha!)

Okay, I vow to never book SNCF tickets through Eurostar again.

The day of the trip. I'm riding the Bordeaux-Paris section and the train stops. There's an announcement that something's wrong. My French skills are still catching up so I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I know a ton of other trains are stopped too. My mind is cycling through the possibilities. Mechanical error? Suicide? Other track obstruction? I sit there and hours pass. Literally hours. I don't remember how many. I remember the Eurostar schedule and eventually I come to the conclusion that I'm probably not even going to make the last one.

While all this is happening, one of the few friends I made, a Taiwanese assistant, innocently asks me how my holidays are going. (This is all in French.) It's a polite message but I'm stressed and panicking. I'm fervently text back, oh, not so great. You know, my train is super delayed. I'm not sure I can make to London today. I might be stuck in Paris. I don't what to do.

You see, I was using this flip phone I bought in 2009. Back in 2009, it was already the cheapest option. I was using it because it was what I bought that last time I was in France. My own American smartphone was locked (and honestly not a scion of modern technology itself), so I decided to just use this one I already had. I can't look up anything on it! Not news, not lodging, not fucking anything.

My friend, bless her heart (I mean this!), kindly decided to look up some hostels for me. Here I am, sitting on the train, holding this flip phone like a lifeline, anxiously waiting for her reply. I open it and close it, open and close it.

She doesn't reply for a while, but I think when she does, she says she doesn't find anything. She's like, maybe the train company will help you out. I'm like, yeah, they better.

I stay calm. I'm not the only who's missing a connecting train (I wonder if I'm the only one missing on to a different country through a different service, though!). Lots of people are getting screwed, too. I'm not alone. SNCF will provide compensation, right? I text Oliver, who was supposed to pick me up at the London station. My arrival would've coincided with him getting off work. I tell him I'm probably not gonna be there today. I'm not sure on the details, but I'll let him know. I'm making these international texts with my scarce, precious, pay-as-you-go credit.

We finally get to Paris. It's chaos everywhere. Tons of people. I think I go to a regular service desk before I redirected to the correct place, this, glass walled section for... I don't remember. It's also service. I line up, I get to the front. They are brusque. They say they've booked me on the first train out the next morning. (Fuck me, I think, 6:00am. I'm not a morning person.)

Okay, you should know that there are multiple major train stations in Paris, and Paris is a damn big city. Train from Bordeaux comes into Montparnasse. Eurostar leaves from Gare du Nord. Trip on the metro between the two stations is about half and hour.

They have accommodation. I ask for something close to Gare du Nord. I already have to wake up super early tomorrow. I don't need the extra complication of trying to figure out how to get to the train station from some place, possible far away, I haven't been before. The lady nods and hands me a piece of paper with a hotel name and a metro stop on it. She waves me away.

I feel a little relieved, until I look at the paper again and realize there are no directions on it. Just the metro stop. What the hell? I'm already out of my element. My French isn't perfect. I'm tired. The stress comes back. I see a group of people next to the counter and they all have the same piece of paper in their hands. Some of them are talking about going to the hotel together. I think, maybe I can get in on this, and I step into their circle, but they all ignore me. They sort of separately file out. Great.

I walk to a metro map. Maybe the hotel is near the stop? Honestly, this seems impossible. I look for the stop indicated on the piece of paper. And then I realize that this fucking place is nowhere near Gare du Nord. It's at the terminus of some other line that doesn't even cross Gare du Nord!

At some point during this mess, my Taiwanese assistant friend texts me if I've gotten a place to stay. I finally text here back. I say, kind of, but I don't know where it is except that it's super far from where I want to be. She says, she has a friend who lives near Gare du Nord. Would I like her to contact her for me and ask if I could stay there?

Close to Gare du Nord? Yes, close to Gare du Nord.

I say, yes, please. I think maybe she might've been hoping I'd say no.

I wait, wondering what I'd do if her friend says no, wondering where she lives. Time is ticking and I don't want to be wandering around some random area of Paris at midnight.

Taiwanese assistant friend eventually texts back and gives me the okay. Tells me which metro stop her friend closest too. I look at the map. She really is close! I think she was only one or two stops away from Gare du Nord. I keep expecting to get this friend's number and be asked to communicated and figure our the logistics directly, but my friend keeps playing middle man.

I take the metro. I text her when I'm at the stop. She tells me which direction to walk and to look for a big red door. The instructions are detailed, but I'm still worried, of course. I stare at the doors in the darkness, wondering if any of them are big or red enough. I keep walking.

I see one that does looks appropriately red and large. I text, I think I'm here, and by then her friend has come down to greet me. By now it's midnight or a bit past, I think. I'm full of apologies and gratefulness. Thank you so, so, so much for letting me stay here. I'm so, so, so sorry for bothering you so late. I'm also so, so sorry because I'll have to wake up early tomorrow and probably wake you up, too.

I'm a complete stranger to her. I barely know her friend (my Taiwanese assistant friend), and suddenly she's letting me crash at her place on short notice. She's a student and she has an exam tomorrow. I'm just amazed, and so grateful, and thinking what great people these two people must be.

We go up to her apartment which she shares with a couple roommates, some of whom are already asleep. I meet one. I'm like, how does she even introduce me? Hey, here's some random person I'm letting sleep in my room tonight. We go into her room and she has this sheet laid out on the floor. She offers me a small pillow, which I graciously accept.

I say I'm gonna go make a couple calls. I go into the small kitchen. I call Camille. I quickly explain my situation to her, thinking about my dwindling minutes. I say, I missed my train, do you think it's possible for you to meet me tomorrow morning instead of whatever time we had originally decided on? My friend Oliver can't pick me up anymore because he works in the morning. We can hang out for the day before I head over to his place in the evening. She agrees! I say--it's gonna be early--are you okay with that? She laughs and says it's okay.

I call Oliver and explain to him the plan. He says, in that case, he won't be going to the train station. He'll meet me at the metro stop closest to his home. Is that okay? Yes, of course.

I hang up, finally, finally, finally relieved. I feel so relieved. I stand in the kitchen and eat a little bit of the food I brought with me. Paris-living friend offers me some water, which I accept.

So I take to the sheets on the ground and cover myself up with my coat. (It's cold, but hey I am not complaining in the slightest. I will take what I can get! Which is already more than I expected.) Paris-living friend says that she'll probably pull an all-nighter is everything is okie dokie. I try to sleep.

The next morning I wake up very early, as planned. Friend is still awake and I thank her a ton, quietly. I use the bathroom. When I come out, one of her roommates is there, groggy and pissed. I don't notice the second part at first, so I smile and says "bonjour!" but she's like, do you speak English? She tells me to not use that bathroom because it's very loud in her room, then promptly goes back and shuts the door. I apologize and ask Paris-living friend about it. Apparently there are two bathrooms, and yeah, I wasn't supposed to use that one during sleeping hours. I feel bad that after that, I'll just be disappearing into the ether.

I make my train. It takes me a while to find Camille on the other side (miscommunication about where we should meet), but we meet up.

And that's the story of my first trip to London, where almost everything went wrong, but so many things went right because of the great people in my life.

Here is a picture of the English breakfast I had the morning I finally arrived.

Passport

About a month ago I sent off my old passport for a renewal, and I was so worried about it the whole time. What if it got lost in the mail??? What if it got lost in the passport processing center?? Well, it came back! A week ago, actually. It was such a relief to have it back in my hands.

That passport is a record of my most prolific travel period. I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever fill a passport like that again (not in the least that fewer and fewer countries are giving out stamps). I have a lot of memories attached to that thing! I used it so much I even memorized its number!

Updates

Here are some things I remember wanting to put here but never got around to.

1. I went on a paternoster! That's right, check! I made a nice little trip to Stuttgart, Germany for it and saw cool cars in the process, too. Here's a picture of my foot.

2. I had a pleasant lunch out with my fellow teachers on my last day at work. There were two main dishes, a lamb and a fish. We decided to get some wine, and asked for the already opened bottles. The waiter said that we could choose between red and white, and when he got to me, I chose white for no particular reason. "White...?" one of my colleagues asked me, slightly confused. "Ah!" she said, "You ordered fish!" And all was well. (Yes! I accidentally succeeded in basic wine knowledge!)


3. Back to the checklist. Next goal: midnight sun.

Hilarious

I walked from the tram, went into my apartment complex, checked my mailbox, waited for the elevator, then said hello to the girl waiting to go down, all with a random guy, and then we ended up opening opposite doors. He is my opposite neighbor. Awkward but also hilarious. I was grinning while opening my door because it was so funny.

"Bonne soirée."

I don't want to love fish anymore.

I don't want to love fish anymore.

And one more thing

Oh, and you know what?

Speaking of reaffirming actions, last week I received a large envelope from my senior year high school English teacher. She had had us write essays and letters to our future selves, and now, five years later, has sent them out. I had written the following four "Plan A" predictions for myself:

-Have done study abroad
-Traveled a lot
-Finished at least one more story
-Not married

Well, that's three of four. (I'm still working on that story.) Not bad.

"Not married" was kind of funny.

Acceptée

So I got in.

Here's the thing. My feelings towards this acceptance is a lot more subdued than I had thought or hoped it would be. Lately I've been questioning the path I chose and I was sort of hoping, against what I knew was probably true, that getting this job would fix all that and reaffirm my actions. And reinstate me in the eyes of my peers. Yeah, there's that, too.

I'm well aware of the reputation young English teachers abroad have. It's not a particularly respected position. There are quite a few sub-par teachers out there, only using the position to have fun and travel, delaying "real life" just a little bit more. Of course it depends on where you go and where you teach, but it's not exactly very competitive in general.

To be honest, my primary goal when I applied for this was not to teach either (although I genuinely enjoy teaching and I genuinely love the English language). For me, it was also an easy chance to get abroad and work on my own foreign language skills. The long term goal was to just be there, become fluent, then come back and do some professional work.

It's not as easy as I make it seem, of course, and I worry that this will end up just giving me two blank years in which I'm standing still and all my friends have moved far ahead. Some of them already have. It's a little embarrassing. I also think about how I might never be able to match my parents financially. It's pretty daunting.

I had a short talk with my friend about it, and she understood my concerns. However, she also told me that the path I chose is a decent choice for me based on my background and my goals. I know I shouldn't worry about what others think of me, but I do. It just happens.

If my acceptance had happened at the get go, in the beginning of April, it's possible that much of this self doubt could have been avoided. But it came just two days ago, and I'm not so sure anymore. I'm going to take it--because what else can I do? We'll see. I hope it works out.

Sneaky basker

I just caught my turtle basking!

The whole time she's been with us (this is fifteen years, roughly), she has been very private and paranoid about basking, jumping into the water at the slightest provocation--a glimpse of a being, a gentle footstep. She is now in a tank with very high, solid walls, so it is nigh impossible to see into until you are right up close. Often I've tried to sneak up on her--just to see her for a split second nice and dry before she dives back in--but have failed every time.

Today I walked up casually and unprepared. I wanted to check if she was under her rock before I poured new water in, so I go and look around. No turtle. I'm about to go back to grab the bucket of water when--there is this dark mass on top of the rock! Speedy! She looks up at me and stares. We are both frozen. I am afraid to move. We stare at each other for maybe five seconds... and she dives back in. Ah well.

Firsts

Yesterday I bowled a strike for the first time!
Today I tried raw milk for the first time.

K-pop and good things

(This is more for myself.)

So, roughly two years ago, Korean things (history, food, language, dramas, music, and the like) didn't mean much to me. It didn't register on my map. But meeting Korean friends in Hong Kong, eating delicious Korean food (much of which I had not tried before), and visiting Korea itself brought it much more intimately into my life. It was a nice, kind of refreshing alternative to the Japanese things that I had loved so much since middle school.

Not k-pop, though. I had a decent amount of friends who were fans, and I knew the names of some groups. I even had a couple songs on my computer, but I wasn't interested in finding out more. When Janice showed me the street in Seoul lined with idol products--the street to go for fans--I chuckled and admired the vendors' Japanese abilities.

Then, a year later I found out that one of my friends was in a k-pop cover band. I listened to their songs (so-so), listened to the originals (not too bad, SNSD!). It was nice.

Then, about two or three weeks ago, this huge slide happened. I was watching PSY's Gangnam Style like most people, and saw Big Bang's Blue on the sidebar. That was another song my friend's band had covered, so I gave it a listen. It was okay. On the sidebar of that video was Taeyang's Wedding Dress. I had remembered another time when one of my guzheng mates said that her brother resembled Taeyang, so I clicked it to get a good look at this guy. I skipped to the middle, his dancing caught me, and I watched the whole thing.

Then I found out he was in Big Bang so I went through their stuff to look for his dancing. And then, well... I got caught. Both my feet are now in the k-pop world, and what a world it is. It's very fun. The music wouldn't exactly be my normal style, and I don't like a lot of it, but Korean idol culture is really fun. It's almost a guilty pleasure, and I almost hate to admit it--the thing is, k-pop has brought me a lot of joy while I was stagnating at home.

Yesterday at a family celebration for Autumn Moon Festival I finally got into an extended conversation with one of my little cousins (I've tried quite a few times with no results), and it was all because I noticed she was playing Wedding Dress on the piano. That was great. She's pretty cool!

Thanks k-pop!

Summer blooms

Something wonderful just happened.

I was  feeling sort of down, what with my brother about to leave and all. We were talking my room when we heard these booming sounds like gunshots outside. I live in quite the small, peaceful suburban neighborhood, so I didn't really think they would be gunshots, but we were pretty confused. We actually ignored it for a while, but I eventually looked out the window to check it out.

There were these huge fireworks in the sky, just beyond our roofs.

In such a small town!

It was amazing!

Life is moving ahead

Well, I've just officially applied for graduation. Somehow it makes it so much more concrete.

I don't want to grow up.

Home

Fuck, I don't remember ever being this homesick. I want to be home so badly. I want my mom, my dad, my brother. My bed, my couch. Classes seem to be a world away. I feel like crying, but not enough to actually cry. Maybe it's because I feel so sick? I think there's something really wrong with me. I'm worried this will happen again. I'm worried they won't find anything. I hope going to the school doctor will help. I really, really hope so. I want to be healthy and happy again.

I want to be home.
I just want to be home.

About me

Here is the "About Me" I was thinking about putting on Facebook before I chickened out:

Hi! I have the coolest friends. They make me cool by proxy! I love traveling and languages, but I also love home. Procrastination is the bane of my existence; I'm not proud of it at all. I never want to be shy. I like anime and manga a lot but I'm not confident enough to admit it to most people. I think I'm kind of smart. I need to be healthier.

Lack of skills

I wish I were a normal person for whom driving is an unnoticed part of everyday life, like setting alarms or buying groceries.

This sucks.

We looked at each other, silent

Yesterday I went to a lights festival with a friend, and there was a very small fair food sort of area nearby. I bought a huge bag of caramel kettle corn (it was the smallest size--queen!) and shared it with my friend.

Well, we were eating it, and I dropped one--it landed on the ground between us.

A very normal guy, said something like "aww yeah," and leaned down on the ground, flat, all the way, as if he were to do a pushup. And picked the kettle corn up with his mouth. He ate it and walked casually away.

So this is what it's like

Last installment in my short crush saga.

He's gay.

So it goes.

Back to ordinary life, I suppose.

So this is what it's like to be silly

You guys, he talked to me first.
It's only Monday!
Hahahahahaha.

/teenage girl!

So this is what it's like to be human

I may have just developed my first crush in years. Since high school, even. It's a full blown crush, and not just the idea of one. It's definitely "just a crush," because I don't know him very well, and he doesn't know me, but I will try to change that on Tuesday.

Ha ha ha. I'm kind of giddy.

But, oh, the uncertainty.

Failure and fear

I've returned home. After 285 days abroad, I'm home.

I had never been so excited in a plane before, counting the hours until I was home, peeking over my two row companions (old men) to look out the window as we landed, with every piece of ground I saw sending a thrill down my spine. Oh my goodness, I thought. San Francisco. Home, home, home, home, home. I'll see my family.

There are many things I want to write about. I want to write about my general experience, being in other countries. I want to write about the weird feeling I get upon returning again--this round more profound. But what I will write about here is, well, in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty small. Tomorrow it will be everything.

You see, I have failed a course. I have failed a course. I have never failed a course in my life. My college GPA before going to Hong Kong was practically 4.0. I ruled in college. I was confident. My parents trust me to do well academically. Oh, they trust me.

Well, I failed. FAILED. I got an F.

I am so scared to tell them, you have no idea. They don't really care that much about my great personal growth, the friends I made, the places I went. I went to Hong Kong to study, and look what happened.

F.
F.
F.
F.

I kind of didn't want to come home after finding that out, borrowing my friend's computer in Goyang, Korea. I had been so excited to come home, and at that point, I wanted to stay away forever.

I've got to beat them to the chase. I've got to say something tomorrow.

It's terrifying.
Oh God, it's terrifying.