Home again

I walked four trillion miles today.

The title of my last blog entry is not, in fact, true. La grève est très grave. And it continues. Getting home from Charles de Gaulle last night was a disaster, and included such amusing activities as elbowing through angry crowds of tired travelers, waiting in the cold for prolonged periods of time, and walking a half mile in the pouring rain without an umbrella. And today, trying to get to and from class entailed literally hurling my body into a packed metro car, hoping that I landed on somebody soft—because the trains only came about once every 40 minutes and everyone and their mom wanted to get on—only to bounce violently back and leave the metro station resignedly to traverse the city by foot.

And tomorrow the grève continues, so I am setting my alarm for an ungodly hour and preparing my body armor for another foray into the Parisian public transportation system. I will get where I want to go, and ain’t no granny in a beret going to get in my way.

So. Amsterdam.

Two things: 1) it was great. 2) it made me realize that I don’t want to go on anymore trips. A bit of elaboration on each point:

1) Amsterdam is beautiful. Narrow houses with back-breaking staircases and old hardwood frames line the canals, which meander in and out of one another in an incomprehensible, infinite network of waterways and bridges off of which the blinding sunlight glints. Houseboats and flowerbeds and smiling bikers and tiny shops are everywhere. Big wheels of cheese and a never-ending outdoor tulip markets and wooden clogs and Christmas decorations. I kept on repeating one of two phrases, either “I feel like I’m in a storybook!” or “I feel like I’m in Disney World!”

We did all the things that we wanted to do—went to the Van Gogh Museum, the Sex Museum, the Anne Frank House, ate good falafel, went to “coffee shops,” visited the Red Light District (twice, at my request—I could write pages about that…it was incredibly difficult to make myself understand that it was real), wandered the canals, went to bars. It was cold, but frequent doses of hot, spiced wine and a few sprints through Dam Square helped to fend off frostbite.

Incidentally, I got to Amsterdam four hours before the other girls, so I roamed the city alone for a while, during which time I stumbled into the smallest pub in Amsterdam and ended up doing the twist on top of the bar with Alastair, a middle-aged Australian man who, I later learned, is an Olympic medalist for sailing.

Also, I got into a yelling fight with a cab driver, met a man named Moose, and impressed a Scottish marine with my drinking skills.

2) I came up with an analogy (my life, incidentally, seems to be a constant search for ways to describe my life in analogies) to describe how I feel about Amsterdam/trips in general: the difference between traveling all over Europe on the weekends and staying in Paris is like the difference between skimming the headlines of a newspaper and sitting down in a comfy chair with a big mug of coffee to read the whole thing, cover to cover. I do not mean to say that I didn’t have fun in Amsterdam, but I couldn’t help but feeling like my entire experience was superficial. I don’t understand anything about the city’s culture, I don’t speak the language, I have only a cursory knowledge of the history, I don’t know what bars or cafes or clubs or shops are good, I don’t know how to get from point A to point B. Sure, I did the things you’re supposed to do in Amsterdam; I took pictures; I had a good time. But I was an outsider. I was, in all senses of the word, a tourist. I felt lost and helpless and stupid—I spent way too much money because I didn’t understand the GODDAMN TRAM SYSTEM and I approached people on the street and awkwardly asked, “Do you speak English?” and, just, touristtouristtourist.

I know I’m not a Parisian. I know that. But here I feel like I belong, or at least like I can pretend that I belong. I have a routine, I have places that I know and people who know me, I speak the language, I don’t get lost, I pass places where I have made memories, I know what signs say, I know what monuments mean, I feel like I have a place. In the back of my mind, I had been planning one more trip—Belgium or Spain—but I know now that I won’t go. I missed Paris this weekend. Four months is a short time, barely enough to build friendships with the people around me and to establish an existence here, and, especially as the end the semester begins to approach (TOMORROW is the one-month-left mark…jesuschristfuackfshs;kldja), I feel that I cannot cherish my time in this city too much.

Yolaine left today for Syria, and she’ll be gone for 15 days. That sucks, a lot. I’m trying not to think about it.

I would like to add that, during the course of writing this blog, I was interrupted four trillion times (four trillion is the number of the day), by telephone calls and skype invitations and dinner and cigarette breaks with Theo (cigarettes for him, nothing but smiles and innocence for me), and, during this time, I have also consumed a respectable glass of Jack Daniels, so, due to both factors—distraction and alcohol—I exempt myself from harsh critiques of my linguistic capabilities.