Lessons in the City of Light

Riding around the Paris metro last week, I was taught a valuable lesson about life. Did this lesson come from an encounter with a wizened beggar, a refugee, or a courageous single mother? Or perhaps a particularly poignant philosophy about the meaning of things written on the walls in black permanent marker? 

No, my friends. The source of this priceless piece of wisdom came by way of an advertisement for McDonald's.  It seemed to be everywhere and whenever I saw it I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The slogan was "Venez comme vous etes" which means simply "Come as you are." It's basically a way of saying the becoming fat and diseased is for everyone. They don't discriminate. All are welcome at MacDo.

In any case, on these advertisements are several pictures of people from various lifestyles. Notice especially the picture below in the top right corner. We see that guy all the time. A nasty biker guy, right? 
No, wrong. All the pictures happen to be of the same guy. He's just dressed differently. So now please direct your attention to the fox below to the left (or right depending on your particular taste).
All I can say is that I am definitely looking at all the hairy biker guys I work with MUCH more curiosity and wonder. 

Reality check

After roaming the planet my fair share this year, I am staying put. At least until next year. And I've decided that I am actually finally ready to contribute to the world and settle down. Maybe.

I feel that today, while I was going through customs today in Washingtin Dulles International, the customs official managed to put my life in perspective for me.

There were two customs officials screening US citizens and we were being seperated into two different lines just before we got to the counter. I was put in the line of the tall, well-built man with salt and pepper hair, glasses and a completely expressionless face. I noticed this guy seemed to be taking an extra amount of time with each person for while the short latino woman would screen through three people, yelling "NEXT!!!" after each one, Mr. Stare-into-your-eyes-to-see-if-you-are-lying-to-me would only screen one person. I was a little nervous because I had, in fact, snuck something I wasn't supposed to into the country. Frommage de Chevre. Well, actually Crottin de Chevre which is basically the best thing ever: french-made goat cheese.

When I got up to the counter, he eyed me suspiciously. I just hope he doesn't ask if I brought any food into the country, I thought. But instead he asked me the purpose of the trip.

"Vacation," I responded.

"Where did you go?"

"Uhhh...France, Switzerland, germany, Austria and Italy."

He gave me a quizical look and then asked what exactly took me to those places.

"Well, actually," I started. I thought for a moment and decided to give him the completely honest answer. "I graduated university and had no clue what to do with my life. So I figured 'Europe. Why not?'" Boyfriend could have been a psychologist. I might as well have been lying on a couch.

"And who paid for yout trip? That must have been expensive."

While he probably thought maybe some drug or human trafficing cartel was footing the bill, I took it a little differently considering what was bearing on my mind at the moment (becoming a real person with a real job in my own real apartment) .

"Listen," I said. "My dad did not pay for it. Okay, so I worked for his company for a couple months to earn the money, but it was me who earned the money."

In other words, I was begging to be respected even though I pretty much don't do anything. Clearly, he hit a nerve.

He continued to flip through my passport and ran over the various stamps and visas.

"Jordan, huh? What took you there?"

"I was doing an internship for the US embassy in Israel and I hopped over there while I had the chance."

Then came th look that drove it all home. His look clearly read: "So you have clearly had some amazing experiences in your life and yet here you remain jobless and directionless in search of your 'true calling' when in reality my dear you have to get a job and just do it like me for instance sitting here in this little booth you think i dreamed my little heart away about stamping peoples passports when I was a little kid but look at me this is what I do and it pays the bills and puts food on my kids table you little ungrateful brat who epitomizes what is wrong with the rising generation."

Meanwhile, the efficient latina had screened at least 5 people while I stood feeling like a parasite. All I can say in that guy should get a raise. Tough love. Very Hebrews 11. I finally feel ready to halt my gypsy ways for a moment and figure out my life. And as chance would have it, not 45 minutes later, waiting for my connecting flight to Phoenix, I ran into a lady from the Congo and started speaking lingala. She loved me immediately, which is not a feat with the Congolese: they love easily--especially if you speak lingala and will sing in lingala in busy airports. But turns out, Mrs. Decked-out-in-Marc-Jacob's husband of 26 years, an American, is the Vice President of an international NGO that is currently in 45 different countries. They have lived all over the world. She is convinced I was meant to work for them.

So we'll see...Maybe I can still be a gypsy AND have a real job.

Three days and counting....

To say that the last week or so has been insane would be the understatement of the century. But I am reporting alive and reasonably well from an internet cafe not far from a Paris train station. I arrived this morning firm Munich on a night train. That was three hours late. So I got to share a little moving room with two strange europen women, one of whom ignored the statment that on night trains, "you are expected to wear your day clothes." She didn't wear her day clothes--or any clothes for that matter.

Right now I'm just killing time until 19h59 when my french friend, Christelle, will be showing up with her fiance. The three of us are going to chill for the next three days and then I will once again return to the land of nice teeth and customer service.

So that's two hours to kill and this internet is pretty cheap. At least it seems to be. Sometimes they gouge you at the til, but I'm at the end of caring. I just want to sit here and type away and not walk around aimlessly since being Sunday eveing, everythng is closed. I did my darnest while visiting church today to secure a dinner appointment for tonight, but instead I got one for tomorrow night. That works too. A lady from Ivory Coast is going to make me African food. I am pretty happy. I probably could have wrangled something for tonight, but as usual these days, a creepy guy with bad breath was "leaning" and I decided to split right after the meeting was over.

Oh, I saw Holiday on ice the other day in Nurnberg. I was afraid I wouldn't enjoy it, but frankly, it was awfully entertaining. Fruitiest dang thing I have ever seen in life. I got to see a group of men wearing skin tight clothes in magenta and baby blue adorned with 50% of the world's sequins pranicing about in ice and taking themselves very VERY seriously. It was so great. I was so entertained. Inspired, even.

Stuck in the middle

Thanks to the fantastic work ethic championed by the Italian people, I am stuck in Rome. Transportation strike. Yea.

But on the bright side, I am walking distance to some pretty amazing gelato. That is what I will be doing all day tomorrow. Eating gelato. And looking at the beautiful men this country has no shortage of.

Reason number 5 why I love europe: trains and staring

To say I've had a great time in France and Switzerland would be a gross understatement. I am about as in my element as possible. I just go around some of one of the most beautiful places in the world all day and see people I adore. And they feed me.

I also get to ride trains AND stare at people. These are two of my favorite things in the whole world. When you combine the two, it's pure ecstasy.

So the other day I was on train from Basel to Bern and I was sitting across the aisle from the most fascinating man ever. He was dressed in older clothes, his pants dirty, and his shoes worn in a great deal due to his severe pronation. He was tall, his hair a wild mess and was surprisingly good-looking. He had his breifcase opened before him on the empty seats he faced. The case was full of what looked like the free magazine ads that come with the newspaper. He was pouring over stacks of them. Next to him were a few scattered plastic sacks and a roll of brown packing tape.

This guy was one strange cookie. He moved seriously and in sharp, jerky motions. I was assessing the smattering of very random objects were strewn across the seats around him when suddenly he broke out a huge pocket knife and I began to see this ecentric man as exactly the kind of guy that would blow up buildings, eat his own clothing, keep journals of everything that left his body, and certainly reach across the aisle and stab a travelling American with a swiss pocket knife. I could practically see the news coverage. CRAZY MAN STABBS YOUNG AMERICAN TOURIST REPEATEDLY WITH POCKET KNIFE, TRIP ENDS IN TRAGEDY FOR DIRECTIONLESS AND NOW MANGLED COLLEGE GRADUATE.

I thought that maybe I'd better move. But it was as though he had cast a dark spell on me and I was glue to my seat and could do nothing but stare as he started cutting up the magazine ads. "This is how I'm going to go. This is really how I'm going to go," I thought. "Stabbed in a train in Switzerland."

He got up and ran to another car and I saw what looked like a nudy magazine on the seat where he was. At least I gathered that from the picture of the woman on the front with no clothes. But this IS Europe. It could have been advertising socks or bicycles.

"This is my chance," I thought. But like I said, the spell was cast and was fated to watch as his work unfolded. Even though he was no longer in the seat, i couldn't rip my eyes from his strewn belongings, from his tattered coat (totally a serial killer coat) to his German computer magazine.

When he returned, he looked right at me and I about peed my pants. Not wanting to provoke Mr. Crazy's attention, I gathered all my strength and looked away. I started staring out my window, but in reality, I was watching him through his reflection in the window so as not to appear that I was staring. He was messing around with the brown packing tape and cutting up the plastic bags into small peices with a pair of scissors. Wearied by his effort, he pulled from a sack at his side a kronoenburg beer and started chugging. Putting down his drink, he began wrapping the plastic bag fragments into rolls and wrapping them further in the brown packing tape making licorice length tubes. He cut them into little pellets and then proceeded to light each one on fire with a little lighter he had. Blowing each out after watching them a burn moment, he eventually tired of that and pulled out his laptop and began surfing the web until the train arrived at Bern.

It was like watching performance art. I couldn't have been happier.