April 8th, 2010
Eight Days into living among the Parisians and we’re getting stir crazy and anxious to explore new places. How American are we? Only 8 days into our trip and we’re bored and ready to move on to the next town? We have walked around every corner of Paris and feel like we have seen it all. And as tourists, we have seen it all but as far as living day to day in another culture we have barely scratched the surface. Living in a different culture requires certain elements that we did not plan for on our trip. A person cannot merely go from café to café and expect to understand the French way of life. Yes, we have grasped a decent understanding of la vie francaise but without friends, family, school, activities, work and the daily trials of life, it’s considered visiting not living.
And so there’s been a change of plans. We’ve shortened our trip to two weeks in Paris and two weeks on the road traveling through Europe in a car. After being in a big city surrounded by people, smog and noise, we’re both eager to get on the open road. Growing up, family road trips were a yearly event. Each summer it was somewhere new; Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico and more. I remember the longest stretch of road in my life was just before reaching Albuquerque, I was about 12 years old. Against my parents advice, Lauren and I had drank too many sodas and really had to use the bathroom. That dirty Shell gas station felt like heaven once we arrived in Albuquerque. Many memories have been made on the road in Europe as well as the States. I remember sleeping overnight in our car in Spain. Pamplona is a small town in Northern Spain that hosts the running with the bulls festival every year in July. In 2007, we drove into the town knowing the festival was to begin the next day. We found that all the hotels in the city booked up almost a year in advance so we found a parking spot next to a green belt and camped there for the night. Apparently, everyone else in the city without accommodations brought their sleeping bags because they were camped out in the parks. Imagine, thousands of drunk Spaniards and American fraternity boys passed out in sleeping bags in this small town! Such a funny sight!
So a road trip it is. It’s very different from the original plan but part of life is making room for new opportunities that come your way. You have to be flexible and change your plans sometimes depending on where your heart is telling you to go. And our hearts are telling us to go East! The route begins and ends in Paris; starting with Strasbourg, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Hanover, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, and back to Paris with stops in every little town that looks nice on the way. On the road again… Au Revoir!
Bonne Chance Fellow Travelers
Lindsay
