Jet Lag, Fireworks and La Ville Rose

My friend told me that Toulouse is one of the ugliest cities in France. Not from where I am sitting. The winding streets dating from the Roman conquest, the red brick buildings that hem in on all sides and the river curving through the city are as picturesque as they are confusing. As I lock the four different locks for the two doors leading to my house every morning (usually on time, but once an hour late due to my inability at calendar navigation) I walk out to the Canal Midi, passing shop keepers arranging fresh bread in their boulangeries, jumping out of the way of cyclists ringing their bells, past the homeless women who sits on my bridge with her blond hair in in one huge dreadlock, feeding her dog, I have to work to keep a silly grin off my face. Its been a week, that has felt like a month, and every experience is still surreal.

This weekend was Festa Europa, an arts extravaganza full of crazy events all over the city. This is primetime to be a tourist/student in Toulouse as the city is a candidate for the cultural capital of Europe and so all was pomp and craziness to try and impress the judges that were here.

Saturday afternoon was rainy, and I decided it would be a great idea to where some orange espadrille sandals.....long story short between the rain, stepping in gum, and shoddy manufacturing, my shoe fell completely apart ten minutes from my house. I sat on the side of the street in the rain, my purse between my legs, my knees in my face and my umbrella dripping down my back and half tucked under my chin tying my stupid shoe to my foot with the ribbons. I began laughing as I walked along, sloshing water everywhere and drawing an amazing amount of strange looks as I limped to the city center. The man who helped my buy some new shoes (fortunately on sale) laughed when he saw my shoes, and asked if I even wanted to keep them. As they had by this time, fallen completely into pieces, and were soaking wet, I declined. The sun came out and although I got some of the biggest blisters of my life that afternoon, it was worth it. Many of our group from Dickinson walked down to the river, bought dinner and wine and sat on the riverside and watched the sun set over the water.

Little did we know our amazing planning as most of the city of Toulouse swarmed around us in the next two hours. We watched fireworks over the water, squeezed together in one huge pulsing mass of people.

summer lovin at aid

baltimore md....an interesting town that can't decide if it is a blue-collar american town where everyone gets cheap tickets to the orioles' games, an eclectic den for an underground thriving art scene or a sketchy bombed-out boarded-up ghetto. a harsh judgment perhaps, but unlike dc or nyc where there are areas that you just avoid, b-more can't seem to fit itself into the neighborhood mold. it transitions hard, and it transitions fast: one block there are boarded up windows, the next is a nice park or some slick brownstone row houses. dampening the excitement of never knowing exactly what your going to pull out of the grab-bag is the fact that the public transportation makes it difficult to get around at night.

at complete odds with the fact that i am drawn in and caught up by this pulsing city is my work at americans for informed democracy, a ngo stuck in its own identity crisis where a group of motivated, talented young people can't decide if this organization should take a more militant advocacy approach or stick to being a resource center for student activists. spinning in the middle are 16 interns who had no idea what they were getting into. and maybe that's not such a bad thing....our expectations often predispose us to utter failure.

as i jump into this world i am tempted to just quit school and become a transient volunteer or go work on a farm or just become a professional activist slash hobo, but that's not really on the docket for the next year. august 29th is the date of departure, and who knows what the land of wine and cheese will throw at this would-be world traveler. one would hope that a city full of university students will be interesting to say the least, and perhaps i will even learn a little french.

acclimation is becoming my word of choice on my mental cv, and these next two months in maryland will commence this year-long experiment in cultural discovery. in the words of james baldwin "i met a lot of people in europe. i even encountered myself." here's hoping....