Experiencing Paris

Throughout our time in Europe this fall we visited Paris three times. It wasn't until our last visit that we really experienced the city. We visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and Montmartre with the Sacre Coeur within two days. Maybe it's because we've been living in France, but I wasn't especially enchanted by the city. It was chilly and gray outside, and even in the off season, the attractions seemed crowded.

The Mona Lisa is probably the most famous painting in the Louvre, and the room of people pressing towards it seemed to prove it's popularity. She has her own guard, a railing, and a few layers of glass for protection. With so much traffic and cameras flashing, it's easy to forget how neat it is to see the original painting.

I was even more impressed with a few larger paintings by the French artists Ingres and Delacroix. These two artists created works that I studied last year. It was incredible to see the larger-than-life originals of images I'd only seen on a computer screen. It has been amazing to experience French/ Francophone art, literature, and history in their true context. The Eiffel Tour is really big and interesting, but I am most excited by the art I've studied.

A Mild Christmas

The temperature this week has been hovering above freezing, and that is the coldest weather I've felt since we were in Germany. Before I moved here I was really excited to learn that the temperature in this region doesn't wander much below 32°F or above 75°F. Now, however, it's hard to get into the Christmas spirit without even a chance of snow.

To celebrate the season every city in France adorns the streets with lights. There are Chirstmas markets everywhere and the malls have wierd displays with arctic animals (i.e. walrus and penguins). Speaking of animals, the city has built stables along the walls of a Notre Dame church by my house. Starting last week, we have a regular petting zoo on the square, complete with donkeys, sheep, goats, OXEN, roosters, a PIG, etc, znd all in one pen! There is also a separate enclosure with stout little ponies.

Last Christmas when I came home I happened across a camel and a donkey outside a big church. I guess it's more ridiculous to see those animals in suburban middle America than to see farm animals in rural-ish France. I still think it's strange. It appears that people like live nativity scenes all over the world.

That said, the animals don't really do it for me. And while the Christmas music piped through the streets and the lights ornamenting inside and out are charming and festive, I am looking forward to some chilly weather. My parents fire place and heat that I don't pay for will make the cold bearable and the house cozy like I like it.

The Way to Their Hearts

I think I've found the way to my students' hearts, or at least their attention spans. Last time I tried to play music for class, my choices were too wrapped up in American hippy history and politics, and the tunes weren't catchy enough. Lately I've been playing and discussing two Beatles songs and two Green Day songs with much success.

Playing Green Day has allowed me to avoid giving in to requests for Fall Out Boy. That's a "pop-punk" group who's not-so-great music is reaching out to teenagers everywhere. There is a feature story on NPR about the group head man and his daring "guyliner." The article has some winning quotes, though I don't think I can make fun of them in class.

I'll just stick with "Yellow Submarine," because it's cute when they sing along (which many of them do).

Miracle of Miracles

We have the internet in the apartment. After signing my contract in October for our internet service, paying for a phone line installation, waiting, waiting, and calling technical assistance, we still had no internet, no dial tone, nothing. Last week I sent a letter of resignation to the company asking to cancel my contract, because I was dissatisfied with their technical and customer service. A week later, they sent a technician to the apartment, unannounced, who fiddled with the wires and established our connection.

Now we have the internet, unlimited calls in France and to the States, and cable TV (though no television set). I suppose it could cut off at any minute, so we've been downloading and emailing and calling furiously to get the most out of our precious time on the internet. I've paid for months of the service and we can only use it for two weeks. Figures.

Thanksgiving Dinner and Beer Pong

We postponed our Thanksgiving feast a few days so we could celebrate the holiday with friends from Lawrence. We hung out most of the day last Saturday and started cooking late afternoon. We ended up making homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade cornbread, yams, lots of fresh veggies, and then we bought a roasted chicken to substitute for the turkey. The meal was really tasty and pretty picturesque (minus the fact that we used a coffee table and folding chairs). It was a pretty traditional meal, but our post-dinner festivities were unusual for Thanksgiving.

We made plans a few weeks prior to Thanksgiving with Meghan and Charles to play beer pong when they visited. This is a drinking game involving plastic cups full of beer arranged in a triangle like a rack of billard balls. Each team shoots ping pong balls across the table and when they score, their opponent drinks and discards the cup. The first team to hit all their opponents cups wins.

Since we didn't have suitable plastic cups, we used ceramic mugs and glass tumblers. We also don't have a long table; so we layed a door from our bureau on the desk and set up from there. We didn't have a lot of beer and our cups made really difficult targets, so it became a long drawn out battle of the sexes. Meghan and I won two games whether from luck or skill (probably the former), and the round went down as two of the tamest/soberest drinking games ever.

Deciphering the French Language

For Thanksgiving, Ben and I bought a cake mix to bake in our mini toaster-oven. We had all the basisc ingredients, butter, eggs, but the recipe called for something I'd never heard of. My French is pretty solid, but I still struggle with connecting words, because they never translate exactly. The cake required "4 cuilléres de soupe à lait." I happen to get "de" and "à" mixed up, because they both can mean "of," "at," and "with," among other things.

So, I was bewildered looking at the cake box, wondering what "4 spoons of soup milk" (or "milk soup") was. I decided that I should just put in regular milk and deal with the consequences. We only have tiny spoons, so I started to put in 3 for each required spoonful; assuming they meant something like tablespoons... then it hit me. The recipe called for 4 soup spoons of milk. Opps, maybe that should have been obvious?

The Right to Strike

I woke up (reluctantly) at 6:00 this morning and drove the hour to get to my 8:00 class, only to find all of the entrances to the school locked or blocked by students. Turns out the proposed cut to university education is making highschoolers as angry as it is making university students. I guess we offer a higher/career oriented degree at my school (Emile Roux), and if Sarkozy and the government succeed with their plans, schools may cut such programs. If those programs are cut, students may have to travel further and pay more for their degree.

I've been told that the French hold public services (like education) absolutely sacred, so the privitisation, or semi-privitisation, of the school/university system is an outrage. I mentioned to a teacher that a walk-out planned my senior year of highschool was squashed before it took place. We had to find another way to protest the invasion of Iraq -- or else be suspended. To that, the teacher told me that the French insist on the right to strike. She said it was as important to them as the right to bear arms was to Americans.

I don't know how much I personally value, nor do I take advantage of my right to own a gun, but there is no denying that the French often use strikes to demontrate their disagreement. I have seen one television show since I've been here. It was a cartoon I watched while babysitting about a child witch who organized a strike at her elementary school to get better facilities. I guess that shows how important strikes are and how ingrained that is in the French mentality. Right now, students and transportation workers all over the country are making their statement against privitisation, and that means I have a long weekend.

Brush with the Law

The paperwork is so complicated here; I knew that I was going to fuck something up. Well I did, and it didn't turn out too badly, aside from nearly giving me a heart attack.

There is a lot of compulsory red tape that goes along with owning a car here, including immediate updating of the license plates. I didn't read all my paperwork carefully, or I missed something because it was all in French, and put off getting new plates. I also managed to not sign and ship the form that solidified my insurance. So, my temporary insurance expired without my knowing.

Totally ignorant of my errors, we left to go to the bank the other day, when a French police officer tapped on our window. I didn't think we had done anything wrong, so I handed him all my expired papers with a stupid smile. Then he said the phrase I never thought would be spoken to me. "Ma'am, please step out of the vehicle."

After he explained that I would be fined 200 Euros for the license plate and 300 for the insurance, I started to plead ignorance. I convinced him to let us drive that afternoon to sign for the insurance and pick up new plates. While he remained firm, he told me I would be off the hook if I did what I was supposed to and then parked the car at the police station before eight. So I did, and everything is OK. God knows I couldn't have afforded to those fines!

American Idiot

My most recent lesson plan has involved Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkle, which doesn't resonate with all my students here. There are definatly some that know about American folk music, but most of them tell me it just sounds old. So, when I had a few extra minutes, I gave in to the requests and played Green Day. The first album/song I found was "American Idiot" which I thought was funny. Most of the students missed the irony, but seemed to appreciate the music anyway. The kids from that class told the other students, and today I had some kids who missed yesterday ask to make up the class and sit in today. I guess I'm doing something right.

The Mother Land

Ben and I spent a fair amout of time outside on our trip to Germany. We drove through and climbed some of the Alps, saw rain and snow in the Black Forest, camped in a gorgeous river valley, and hiked everywhere we could. Some of my favorite hikes were around old castle ruins, but we also walked around in the urban centers of Heidleburg, Mannheim, Rothenburg, Munich, and several small towns.

I'm learning the difference between baroque, rococo, renaissance, and modern castles, as well as details about Roman and Gothic archetecture thanks to my boyfriend's Art History minor. Some of the buildings we saw were recently re-done and had changed a lot since World War II bombings. It was also really interesting to visit Dachau, the first concentration camp. It was eerie to walk around the grounds, and the exhibit was expectedly sad and disturbing.

I was curious to visit the camp, and I think it would have been wrong to skip it, but it provided a huge contrast to the rest of our trip. We ended up seeing lots of typically German things (beer halls, the Alps, Christmas shops, and castles) throughout the southern regions, and marks from WWII are still everywhere.

All in all, Germany is a pretty incredible country, especially Bavaria. I think I appreciate beer more, now that I've been to the Hofbrauhaus. We also bought some good wine and saw the acres of vineyards. The general attitude of most of the places we visited was home-y and more at ease than much of France.

Both Ben and I have a lot of German blood in our families, so we had a running joke about being back in the homeland. (I think I threw one of our hosts through a loop with the French liscence plate, American passport, and my German name.) We also seemed to fit in better physically than we do in France, and much better than we did in Spain and Egypt. Fashion didn't seem to be such a high priority, and there were lots more blond heads and blue eyes. As long as I didn't open my mouth (my German accent is terrible), I fit right in.

Creepiest Halloween Ever

In stark contrast to four years of Halloween in Madison, WI, Ben and I spent the holiday in a place with a spookier history. We drove all day through Germany's "Castle Road" and hiked around old castle ruins. We made camp after sunset at a campground located about 50 yards from a 1100 year old church, complete with a graveyard. We spent the evening walking around downtown Rothenburg, a fortified city that we learned later has a long history of public executions in it's main square. To top off the night, the drive back to the tent was horribly foggy; I couldn't see 15 feet in front of the car. We tucked ourselves in for a freezing (literally) night, and hoped that the spirits wouldn't disturb us.

I cut my own hair yesterday.

It's true. I splurged on some hair product and discount sissors, and saved myself about 30 euros. It's not too bad, and my curls hide any major slips. I still have to wait a week for my first paycheck, and since we're leaving for Germany soon (aka: spending lots of money on gas); I thought I could make better use of my bucks.

La Vie Bohème

If someone told me a year ago about my life now, I would not have believed that I would end up in this small corner of France. I wake up three times a week and drive an hour through beautiful countryside with fields, pastures, and rivers, that somehow manages to simultaneously support blooming wildflowers and changing leaves.

At the end of the day, I come home to my cozy flat, which my landlady called The Nest. We're on the top floor and the ceiling follows the contour of the roof, so you have to stoop if you walk anywhere beyond the middle of the room.

The apartment is unfurnished, but we've been eating our dinners on a cardboard box that serves as a table. Never underestimate the versitility of a cardboard box; they can be bedside tables, bookshelves, cutting boards, you name it. We finally bought a coffee table when we realized how odd it was to wipe off the cardboard surface when we spilled jelly or dressing on it.

Even though we didn't have much of a dining room, Ben and I still managed to make pretty elaborate dinners. God knows how we both manoeuvre around the kitchen to grill our food, make our fresh salads and homemmade dressings, and gather the wine, bread and cheese (yes, those stereotypes of the French are true). It was a glorious day when we bought a toaster oven and baked apple turnovers for desert.Since we've had the oven we've made successful cookies and other apple cinnamon desserts, and it hasn't seemed to matter that our kitchen is pretty illequipped.

We have guests this weekend, and since the only soft surface is our matress (we slept our first night on the floor in a pile of clothes and that was NOT comfortable), we turned it sideways and slept all four of us together. Good thing we were already close friends.

Tranquilité, finallement

I finally have a moment of peace to post an update. Things have been very chaotic, and wow is it nice to catch my breath and settle down. I think I have slept in 18 different beds in the last three months (at least 2 nights in each and never more than 3 weeks), but I am happy to say that I signed my first apartment lease and bought my first mattress in the last few days.

My housing experience isn't the only source of "firsts" this week. Ben and I bought a car; we both learned stick shift; we had the hood flip up while on the highway, and we've naivigated through the French and Spanish highway system, all this week, all for the first time. I also went through training and began my job teaching English at a French High School.

After I finish signing and distributing the forest of paperwork required by the French government, my status here will be official, and I won't have to worry about logistics any longer. I have become an expert at this kind of worrying whether it's for trivial details like looking for the nearest bank, or for basic necessities, like finding someplace (other than the '89 VW Golf) to sleep. But with a functioning bank account, telephone, and vehicle, and a very comfortabe and charming place to live, my anxieties are subsiding and I'm starting to really appreciate my surroundings.

(That is to say that France is an absolutely beautiful country, with lots of green rolling hills, old landmarks, and a bakery on every corner.)

Moving On

In our last day in Egypt we had time to visit the last of the monuments on our list and take some time to relax and reflect. Because we were so incredibly tight with our money we were able to splurge on our last night. We went to a trendy bar on top of the Hilton hotel and sat for three hours smoking sheesha on the terrace overlooking the Nile and the west side of Cairo. We could afford it because the exchage rate is very much in our favor, but it still felt like a huge luxury. I haven't been comfortable smoking in public as a woman, but since this was a more "Western" establishment, I didn't get any funny looks. It's kind of surreal to consider all that we've seen in the last two weeks -- a lot of really old and really big things. Now we're in Europe, a very dramatic change after only a day of travel. Even though I've never even been on this continent, walking the streets of Brussles is much more comfortable/familiar than any of the cities we visited in Egypt.

Living with the Dead

In the past week Ben and I have made it around several of the more significant landmarks in Cairo, and I think it's safe to say that death is a major theme. The pyramids are a huge memorials, and the tombs that they hid were more lavish than any ornaments I've ever seen for the living.

The first and third day of our trip was dedicated to the pyramids as Giza and those at Saqqura/Dashur respectively. On our second day, after looking at dozens of sarcophagi, caskets, and mummies, we headed to the Cristian quarter. In Coptic Cairo, where most of the inhabitants are Greek Orthodox, we spent a large portion of our time walking around a Greek cemetery. The graves were huge and lavish, and some of them looked like houses. A long row of cottage-like mausoleums lined the outside edge of the cemetery and eerily resembled a row of houses for the living. I thought this was a little odd, but I like cemeteries, and this is one I'll remember. The oddity of those graves hardly compared to my amazement at the Cities of the Dead, which we visited on Sunday.

There are neighborhoods in Islamic Cairo literally referred to as "Cities of the Dead." Huge spans of Islamic cemeteries are inhabited by squatters, usually relatives of the deceased. I read about them in our guide book, and we naively wandered into one at the end of a long day. It was one of the strangest and most interesting sites I've ever seen. Houses leaned between grave sites and tombs, and at some points it was difficult to distinguish where the living and the dead slept. Sometimes, I believe, they stayed in the same houses. It was pretty bizarre.

I don't think any other grave sites will match the oddity of out trip to the Cities of the Dead, but I know we're not done seeing crypts. We've now been in Alexandria for two days, and we made a trip to some ancient Roman catacombs. We walked 35 meters underground, through old passageways lined with excavated graves. Most of the sites were rectangular holes, but we also found rooms that were used to host parties, so families of the dead could drink in remembrance of the deceased. It's kind of creepy to see so much attention to the dead, but the monuments are amazing and ornate and they are making me think about death in a new way.

This is where being frugal gets you

As a student, or recent graduate, I'm travelling on a tight budget, and Ben and I have found as many corners to cut as possible. Our hostels are amazingly cheap by American standards ($5-10 per night!), and we also registered for student cards so we get 50% off all entrance fees. To limit transportation costs, we have now mastered the metro here, now we can move around Cairo for about 20 cents a ride. Not a bad deal.

Today, our plan was to visit two sites with pyramids, more obscure and farther away than the Great Pyramids at Giza. We decided to avoid taxis because they have proved relatively expensive, and pretty unreliable. (On our first day, our cab broke down on the highway, and we had to wait an hour for another). Our guide book suggested taking a series of public buses, but that means navigating a system almost exclusively in Arabic -which we don't speak- and finding the correct bus at the "station." The buses load in something like a parking lot with no discernible order.

So, we decided to take the metro as far south as it would go and then try to find a cheaper cab. We figured the price would be down because we were closer to out destination and we were out of the busiest part of the city. We got off the train and found ourselves in an area much rougher than the tourist hot spots. The streets were dirtier than downtown and there we not as many police. We finally found a driver who agreed to a reasonable price, and he swept us off on an interesting adventure.

To be honest, I was not sure that the driver would take us to the correct destination, and if he did, I assumed he would demand more money than the agreed amount. Our first half hour with him did not set my mind at ease. After about 5 minutes he made a rough U-turn and stopped at a gas station. (Gas, by the way, is unbelievably cheap -- about 8 cents a litre). I started to fiddle with my door to roll down the window, and the driver reached around and locked my door! Being locked in began a string of exaggerated worries; like, maybe we were about to be kidnapped or driven and left in the middle of the desert.

I started to feel better when we saw the Nile and reoriented to the area. But, instead of heading for the bridge to cross he drove down a dead-end road towards the river itself. The language barrier made it difficult for him to explain anything, and when we stopped on the bank, he didn't even try to explain. We sat in silence until he pointed to an approaching ferry. I breather a sigh of relief to know that we were at least crossing to the right side of the river.

As the ferry pulled up, I saw a very random assortment of vehicles. In addition to several pedestrians, the boat unloaded bikes, cars, a donkey cart, and a tractor. So we eased our way across the Nile. When our driver got out to walk around, he left his radio on for us, and we listened to prayers and religious discussion in Arabic for most of the ride. It was only when we got back to busy roads that I started to trust him, who turned out to be a great help most of the day.

We negotiated a pretty low fare to be driven around each of the sites and back to Cairo, and our driver stayed with us all morning. If we had not decided to take a chance with him, we would have wandered around, found even sketchier transportation, and walked too much under the midday African sun. We spent more than we planned, but it's hard not to when your initial budget is as small as ours.

PS- Sorry to the people who checked my blog when I was in Haiti, and even after I got back. The technology deficiency made it difficult to post while I was gone, but I dropped the ball in writing my reflections. Sorry!

Incommunicado

It's hard to believe that I've finished my time in Haiti. The computer that I'm on now seems amazingly fast, and it is considering the time I've spent staring at blank screens in cyber cafes over the last several weeks. I've learned a lot about patience waiting more than 5 minutes for a page to load, or 20 minutes to pull up Gmail. Needless to say I was essentially incommunicado. No one could reach me, and I could only make infrequent contact to let my parents and boyfriend know I was still alive.

Anyway, my summer was challenging and rich, and I still plan on posting about it. Writing with the hindsight I have now means my observations are not totally fresh, but I have certainly not come to terms with my experiences. I am only now starting to put together the rush of emotional and physical stress that accompanied my days in Leogone and Jacmel. More later.

Haiti is not Senegal

If it isn't obvious in my other posts, I'm constantly referring to my experience in Senegal to prepare myself for Haiti. There are certain similarities, for instance they are both francophone countries with another more localized language/dialect that is spoken in unofficial settings. Both countries are also developing nations with evident poverty. These two things, language and socio-economic state, are significant, but I can only imagine how different the experiences will be.

In Dakar I lived with a family and studied and toured with several other American students. My primary concerns were language/culture immersion and comprehension. For the next several weeks I'll be teaching at a music camp. This experience should challenge me in an entirely different way, as I don't have much experience in music as anything but a student. I'll be forced to articulate myself in a music theory classroom and in private flute lessons. I will also probably have to perform in various contexts. I've done an excellent job avoiding many performance pressures (I get stage fright), but this should push me out of my artistic and intellectual comfort zones, in addition to my geographic and cultural ones.

Anti-Malaria

I started to take my anti-malarial last week, and I thought that would be a good reality check. I've taken my two weeks of preventative medication and I still haven't grasped that I am leaving tomorrow. Chloroquine comes in a bright pink pill to be taken once a week and works to protect the body against the Malaria parasite. The malaria strands in Haiti are not the worst in the world, though only this specific drug works in that region. I am grateful that I'm not taking the kind that causes extreme sun sensitivity. That seems counter intuitive to me considering mosquitoes thrive in tropical areas where people suffer the sun anyway.

Larium, the anti-malarial I took in Senegal was an experience in itself. One of the prominent side effects is vivid and lucid dreaming, which a stoner friend of mine was particularly excited about before we left. I had the privilege (misfortune?) to experience these effects and enjoyed the added variety to my sleep, though it was disconcerting to wake up with ghosts in my wall (or so I thought) and memories of recurring meetings with a talking wolf.

All joking aside, I realized the importance of my medicine when my four-year-old host sister contracted malaria. My family there slept with nets over their beds, but it's not practical to take preventative drugs when they can also serve as treatments. Natacha (my sister) was out of school for a week with a fever though she recovered fully. Not every family has that fortune. I lived in an urban center, in a middle class neighborhood, with an educated family and we all had the resources to prevent or treat malaria.

National Geographic's cover story for July was about Malaria as a global crisis and caught my attention for obvious reasons. I went to a few fundraisers in Dakar "pour combattre le pilu" (to combat malaria), and now, for the first time in a few decades, the international community is taking steps to slow down this disease. The images and stories in the article were eye-opening since I didn't realize how wide spread, diverse, and resilient the parasite is. This powerful and invisible creature is killing in the third world, because more affluent nations can afford preventative measures (as evidenced in my weekly dose of chlorquine).

The article reminded me of the privilege that I'll carry with the rest of my baggage when I leave tomorrow, and I imagine that will be reiterated when I arrive in Port-au-Prince on Friday morning and though out the next seven weeks. I guess my anti-malarial did lead to a reality check about it's medical and international significance. With the chloroquine my body is almost ready to experience Haiti, though I'm still not sure I'm emotionally prepared.

Pressure to be Clever

I've now changed the title of this blog twice, and I'm struggling to find something witty and significant. The first title was "Everywhere and Beyond," the rational being that this is essentially a travel blog. This explains the heading for my first post. While I am traveling to many places this year, "everywhere" and/or "beyond" are both too exaggerated.

Title number two: Corners of the Globe. Title three: Here and There. I seem to be preoccupied with the theme of place. I nabbed the first for the URL, but "Here and There" was already taken. The idea is basically that, wherever I go, there I am and writing about it to keep people updated on my adventures.

I don't know how important the title is for my purposes, but since the only three blogs I read have interesting names I felt I should put forth a little more effort. I'm leaving for Haiti in three days and still reeling from the move back to Indy from school. While I should be preparing for my trip and sorting through all of my possessions, I'm only preoccupied with finding the right blog title before I leave, even though it will probably change several more times in the coming months.

Everywhere, really?

Admittedly, I probably won't go *everywhere* in the next year. But, in my first year free from the chains of formal education, with my loans securely deferred (god willing), I'm hoping to add a number of stamps to my passport. Before last fall I had not left the continent, and my international travel was limited to a few short trips to Quebec to "practice French" (not easy when they all speak English and have little patience for struggling new francophoners).

Last spring I lived in Dakar, Senegal (West Africa) for a trimester, which was a good place to solidify my French. I didn't have to worry about English infiltration like I did in Canada (except with my American class mates), though the French I learned there was tinged with Wolof. Language is an important part of experiencing a culture in my opinion. While I only know French and enough Wolof to get a cab, I'm hoping for opportunities to expand my vocabularies.

My first stop is Haiti, and I leave in less than three weeks. I'm really looking forward to the adventure, though realistically anticipating discomfort from the heat and humidity as well as the culture shock. Haiti is one of the poorest countries today and is suffering socially and politically. They have violence to speak of and the US has maintained a warning against travel there. Fortunately (for me) the violence isn't necessarily directed at international visitors, though they don't get many anyway considering their floundering tourist business. I'll be out of the most dangerous area working in the bubbles of two music camps. I can rely on my French in the classroom (teaching Music Theory) and in private flute lessons, but Creole will be important for social interactions. I do not speak Creole, but immersion is the best teacher.

After Haiti comes Egypt for a few weeks of tourism and then an extended stay in France. I guess it's more than an extended stay because I'll be there for a full school year teaching English. It will be nice to explore some of North Africa and see the Nile, the Pyramids, and the Red Sea. I'm most excited to see the country that bred some of the authors I've studied, has colorful and fragrant markets, and incorporates hookah in daily practice. One of my goals in life is to learn Arabic, and it will be nice to hear it and still be able to rely on English. There is also a lot of mysticism and history tied up in Egypt. It was home to ancient civilizations preoccupied with immortality, where the Judeo-Christian God showed himself on numerous, unforgettable occasions. Not to mention that it's sure to be beautiful and an intense contrast against the landscape in the Midwest.

Before I ever make it to Europe, I'll have been to Africa twice. France will inevitably be a good experience and I hope I'll love it as much as my professor and friends think I will. I'll be preoccupied with language for much of my time there, building my French vocabulary and learning to speak more fluidly. My boyfriend will also be working on his French, from the ground up. I can't imagine a better place to learn it. My job offers me an obscene (by American standards) amount of vacation time, during which I hope to visit Italy, Germany, Spain, and at least the UK. So, that's not everywhere, but it's enough.