Exodus

Surprisingly all train transfers went well. Frankfurt to Karlsruhe to Strasbourg to Metz to Verdun with an enormous suitcase and a sleep deprivation hangover and not a single transfer missed. By the time I got to Verdun I was so pleased with myself that I almost didn’t realise that I had no idea what the person who was picking me up looked like and I had no way of contacting her and assuming she wasn’t a 15 year old girl or an active (male) soldier there was no-one at the train station that could have been her anyway. So I thought…I’m not going to panic, she’s probably just a little late. You’ve been spending too much time in Germany; people aren’t that punctual anywhere else in the world. That said, my first instinct was, of course, to panic; which didn’t really get me anywhere because regardless of how fast my pulse was racing, I was still stuck in the train station in Verdun 45 minutes after I was supposed to be picked up and it was starting to get dark and there was really nothing I could do about it. So I tried to be rational, which is difficult for me even under the best circumstances. I would find a pay phone and call from there, and if that didn’t work I would use my rusty French and utter patheticness to charm the ticket person into giving me directions to the nearest hotel. Then I would bravely set out, on my own in a foreign country, cold and hungry, lugging an obnoxious amount of unnecessary crap, fully aware that I’d probably be lost within 5 minutes. But it’s an adventure, right? That’s what this whole experience is supposed to be about, being self sufficient and learning to fend for myself. This of course scared me more. Overcoming the panic induced urge to vomit, I took a deep breath, stood up and nearly gave myself whiplash as I suddenly spun around at the sound of my name spoken with a soft almost London accent. My saviour had come.

It was all much less dramatic from then on. We introduced ourselves, drove to her apartment, carried my stuff up what seemed like 400,000 stairs (I’m exaggerating, it was probably only 300,000), and then went out for a beer. Afterwards we returned to her vibrantly decorated flat for a lovely home cooked meal and then French language version of Troy, which, as it turns out, is terrible in every language. So, part 1 of the journey has been a success. Soon we move on to part 2: actually going to the town I’ll be living in. 

The little green men have landed

I didn't cry much at the airport, not because I wasn't sad or wasn't going to miss my family, quite the contrary. I didn't cry much at the airport because I was so terrified that my brain couldn't even process sadness. I had rather hoped that the crushing panic would lessen somewhat once I boarded the plane and couldn't change my mind, but I can tell you that sitting here in the dark in my boyfriend's room in Frankfurt (my sanctuary for the next couple of days before the next big push), it certainly has not. This is perhaps why I spent the last 2 hours staring blankly at the ceiling, paralyzed with fear. I enjoy traveling, meeting new people, eating new foods, but I think some of the joy in that is knowing that if anything goes really wrong, you're always going to be home soon-ish and everything will return to normal. I'm craving that feeling. I flew in to Frankfurt rather than Paris specifically to experience that second home feeling I get from being here among limited friends and something close to family, but it seems that my attempts to douse myself in (almost) normal isn't lessening the premature homesickness, but rather exacerbating the problem. I know that at some point I'll create a new normal for myself in Stenay, but the closer I get to leaving and creating this new life, the more my brain seems to rebel against it, and the more nauseatingly nervous I feel about things like figuring out the bus system in rural France. I know I'm just psyching myself out, but what I would give for some indication that it'll all be ok, you know, beyond people telling me "It'll all be ok".

I am a master procrastinator!

And what i mean by that is: OH MY GOD I'M LEAVING IN 3 DAYS AND I'M TOTALLY UNPREPARED!!! Obviously I'm excited for the epic adventure that is moving to a different country by myself, and I'm thrilled to have this amazing opportunity for job experience and linguistic improvement, but...I think I've been in denial about how much work moving entails and how many things that are desperately important to me that I'll have to give up (friends, family, cheeseboard pizza, english puns...etc). So in order to avoid tears, I've been completely ignoring the moving process. As a result, I'm moving in actually less than 3 days and I still haven't packed or said goodbye to some of my best friends. I really don't know if i can do it. I mean, obviously packing has to get done at some point, unless I want to spend a year in France naked and shivering in the cold, but the very thought of saying goodbye to the people who have, over the past few years, shaped me as a person, is terrifying. Even if none of you read this (you know who you are), I just want to thank you for being so thoughtful, so tolerant of my weirdness and so willing to be brutally honest with me. I couldn't have done it without you. I miss you already and desperately hope that we'll be able to meet again sometime. Don't forget to write or call or skype or whatever. So, before the hysterical crying starts, I'm going to attempt to do some laundry and decide which socks will be accompanying me to Stenay. Baby steps, right?