.fr

have i mentioned how fast time is going? it zips from here ⎜-------------------⎢to here like this ⎜---⎜. i am exactly at the halfway point in my contract and i want time to s-l-o-w down. here it is clarifying and relaxing. i get to read, write, learn french, dabble, cook, and teach. i have, like, one friend, a fellow english teacher from australia, but in my solitary activity i'm becoming anti-social anyway. i made an account on myspace a year ago after someone sent me an invite, but then promptly forgot about it. on new years day i was on my computer and found the window still open (on account of my sister just visiting). so i went on and found a great blog by an old friend noah about all the penn state kids and their zany misadventures. i was feeling sentimental as i called my friend alexa to wish her a happy new year. she picked up and announced, "it's a reunion." coincidentally, she was at an old friends house in philly with some of the people i had just been thinking about. she passed the phone around and it was great but so strange to hear peoples voices that i was separated from by such time and distance. and in those brief conversations i realized that i forgot how to communicate. mostly what i said was, "wow," and "gee, good to hear your voice," and then i'd hear my voice sound so strange to me and i wouldn't know what more to say.

today i am excited because on friday we leaving for a trip to celebrate my 30th birthday. it is a present plus, because not only are we going on my annual birthday sejour, but seth is planning it all. i don't have any input on the place or how we're getting there, on where we're staying or what we're going to do. seth has taken to walking around laughing and taunting, "you don't know where we're going, you don't know where we're going." i don't mind though. when you're the trip planner in a duo, there is something so freeing about not having any choices.

as mentioned earlier, my sister april came for a visit. she arrived on a friday afternoon when seth was out of town. the next day we decided to hightail it up to paris with our pre-paid eurorail passes, but what happened first was to be one of the most annoying travel mishaps i've had.

i think with seth not around i was a little more scattered then usual, and i packed in a rush right before we were ready to leave to catch an afternoon train. the reason we were taking a later train was that april was waiting for lufthansa to deliver her misrouted baggage. but then the airline said that they were going to deliver the baggage to our hotel in paris, so voila.

so we're rushing to the shuttle stop a few blocks away and then arrive to watch it pull away. we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. when we got to the station the line for tickets was long and we couldn't use the machines because we had the passes. one of those familiar situations when i'm watching the digital clock and then the line, the clock, the line. it is an inexorably slow yet nerve wracking race. one of the participants is taking their time at the finish line, arguing with the referee. i predict the outcome to april: we're not going to make it. but then there's two quick sprinters in front of us and we make it with five minutes to spare. but is it good enough? yes, it is. with a wink and smile, we are processed quickly and we qualify. so we run a quick lap up some stairs to the train directly overhead, and we run towards the front, where first class* is, and jump on board. but wait we are train number 12 and this is train 2 and the train is actually two trains strung together; the first part is completely separate from the the second part and the trains are full. we disembark with our awkward baggage and run towards the second train. i dash up to the first door and hear a ding and the door closes right in front of me. all the doors closed at the same time. there is no conductor saying "all aboard" or staff removing a set of stairs. it's all automated -- of course it's automated -- and we are not getting on that train.

we waited for two hours for the next train. i was in a rotten mood. i was right. there. but april, besides reminding me, "we were on the train," is more upbeat. after all, we are going to paris.

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(they were having a sale on france passes: $99 for 2 trips anywhere; $129 for first class. my sister angled for first, and reasoning that it was still cheaper then buying our tickets here, i thought, well, pourquoi pas?

i just updated our profile on couch surfing and thought i'd post it here as a gentle prod to those of you still on the fence about visiting:

i'm a professor de langue anglais in ecole primare, and am in the midst of fulfilling my life-long goal of living in france. my fiancé is in midst of fulfilling his life-long goal of programming in the closest to solitude as he's likely to find. content as cats we are with our chocolate, wine, and bread. want to stop in? if we are not hosting other travelers or traveling ourselves, you might be able to find a spot on our clic-clac. it sleeps two comfortably (well, relatively comfortably).

*****

for those of you who don't know, couch surfing is a great site that allows people to connect to, well, couch surf. it's developing friendster aspects but it started before all that in the spirit of egalitarian travel. last year we stayed with a nice woman in tokyo for three days who we with met through there. on a related note, i'd also recommend servas, a more formal hospitality program that has been around since the 60s. we spent several days with servas hosts in ise-shima, japan and it was one our most connecting and profound travel experiences.

i traveled alone at the end of october to nearby béziers and stayed with servas hosts yvette and claude. both are artists, but most remarkable are claude's abstracts, which due to a handicap in both arms are painted with a brush held in his teeth. see him in action here.