Le Luot shakedown. Better late than never.

Written Saturday July 4th. Not posted until today because of internet issues…go figure.

At this moment in time, as I sit at 11 Rue Leon Lepage in Brussels listening to cars drive by on the street below surrounded by filmmaker paraphernalia, I have to say for the first time in a long time I am completely at ease and content. As you can gather, I made it to Brussels and before I tell you all about the two weeks I spent in France let me just say that I am incredibly blessed to have this great apartment to rent while I am here. Not only is the apartment fantastic, but the friends of the owner that live upstairs have been wonderful. To begin, the women met me at the Metro station so I didn’t have to try and find the actual building by myself. Then we went on a walking tour in the afternoon, and last night we went to the Brussels Film Festival. The movie showing was a Swedish film “Together” with French and Dutch subtitles. I was so excited because I could actually follow the French subtitles. It was definitely not a Hollywood style movie. Believe it or not, the movie started at 10:30pm and with the after party socializing we didn’t leave until 2:30am! What a way to be introduced to Brussels. It was really a good time and since I had no reason to get up early this morning, slept in until 11 ;)

So, back to the point of this post… The Bed and Breakfast called La Merveille situated in the lovely, very small village (15 houses) of Le Luot. Getting off the train to meet my host I was naturally a bit nervous. There is always that shadow of doubt that you’ve made a bad choice. My take on this feeling is that it’s actually a good thing; it keeps you on guard. In any case, as promised my host (whom we’ll call Ray) and his dog were at the platform to meet me. My first impression was a good one. No alarm bells ringing except that his car was quite dirty with dog hair all over the place. Thankfully he had a bed sheet to put over the seat and assured me that his regular partner never sits in the car without covering the seat. So he knew it wasn’t a normal state for a car to be in.

As we arrived at La Merveille I was relieved to see that it was just as it looked on the website. No Tom Foolery on the location. I casually asked about how many guests there were at present and I was, not going to lie, a little unsettled when he said that the guests from the night before left this morning and there were no guests at the moment. I wasn’t super keen on that fact, but I still felt okay with the situation. He gave me a tour of the yard, the house and my room which was on the 3rd floor. It was actually like this huge family suite with several rooms. I thought I was going have a Cinderella type of lodging, but I was given one of the nicest rooms in the whole place! I was also happy that it was on the third floor. I could have been being a bit paranoid, but the space was nice, as was the locking door. In the end, there was absolutely nothing to be concerned about. I was left in complete peace when I was upstairs in my room. After the first day that he showed me the room, Ray never came back upstairs. It was nice to feel like I had my own part of the house. That first night we ate dinner and went over some jobs that he was looking to have done and discussed what I thought would be some good projects. I was exhausted from traveling so I turned in early. The funny thing is that given the latitude, it doesn’t get dark until between 10:45 and 11:00pm. I eventually got used to it, but man is it weird when its 10pm and it looks like 7pm outside.

I’m obviously not going to go through each day with such detail. Honestly there are only one or two important things that happened each day and the rest of the time I was having a wonderful time relaxing. Some of the jobs I tackled included weeding the front area of the house. The weeds and brambles had over taken the sign and just looked unkept. After about 2 hours and numerous scratches all over my arms and legs I was proud to show Ray how nice the front of the house looked. He was really impressed! The grass had been cut the day I arrived, but none of the edges had been weed whipped. I asked Ray if he had a weed whipper and to my surprise he did, but in England they call them “strimmers” so it took a little bit of description to come to an agreement about whether he had one of not. How does one have a weed whipper/strimmer/whatever you want to call it and not know it or never have used it? That is a great question. During my time there I realized Ray is a self-proclaimed disaster when it comes to completing any sort of practical task around the house. This is pretty surprising when you consider that he makes his living my running a Bed & Breakfast. Case in point, the first night I was there he was watering the flowers and comes running into the house all frazzled to turn off the water main because when he turned on the hose he loosened the top of the faucet and there was a spray of water shooting 10 feet into the air. Oh, it was funny. Thankfully for him though, I am very good when it comes to practical tasks and in another hour I had all the weeds trimmed and the place was looking very spiffy. Funny episodes were a common occurrence and usually included me kindly asking Ray about something he was doing incorrectly and him replying, “I probably shouldn’t have done that, right?” “Right…”

Other things I did were to weed the stone patio area, clean a couple of bathrooms, and make up beds for guests (in anticipation of their arrival). We were supposed to get a couple staying with us on Tuesday night, but they didn’t show up. I was pretty surprised and a bit frustrated. I knew it was a Bed & Breakfast, but where were all the people?! Turns out the really busy time started the week I left. Figures. The nice thing was I was able to help with some jobs we wouldn’t have had time to complete if there were a lot of guests. Side Note: Unlike American style bedding where you have a mattress sheet, top sheet and a comforter, in Europe they have the mattress sheet and a duvet with a duvet cover. After each guest you take off sheet and the duvet cover and wash it. It makes a lot of sense actually. When I was in London several years ago, that it how the bedding was. It took a while to get used to it, but in the end I kind of like it now. It makes things simpler. It’s also how the bedding is here in Brussels. By the way, I could have stayed at the University where my classes are being held. But that would have been a dorm room with a shared kitchen and bathroom and no where near the city center. For the same amount I would have paid for those accommodations, I have a whole apartment to myself! I will have to commute to the classes, but I figured better that way than having to commute into the city for fun. If that was the case I doubt I have spent much time in the center.

In addition to random outside jobs also including buying poisonous gas to put down mole hills (the lawn was experiencing a pretty severe mole problem), buying and planting more flowers, I also was in charge of preparing dinners. I will repeat again, I am not cut out for cooking. It’s not that I don’t try, I do. And thankfully Ray would eat just about anything, but I can tell the difference between food that is really good and food that is only mediocre. My food is mediocre. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up, just that I recognize this is continually an area I can improve upon. The nice thing was I did get to experiment a little bit. Ray really liked eating meat. I didn’t really have much experience cooking different meats, so I went online and learned about it. We would go out to the store and I would pick out whatever we needed for the next couple of days food wise and Ray would pay for it. That’s part of the deal; a few hours of work in exchange for room and board. It was nice that I was able to determine what the board would look like. I was able to pick out healthy foods and put together some well balanced meals. I have to hand it my mother and all the other fine women and men out there who prepare meals every night. It gets tiring trying to figure out what to eat. It’s easy to fall into a pattern of always having the same thing…

One perk was I was able to run a lot while I was there. The roads were pretty narrow, but also had very little traffic. During several runs I think I was passed by more farm equipment than actual cars. I have to admit, I have developed quite an infatuation with European cars. They are really stylish and small. In America, cars are huge, but here they are compact and zippy. Ray had a manual car which I never asked to try and drive, but kind of wanted to just to try out my new skills and because the car was from Britain and had the wheel on the right side instead of the left. I couldn’t believe you can drive British cars outside of Britain legally, but I guess you can. It was licensed and everything. So you’re driving on the right hand side of the road with the wheel on the right as well. I can imagine it’s a pretty bad angle and not the best plan ever invented. In any case, my running adventures were some of the best times I had. The first day I went out I came across a very old man standing at a rather deserted cross-roads. He looked like he wanted to talk so I clicked off my ipod and went over to say hello. He was nice old man and while I couldn’t understand everything he said I did learn that he was 92 years old! At first I thought my French was failing me, but no. 92. Wow. If I look like that when I’m 92, I’ll be very happy. He seemed to be moving about just fine! That sort of encounter was exactly they type of thing I was hoping for!

Another time I was out running and passed the same farmer driving his equipment around several times. Each time he turned around waving wildly and giving me a thumbs up. I doubt the see many regular runners around their parts. Last Monday, I went out even though it looked like it might rain. 10 minutes into the run, the rain was holding out but, there is a dog that is running right towards me. I started thinking to myself that this would be the end and was happy I had gotten my rabies shots before I went to Africa. At least if he took a bite out of me I would be in okay shape as far as not becoming rabid goes. In any case, I yell at the dog as he is about 20 feet away, no change, still full speed at me. Then wouldn’t you know, the dog keeps running. Took no notice of me whatsoever! It was like he was out for his own little run and couldn’t be bothered. It was strangest thing I had ever seen when it comes to dogs and running. Later in that same run, the threatening skies opened up and poured for a 20 minutes. I figured a little water can’t hurt ya and kept on with my planned route. The rain was really very refreshing. I just wish I hadn’t had such a big t-shirt on. It became very heavy with water. As the rain slowed the clouds parted and sun started shining. I knew there had to be a rainbow somewhere. My ipod starts playing the song “How Great is Our God” and wham, to my left is a full out beautiful rainbow. It was exhilarating to say the least. It felt like life was the way it was supposed to be all of the sudden. What a feeling to have. A real sense of peace and blessing washed over me and I was full of praise for this crazy life. That moment was definitely a highlight of Normandy for me.

With very few guests I was able to do some sightseeing which was wonderful. On Wednesday Ray drove me over to see the coast for the first time. It was pretty spectacular. I never got to see the actual D-Day beaches because those are about and hour and half away, but what I did see was amazing. The big town closest to Le Luot is Avranches. Avranches is right on a bay that experiences some of the greatest tides in the world, differences of 45 feet. This means at low tide the sea practically disappears. It goes out for miles and miles. The first time I saw it it was low tide. After seeing the coast we went to a place called St. Hillaire de Harcourt to meet a couple that is good friends with Ray. They stayed at La Merveille when they were house hunting in Normandy. They were Scottish and wonderful people to be around. Completely the opposite of Ray, the man was very good at Do-It-Yourself type work. He was renovating the house they are currently living in. It is also a Bed & Breakfast, but hasn’t been around as long and is a bit more out of the way to get to. In any case, we all went out to dinner and had a very nice time. The Scottish couple actually were the first people to have a HelpX person come and stay with them. They had another American girl come and she was fantastic. Because of their great success Ray decided to try HelpX as well. I’m really glad that chain of events happened as it did or I wouldn’t have had this awesome experience.

Another place I got to visit in the down time was Mont St. Michel. St. Michel is a basically a little mountain island that sticks right up in the middle of the bay. An abbey was constructed at the top a very very long time ago and today it is a favorite spot to visit. I was able to go last Monday. We got there early to beat the crowds which where sure to arrive. I took one of the first tours of the abbey. I was going to take the French tour, but there were like 40 people. So I waited for the English tour which had only 6 other people. It was a great tour. The guide was really funny and told interesting stories and not just boring facts about the building. I learned that the word Bar-B-Que comes from French in that they used to roast whole animals on a spit and the spear went from the “barbe” (beard/mouth) to the tail “queue”. Said fast “de barbe au queue” kind of sound like BBQ. This is probably just a tale he tells to entertain tourists, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Let’s see. On Saturday I was dropped off in Avraches for awhile to sight see and take pictures. The same was repeated on Sunday, but I was instead dropped off at Villedieu. Pictures from both places are posted next :) The things I liked the most about Avranches were the Botanical gardens, and very old castle ramparts. In Villedieu, there wasn’t much to see, just a lot of copper shops. Funny enough, I asked the lady if all the copper items were made in the town and she said no! Oye!

My final tourist adventure was to Granville. Granville is also along the coast and it a picturesque coast town. I had done some research and found a center for sailing and nautical sports. They also rented windsurfs. Since there wasn’t too much to see in the town I went to the office and made arrangements to rent a board and sail at 2pm. I don’t know why she told me 2pm because that was seriously when there was a group of about 150 little French children all having a sailing class! First off, I’m not super good at windsurfing yet. Second, I was all by myself. And third, I wasn’t super confident about the wind and having about 30 little sail boats all around isn’t the easiest thing to navigate. However, I sucked it all up and had a really fun time. By the end of the hour I was feeling more comfortable again. I determined to ignore all the children’s calls to me and went about navigating to and fro in the little bay. Turns out though, that the time I was going to be finished also coincided with when the class was over and there was a huge traffic jam at the dock. Instead, I just sailed my board onto the shore and the guy who helped me get all set up came to take my sail and I carried the board. It was a much farther walk, but if I would have waited for all the boats to go in I would have missed my train back! I was super excited to be able to break out the windsurfing skills I learned at Stanford this past Spring. I just need to keep practicing to get really good, but I may have found my new water sport ;)

With all this activity did I ever get to help with any guests? Yes! In total we had 14 guests while I was there. The first group was a family of Americans. Can I tell you I was cracking up when they rolled up in matching European rental cars, all got out decked in North Face attire carrying all North Face luggage. Oh materialism. North Face is a really expensive outdoor brand and I was amazed and a little disgusted by this showing of wealth. In my head I nicknamed them the Little North Face family… turns out, they were from California. For some reason, I am NOT surprised. They were really nice people and they could have all been decked out in Prada, I was just happy to finally have guests and be put to work. I liked feeling like I was earning my keep :) I helped cook and serve for the Bar-B-Que in the evening. In the mornings we provide a lovely French style breakfast. I helped lay the tables, cut up the bread, and arrange the pastries. Upon reflection, I’m not sure I want to go through with the whole waitress thing when I get back to Stanford. Maybe I just need a little more training, but I don’t know if it’ll be all the fun. I would like to work at a florist shop. How about that? Eh, maybe not. I think the draw of the waitress thing was that it would be in the evenings. The daytime floral gig might not fit into my schedule… But I digress. We also had a Swedish/Italian couple stay as well as a group of three Englanders two of whom were currently living in Hong Kong?!@ And finally a Swedish family that we cooked for on Thursday night. My other contribution to Le Merveille was taking some stunning photos of the room and the house to use to update their website. I think they turned out really well.

All in all I would say my B&B experience was a great success. I was a little frustrated that I wasn’t able to speak more French, Ray didn’t speak French like at all… I did take a phone call in French for him and talked with a French guy who helped out around the house occasionally. I went to church on Sunday which was all in French :) It was something about a blessed bread service and they passed out whole chunks of bread to eat. It was great. It was like a snack in church, and no, it wasn’t communion because they did that too. It was something else entirely. The church community is very small, very few people in that region are religious and the service rotates between churches on a weekly basis. How wonderful that the week I was there the service was at the church across the road! I think my favorite part was singing the songs in French :)

I will end this post with three short stories on my travels from Le Luot to Brussels. 1. I lost my very special water bottle when I moved seats on the first train. I was devastated. Seriously. I love my blue camelback water bottle. It was like a security blanket and a life source. I had lost it several times before but it always came back to me. However, as I sat on the train with no water bottle in sight I was certain it was gone forever. For the two hour remainder of the time, my sadness did not diminish and as I got off the train in Paris I couldn’t help but look just one last time. I looked all around my first seat, but nothing. Then, as luck and fate, and divine intervention would have it, I looked up into the luggage rack and Voila! There it was!!! Oh I was so so so happy. You don’t know how much something means to you until you lose it and its not often that you get it back to appreciate it again.

2. At the station in Paris I had to buy a metro ticket. The lines at the machines were really long and after waiting in one and then having my card fail I was at a loss. I had already lost 15 minutes and needed to get to the other train station to catch my train to Brussels. There were all these guys walking around trying to sell you metro tickets and they seemed pretty shady. At first I was like, no way. But after my failed attempt to purchase them with the machine I saw them as my next best option. I asked the guy if it worked and he assured me it did. Not wanting to be ripped off and more just needing to get through the turnstile, I made the guy walk over with me and make sure I could get through. All’s well that ends well. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was what I had to do.

3. Once at the Gare de Nord I had to retrieve the ticket I purchased online. Normally you can do this at the little yellow machines, but again my card failed. I hate that not all machines recognize American credit cards. Our cards don’t have a special chip in them so the machine rejects them… Anyway, I had to wait in a really long line that was not moving. I still had 45 minutes before my train left, but with 10 minutes to go I realized I wasn’t going to get to a window in time. The lady in line behind me offered to hold my bags and I frantically tried to get someone, anyone’s attention. The whole ordeal was super stressful. I couldn’t miss my train because someone was waiting to meet me and I had no way to get in touch with her to say I wouldn’t be there. The timing worked that one ticket window opened and I ignored everyone else to make the man give me my ticket! I have less than 10 minutes! I had already paid for it! I just needed it printed on a boarding pass for the train. Oh I was SO MAD! People take 10 minutes at these windows deciding which train to take and how much to pay, etc. and my transaction took all of 90 seconds. The man passed my ticket under the little window and I grabbed my bags and rushed to the platform. I showed my pass to the security people and had to walk to the end of the platform to get to my car. Once on the train with bags safely stowed I sat down took a deep breathe and the train started to roll out of the station. If I had waited any longer to make a fuss I would have missed my train. If I had not bought my Metro pass from the shady guy I wouldn’t have made my train. So many close calls, but by God’s grace I was on the train and headed for Brussels.

Hope this was as entertaining to read as it was to write. I promise to write more frequently so you don’t have these monster posts all the time. As a treat for making it this far let me entertain you with the anecdote that my HelpX host had an incredible toupee. Exact same side part just in a slightly different place each day. And, the dog, which was scratching itself all the time… turns out it had fleas. Awesome. Not.

Back in Action and Ready to Travel.

It’s been awhile, pretty much a full school year, since I last posted. I would like to think I didn’t write because I was too busy, but frankly, I just didn’t think people would want to read about my life post-Africa… Sometimes I didn’t even find it all that interesting, especially compared to the excitement of last year. Maybe at some point I’ll write a few posts summarizing highlights of my first year of Graduate School at Stanford, but don’t hold your breathe. For now suffice it say, very generally, I had a challenging yet enjoyable time. The coursework was manageable, engaging, yet quite frustrating at times. I met some really wonderful people and wouldn’t believe how sunny it could be!

So what prompts me to write again? What has caused me to break my silence and again take up the pen, now only a metaphor for the keyboard, which is mightier than the sword? Believe it or not I am off on another whirlwind adventure this summer and want to share stories of my wanderings with you. To bring you up to speed I am currently in the very small town of Le Luot in France. I will be in France for 2 weeks, onto Brussels in Belgium for 2 weeks, and then make a major shift to Panama City, Panama for 7 weeks. In Brussels, I’m enrolled for a course called Assessing Public Health in Emergency Situations. It’s being held by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the Univesité Catholique de Louvain. This centre, centre is a very European spelling which seems fancier that it probably should, hosts the world’s database on disaster information. I’ll have you know my research interest is in how water and sanitation service recovery following major disasters impacts public health. This course will introduce me to the basics of public health assessment and allow me to learn more about the Em-Dat database that will likely play a role in my dissertation research. So if I have to be Brussels, why am I in France? I figured if I was going to come all this way across the Atlantic I might as well make it worth my while. Since I had already done most of the touristy stuff in Paris the last two times I had been here, I was determined to get out into the French country. I got a gig working at a very quaint and lovely Bed and Breakfast in Southern Normandy; free room and board in exchange for a few hours of work. The website of the Chambres des Hotes is: http://www.france-accommodation.me.uk/ if you would like to check it out. I’ll probably be posting some of my own pictures of the place soon as well.

If you’re wondering how I arranged to work at a B&B in France let me direct you to a lovely site I discovered called HelpX.net. This site connects hosts and helpers from all over the world. It was inspired by the idea of WWOOFing that is an exchange of work for room and board on organic farms. HelpX just expands the options to include hosts that are not organic farms. So far I have really enjoyed my time here at La Merveille. I imagine I’ll post very couple of days when I have something interesting to report.

But before I regale you with some very funny anecdotes from my experience getting to this place, let me explain where Panama fits in to this whole deal. So after my course in Brussels, I have arranged for an internship with UNICEF in their regional office which happens to be in Panama. I wanted to get some real-world experience with disaster response efforts and UNICEF is a major player in this area. I will be working with the disaster response group under the supervision of the director for the water and sanitation program. This position is pretty much a dream come true. I am kind of nervous that my Spanish isn’t up to par, but I’m planning to work on that over the next four weeks. My Mom was trying to discourage me from hauling along a very large Spanish textbook with me but in the end I brought it… now I must strive to vindicate my admittedly not so sensible packing choice by really using it. I opened it up to today and reviewed some regular verbs, which is a good sign since today was my first full day here and already I used it once. It’s a good foot to start out on. Without any further delay, tidbits of silliness really.

The flight from Chicago to New York was very short and yet I managed to get bumped and jostled more times that I could count. I don’t think I was hanging out into the aisle, but I swear every time the flight attendants walked past, they bumped into me. There was one older gentleman in particular, who wasn’t especially large, but was especially careless in carrying himself. After one hit that was quite obvious I was half tempted to use my flight attendant call button to bring someone over just ask them to be more careful. In the end, my manners and better judgment kicked in. I also remembered the time I was trying to put my camera bag in the overhead compartment and accidentally hit a lady in the head with it. Yeah, I felt pretty bad. But planes are tight spaces and stuff like that happens.

As another note, and maybe I’m just more aware of this at the moment, but it seems like every time I’ve flew as of late I’ve been seated next to a boyfriend and girlfriend pair. How do I know they were only dating and not married? Because they were holding hands and kissing. Generally, and maybe I’m wrong about this, but it seems like once you’re married the PDA stuff tends to chill way out. I think there should be a rule against PDA on airplanes. Especially because most rows have 3 seats, so even if you and your significant other are together there is likely someone else in very close proximity who would you like to get a away, but can’t unbuckle their seatbelt. And FYI, I would say the last 4 flights I have taken have been like that. And, as a single gal who isn’t all that excited about being single (still…) having to endure plane romance almost invokes the gag mechanism. Alright, that was a little melodramatic, but I’m just saying. It makes you acutely aware of your situation. On the flight to Paris from NYC I was seated next to a typical couple as described and actually moved to a different seat that was open in a row with only one older guy seated at the window. Boy was that a good move :)

So I wasn’t sure what my French would be like, but I got off the plane and I was trying to decide whether to take the bus or the train to get to the station so I busted out my French and wouldn’t you know it came right back to me. I was pretty happy about that. I was, however, unhappy that the only ATM in the terminal was HSBC. I was looking for a BNP Paribus ATM so I wouldn’t have to pay fees. I learned through my stellar French communication that I couldn’t pay with a credit card for the bus, so I opted for the train. Those machines do take plastic. The train was half the price 8.50 Euro vs. 16.50 Euro and while it took longer and was way more complicated, I was happy to stick it out. I was, however, unhappy that I decided against changing out of my black ballet style dress shoes and have blisters to show for my choice to be more stylish than practical. In my defense, I had no idea the transfers from the RER train to the Metro to the SCNF trains would be such long walks. I also reasoned that the money I saved by taking the train could go towards paying off the USB to Mini-USB cable I paid $20 for at the airport because I forgot mine at home. These cables come free with most cell phones, and I have like 3 at home. However, without one I can’t get my pictures on my computer. With 11 weeks and countless photo opts in my future, I stomached the bill and bought it. I’m glad I did because I don’t know where I would begin to look for one here. Although I will keep my eyes open. If I find one cheaper I may return the other one when I pass back through Newark… We’ll see. It just frosts my cookies that I forgot it in the first place!

Another learning point from this trip is never chose to use an over the shoulder bag instead of a backpack. I got this great new Under Armor tote bag that is huge and stylish and pretty much awesome, but I overloaded it and carried it around with me for way too long. Consequently, I work up this morning with a terrible pain in my neck. How do I know it was the bag? It is on the opposite side as the side I carried my bag. I can just imagine how out of alignment my vertebrae are and it makes me shudder. In addition to the neck issue… this bag lost me a very valuable baguette sandwich. After milling about the train station and walking way to far with the amount of luggage I was hauling I sat down to eat a chicken sandwich for which I begrudgingly paid 4.70Euro. I sat down in the waiting area and as I am taking my big back pack, off the rolling suitcase that has my black bag on top with my sandwich inside succumbs to the force of gravity and crashes to the floor. What ensued should have been tapped as it would have been a hit on YouTube. I try and pick up the bags and things start falling out. I can’t get the tote straps unwound from the rolling suitcase and just as I’m making progress the sandwich which is packaged in a sleeve of plastic slides out. Thankfully it didn’t hit the floor but only rested on my backpack, but I watched in horror as all the chicken fell out from between the bread. If there weren’t pigeons all over the place I may have invoked the 5 second rule, but I know too much about microbiology now to let that one slide. Anyway, it was like pieces of my heart were falling to the floor with each hunk of chicken. I was so hungry! The food place was about a quarter mile walk and I already felt ripped off. So here I was devastated, tired, and hungry, without a sandwich and still with all my luggage in disarray. I can only imagine what the people around me were thinking. I know one woman was thinking I would lose my wallet which also tumbled out of my bag in the great calamity as I will refer to it. She was very kind and held one of my bags while I made amends with the situation. I still ate the sandwich which at this point consisted of lettuce and tomato. Although, at the very end I discovered there was one lone piece of chicken that hadn’t fallen out, a saving grace of protein to redeem my meal failure and boy did I savor that little morsel.

As we are on the topic of food let me tell you about my experience with Quick a fast food type place. After acquiring my sandwich I realized I needed more water. I went to the vending machine and it was 1.80Euro for a bottle. “Highway robbery!” I exclaimed in my head and went over to the fast food place thinking that of course they would be cheaper. Wrong. They wanted 2.40Euro for the same bottle! But I was already in for the transaction and felt kind of funny backing out. So I joking said in French that Wow that is expensive, no? The lady laughed and agreed. I took the opening and asked if instead I could just get a glass of water. She obliged my request and I got my glass of water that I subsequently poured into my water bottle. (Small victory number one for my French.) All’s well that ends well. I wish I could say the same for my sandwich. At least it made a mildly entertaining story…

Final story, and I regret it’s not great, but its rather teachable so I will continue. Shortly after the calamity I boarded the train headed to Villedieu-les-poeles. I was pretty confused trying to find my seat and manage my luggage all at the same time. When I located my seat, my heart sank. It was in a grouping of three seats two facing backwards and one forward. Most seats were in groups of four, but this was only three and looked cramped. There was already someone in the forward facing seat and someone in the aisle backwards one. I was at the window. The girl at the aisle… she looked about my age seemed super put out that I was supposed to be sitting next to her. I myself wasn’t so thrilled especially when it looked like there were a ton of open seats. I thought it might be like in Malaysia where things fill up as you go along so I was reluctant to move. I also didn’t realize I would be going backwards until I was already settled into the seat. With the two adjacent seats taken, I had no where to put the bag of doom, so I kept it on my lap. I was thoroughly dissatisfied and probably still a little upset about my sandwich. When the conductor came through for the tickets I asked if I could change my seat because I was getting sick. (Small victory number two for my French.) He said yes, but I also kind of thought he indicated I could change at the next stop. I kept waiting and waiting with my anger and dizziness mounting. I’m telling you the girl next to me seemed like she would bite my head off if I said anything to her. Finally, however, even as the train was moving I decided enough was enough. I asked the girl to let me out, which she actually did quite kindly… I think you could tell I wasn’t doing so hot. I gathered up my bags and bumbled down the aisle trying not to be like the annoying flight attendant bumping into people as much as possible. I made it to the next car forward and found a lovely extra seat. In an instant I felt my blood pressure go back down and my tension was falling away with each clink-ka-clink of the train as I sat in my, as I’ll call it, seat of freedom. Going backwards I couldn’t enjoy the scenery. In the other seat I also couldn’t move around or do anything. And compared to the new group of four chairs, the old ones were much closer together. The train never filled up. And I don’t think the seat assignment on my ticket meant a hill of beans to begin with. So what did I learn? Don’t pretend that facing backwards on a train is going to be okay and don’t wait to move. If you’re in some else’s seat, they’ll let you know and you can move. Moreover, the conductor is not going to kick you off for not being in the seat on your ticket, at least in this case. There was no way to know when I bought the ticket that the seat would be so terrible. I feel like assigned seats and I are not getting on well together as of late. First kissy couples on airplanes, and then pissy girls on trains! Heaven help me. Maybe God is teaching me to stick up for myself. Or to make the move when necessary, even if its awkward at first… oh, that’s good… and maybe aptly applied to my current grad school situation in which I’m debating my future at Stanford. Hum.

That’s all for now. More on Le Luot and the life of a B&B worker soon to follow.

Adeiu mes amis,
Sara

Wrapping it up. Southeast Asia. Check.

On the last day of the course there was a nice little pizza party for the whole group. The pizza was good, but what was even better was that we hatched an idea to hold a digital camera scavenger hunt. I came up with the list of tasks and had help assigning point values. We broke up into 3 teams and had 2 hours to roam downtown Singapore taking wacky and fun pictures. Maybe when I get pictures from the people who brought their cameras I will post a few. After the hunt we all went out dancing. There was live band playing who happened to hail from the bay area. Small world! Good times. Good friends. The next day most people left to fly back to CA. I, on the other hand, had one more day to explore this small island nation. I met up with a Princeton friend who is in the NYU Asia film program in Singapore. We were on the crew team together freshman year and it was just really nice to see a familiar face and fun to get a tour around the school and see what a production set look likes, ect. From there I went to Sentosa. Sentosa is like the Singapore version of Disney Land, but for adults. There are several beaches, shows, and activities. The best part is there is a monorail and whimsical music is piped in to make it feel even more surreal. After sufficiently taking in the scene at Sentosa I ventured to Little India. Frankly, I was not super impressed so I took some photos and moved on to Chinatown. Much more interesting both visually (better for taking pictures) and gastronomically. I was also able to get dinner and buy some souvenirs. From Chinatown I walked to the central nightlife hangout. My plan all along was to take night pictures at Clarke Quay. And take night pictures I did. A few photos from my day and more from the night are below for your viewing pleasure. Having a tripod unleashes the possibility for long exposure photos and a whole new world of fun!



The flight back was all in all pretty unimpressive and even disappointing given the plane I had for the 11 hour leg of the trip was like from 1989... No seat back entertainment, and just old. In other news, I bought a new laptop off of Craigslist which I picked up when I arrived back stateside. It's a Toshiba. Brand New :) The other one I bought never came. I got my money back, but my frustration was never compensated for so I am still a bit bitter towards buy.com.

I’m at Stanford now and happy to finally be back into some semblance of a stable life. Who am I kidding? Readjusting has been tough, but my first day of class was today so now all I have to do is get moving on the work that lies ahead of me. More from Palo Alto in weeks to come.

p.s. The jetlag from this trip finally caught up with me on Saturday. It was a beast. I think I am better now ;)

Sing-a-pore!

Singapore is what I call Asia Light. It is really like being in the US, but in Asia. And there are way more restrictions in Singapore. There is a joke that Singapore is a “fine” city, where they really mean fine, as in money. They have signs threatening $1000 fines for eating on the MRT, jaywalking, chewing gum, littering, ect. Okay, maybe they aren’t all $1000 fines, but they are hefty. The food in Singapore had a more Chinese influence than the food I encountered in Malaysia, i.e. I didn’t have to worry about every dish being spicy! The country/city/island was gearing up for the upcoming first ever at night Formula One race and so a bit of an elevated buzz of excitement could be felt throughout the city. BTW, it only takes like 45 minutes to drive across the whole country!

In any case, I stayed at the Stanford apartments at Nanyang Technological University. There were about 8 students sharing this apartment and so it felt a lot like a hostel which was cool. My classmates in Singapore were really great. We all got along great and it was very helpful to be staying in the same place because we all had basically the same work to do and schedules to keep and we could help each other which was nice. The course was intense. 4 days. (Plus a fieldtrip to the NEW water plant where they process used water to reach drinking water standards… pretty revolutionary. 3% is put back into the reservoirs which service the communities.) In total, 16 different lectures, 2 homework assignments and 1 group project. It was definitely a jump right in scenario. The campus layout was confusing but since I had arrived a few days early I knew where everything was so I become sort of the tour guide. I felt like my nickname should have been Garmin. Since the course was so time consuming I really only had time to explore the city one evening before things got rolling and then of course on Friday night which is a whole different story. But below you will find the photos from when Natalie and I went out exploring! My personal favorites are the ones of the huge crowd of Singaporeans doing aerobics along the river ;) Strange place, Singapore.



Friday night. I told you it was a story all its own and I wasn’t lying! So a group of us headed out to the Night Safari. I was very skeptical at first, BUT the fire eating group of indigenous Borneoans was enough to convince me to dish up my $22. It was pretty spectacular. People say the animals are drugged and while I would like to disbelieve them, there is no way you can convince me that all of those animals we saw were nocturnal. The coolest thing was the leopard. This huge cat had a glass enclosed viewing area and just while we were there it was pacing back and forth, back and forth in front of the window. You could crouch down on your knees and be at eye level with the leopard. As it would turn and walk towards you its eyes would pierce through you. Creepy. Especially since the only thing between you and certain death was a piece of glass. As if the Night Safari wasn’t crazy enough, our group somehow got separated in the bat house. Go figure. Of all places. A search and rescue ensued, but to no avail. We were definitely split up. Plans for meeting up with other people were on the agenda and not knowing was else to do, myself and another student hurried off in a taxi to the MRT station downtown where they were supposed to meet at 10pm. Well, it was way past 10pm and so after looking around we threw in the towel and went and enjoyed a nice Singapore sling…at an English style pub no less, it was the closest place we could find. Oye. The upside was we stumbled upon some sort of outdoor concert and arrived just in time to hear the last song, which was all I really cared to hear. I ended up taking a night bus back to NTU. Long night, but fun.

The only not so great thing...

So here comes the sad post. I had a terrible time getting back from the islands to Singapore. I had trouble getting a taxi from the hole in the wall town where the ferry dropped us, and since I hadn’t bought my ticket in advance I ended up getting a seat instead of a bed on the train. Talk about a bad deal… the worst part was the seat they assigned me was facing backwards! 14 hours overnight, backwards… count me out. So I just sat in other peoples’ seats until they came and made me get up. I was able to sleep from like 10 until 2 am when I was awakened by this lady with two kids in tow who told me I was in her seats. Ugh. It was really cold in the train car (over air-conditioned) and even though there was no smoking in the car it didn’t stop people from moving into the between car space and smoking there. FYI with the train traveling forward, the smoke comes right back into the car. Gross. It was by far one of the hardest nights I have had to endure. When the sun finally came I was so happy. It was like that saying... I can't remember it exactly , but something like… hope will rise on the wings of the dawn. When the sun up I knew it would all be alright. Getting off the train in Singapore was by far one of the best feelings ever. But enough of the train ride from H***, the next post will be all about Sing, Sing, Singapore!

Pulau Perhentian Kecil :) Island Paradise.

KL was nice. However, my goal was to get to one of the take-your-breath-away beautiful tropical islands in Southeast Asia. I succeeded in this goal by taking an overnight train from KL to Kota Bharu. It was all-around not a bad experience. It was a bit creepy, but I was able to sleep a little with my bags secured with me in bed ;) From there I split a taxi with two other island visitors and we made our way to the “ferry” to take us to the island. It was really just a speed boat. But they can call it a ferry if they want to… In any case I finally made it to the Perhentian Islands. I stayed at a place called the Moshin Chalets. The dorm was pretty sketchy in general, run down, and aged in many ways. But for only $20 a night I was not going to complain. Everything else on the island was way more expensive and just as rundown. It was ridiculously beautiful on this island. White sand beaches, warm blue waters of the China Sea…no land in sight. It was great. I went on a nice snorkeling trip the second day I was there. I got terribly sunburn on the back of my legs and back. Sad, and painful! Especially when you have to haul your back pack around. In general, I was unimpressed with the food and without anyone else to enjoy this amazing place with I decided to move on. I did meet some nice people while I was there, but they were all a little too free spirited for me. We had a fun volleyball game one evening though, so all was not lost. AND the place I stayed had free wireless in the restaurant in the evenings so I was pleased.

Anyway, here are pictures from Pulau Perhentian Kecil. Pretty.

People in the know call it KL.

Not wanting to test my luck with the current political situation in Bangkok I jumped ship on my sweet plans and flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I stayed in a great hostel called the Red Palm and walked around this compact yet action packed city. Gardens and butterfly park, KL Communcations tower, Petronas Towers; the photos say it all.