ça reste vers 8 lundi

On my morning runs, I see people I know.  As I hit the vrai Aixoise mark, it is time to start packing up.  It is time to fight the current again.

I am hoping that this knocker or one like it will adorn my next house.   Even though I love it here, I cannot deny the itch that haunts the soles of my feet and it creeps. Starting in the center as a soft whisper stealing into my heart and limbs "Go West young Man, go West".  Maybe I am more of an United States American than I realize, or more likely I am just pulled westward by the fierce and raw attitude that still skulks between the setting horizon and living free.

Claire Foncée

Today is the two month mark

Two months from now I will be in London, gearing for my trip home to the United States of America.

It seems unreal that this experience, this way of life with which I have become completely enamored over the past eight months will be a memory in two short months.

This ten month period, for which I have been planning, dreaming, scheming, preparing and waiting since 8th grade will be over.  This is a turning point. To me, this is where my Real Life begins.

My Real Life has been in the making for sometime.  I have grades and records and accomplishments that will follow me and will weigh heavily on my Real Life.  However, my return "home" marks the moment where my childhood ambitions and outline ends; here is where things begin to hold new sorts of dimensions.  I am entering a world where I am viewed completely differently.

My 21st birthday is four days after I re-enter the States.  This transformation couldn't have more physical manifestations if I had planned it.  I don't mean to say that the moment I get to Chicago, or MI or SLC I will be a bona-fide adult with an 401K and stock portfolio.  But more, that all the things I have been planning since a young girl (sauf getting my own house and husband and other items that still seem too far off to contemplate) will have been checked off, documented and filed away in the container which holds all that is me.

It would be now that I am making Part B.  I am entering that new phase where I have to start over.  I am rebuilding my life goals, dreams and sense of self.  In essence, my life no longer holds internships and summer jobs but is lengthened into careers and investments.

This isn't something I shy away from and I think can thank France for that in a large part.  This eight months has poked me in my ticklish and weak places. I have been exposed to enough to know I am utterly ignorant and I like it.  I learned enough about ME to step up and face that youth, ignorance, inexperience, and general incompetence.

How do I feel at the end of the day? A mélange of things, but they might overall be described as restlessness or anger.  Why couldn't I have been more prepared for this year in matters of self? I am eager and anxious to experience life and all that I have brewing in the furthest reaches of my conscience.

As I look at the calendar and see all this things I could have, thought I would have done this past year I want to collapse.  But then I think of returning to SLC.

Ahhhh, here's where I get those basic and instinctual feelings of being human.  I am for once going back, back to something familiar and easy.  I am going to return with a tremendously different way of entering and interacting in situations.  How different will SLC look to me? How AMERICAN will it and all my people seem.  Talk about a roller-coaster, I am going to have to re-learn all their names at least.

I don't want to go "home". But there isn't anywhere else to go.  Except forward and yadda yadda yadda. Now I am going to study.  It is a satisfying way to spend the last 60 days you have in a place you love and never want to leave. Wait......no it isn't.

Outside l'IEP (my school) in the sunshine

Claire Foncée

Simple things

this post's audial supplement (open in a new tab)

...are usually the best.

They dot my path to home, all the way up and into the cup.

Un vrai palais.

Silhouettes and ice cream.

Praha, České republiky












Let's call the whole thing off, eh?
-Claire
Dweller on the Threshold by Van Morrison

To infinity and beyond.

Green is good. Life and love, those are good too. Home is aixceptionally good. Spring is a time of cleansing and rejuvenation. As much as I love the sun and basking in it - A good spring rain can raise a challenge with its clear meaning and explosion on the senses.

A spring rain lends to a clear head and fresh sense of living. Appreciation comes as natural as blinking when you feel as if the entire world is breathing. I feel most in tune with the world during spring. I am brought back to my species' instincts. I can see the rotating and endless cycle that I am swimming through and I know how life should be lived.

I also think this swimsuit would make the whole thing more brilliant.

Claire
Thistle and Weeds by Mumford and Sons

Th "un" just isn't anymore

I broke an unbreakable water bottle. I wasn't even doing anything. I just dropped it on a cobblestone bus stop in Copenhagen. HONESTLY. Being the exception to every rule (good example: getting free fruit at the market. Example of bad: visa situation) gets really old.

NALGENES are MARKETED on being unbreakable. !!!!!! I literally pitch them to everyone saying they are unbreakable and throw them at things and run them over with cars to prove it. Yet the cobblestone in Copenhagen is just a different caliber. Maybe it has diamonds all over it (though I think I would have noticed) and therefore is the hardest known substance to man.

It also could be the fact that I have put boiling water in it many, many, many a cold night camping.

It could also be the 3 years I've had it.

It could also be the diamond encrusted cobblestones.

It could maybe be the attractive danish men everywhere....though I don't think so.

Hmmm. Bottom line?

I'm THIRSTY.

Claire Foncée
Song: Listening to Caitlin talk to her sister sally :)

P.S. I'm in Berlin!

Oh Dear

How do I begin?
Amsterdam? We shall begin there.
So I wake up after 2 hours of sleep, still recovering from the CRIT (which I have yet to chronicle for you) and with the onset of a cold at 3h40 AM in order to catch the shuttle to the airport for my 6h30 flight to Eindhoven in the Netherlands.  I packed like a pro this trip and at the airport my bag only weighed 7.5 kilos ( I used my ice climbing day pack) and therefore moving and shaking was a breeze.  

Things go off without a hitch, I get to Eindhoven, in a surreal manner because I fell asleep and with my fatigued state felt like I was just plopped in teh Netherlands.  Amazing a 2 hour flight and poof. Just like that. SO I take my 1.5 train to Amsterdam staring at the countryside and ironically watching The Girl with the Pearl Earring (even more weird I got it in french and so Scarlett and Colin are dubbed...bizarre...) so I am watching Dutch countryside on my screen and speed past out my window. But I get to Amsterdam and IT. IS. GORGEOUS.

I don't want to get all mushy and stuff but I had a beautiful day and basically fell in love with Amsterdam.  It has found the perfect, happy medium between old charm and updated efficiency. I think I would like to live there some day.

Well my time in Amsterdam was exceptionally enjoyable and I had such a memorable time.  A mix of all the things you hope to attain while traveling.  I slept in, I shopped at the local market, I stayed out late, I travelled to a small nearby town, I gorged myself on local treats, I visited a major tourist attraction, I stayed in with friends and made dinner, I saw a concert, I went to a (few) museums, I lounged in the sunshine, I laughed, I smiled, without cares or schedules. I just lived.

I also broke my device that uploads my pictures to my computer.***  So that wasn’t so great but a small hiccup.  I am now in Copenhagen with Robyn and Caitlin.  Boy, do I love them.  Spending time with them – we could be anywhere – but it is only augmented by our locations. 

But I am off like a prom dress---
Claire Foncée

***These photos are borrowed from Roby because of the aforementioned misfortune

One of those stories...

...I will repeat when I'm 80 over and over trying to relate to my grandkids.

It is currently 1h05 France time.  My flight takes off at 6h35 from MRSin Marseille.  I have to catch the 4h40 shuttle.  I am quite prepared, except not hat well rested but so ready nonetheless.

On another note I was hit by (rather squashed between two) car(s) today. Yeah yeah it finally happened. I was on my way to the train station to get my 12-25 card and once I was pried out from in-between (the car who did hte backing didn't even notice) I raced off to get my card with a bleeding ankle and a feeling that it could have been a lot worse.

You see how this is just a passing reference to being smashed in-between two cars? Well that's because I have too much in my life to worry about such things.  I had a weekend of utter debauchery and came back to my last week of classes before heading off to Amsterdam among other places for three weeks.  I haven't really stopped this week.

I will do a proper KRIT blog, most likely on the train tomorrow.  But let's just say that some (MOST) of it was not grandparent appropriate - so said post will not be explicit.  But now. Bed? for 2 hours. 2 hours? A nap I guess, better than nothing.

I'll be in touch.
Foncée
Song "2 atoms in a molecule" Noah and the Whale