The Girl with the Traveling Blue Shoes

Life, breath by breath (May 2017)

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 20:14:00 +0000

Day 8 - Cusco, Peru
7:30 a.m.

We booked it through the automatic doors — panting breaths serving a musical backdrop to our dramatic arrival at the Cusco airport.

Nathan and I skidded to a stop at the airline gate.

“Checking in,” I said. The agent eyed my confirmation email. She adjusted her gaze, scrutinizing the two of us before jabbing her finger at the departures display.

Cusco to Lima. Takeoff: 8:30 a.m.

“It's 7.30 a.m. Sorry,” she said. Her tone suggested all but an apology. “The gate has closed.”

I should preface, I’ve got a portfolio of travel mishaps.

I’ve been a day late for a flight. I’ve gotten on a train bound to the wrong city. But this, I swear, was neither my nor Nathan’s doing. We’d arrived at the airport an hour before the flight was scheduled to leave. The Cusco airport mandating presence a good 90 minutes pre-departure fell way beyond our purview.

My mind kicked into full gear. Credit card out, we could just pay for another flight.

Smile, we could sweet talk our way through.

Cancel all plans, we could stay in Cusco, forever.

“What do you suggest?” I said, Nathan interjecting, “Are you sure?” he asked the agent.

Her fingernails clinked ferociously onto her keyboard. A drumbeat of uncertainty.

“Ok,” she said.

Ok?

“We’ll make an exception—reservation number please.”

In the history of anticlimactic successes, this was it. It took Nathan simply asking again for our access to the gate to swap from a hard no to a simple, yes.

The adventure of getting to the airport had begun with an Uber that never showed, which led us to a stranger who guided us to his friend who shuffled us into a car that appeared around the bend to take us to the airport. We broke all the cardinal traveler safety rules to make it to our flight.

But we made it to the airport and onto our plane. I’ll credit it all to pure, sheer luck.

****

Days 1 - 8

Nathan, one of my oldest and closest sleepaway camp friends, and I had talked up an international adventure for years.

Our timing never aligned, until 2017.

The two of us spent a week canvassing the Cusco to Machu Picchu circuit (Lima > Cusco > Sacred Valley > Cusco > Sacred Valley > Ollantaytambo > Aguas Calientes > Machu Pichhu > Cusco > Lima) - recruiting friends at every stop.

There were “the Lindas”—the mother of two American guys we sat across from on the train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu. Mom was named Linda, as were her two, new girlfriends on their group trip.

There were Michelle and Garrit, another couple of friends we met while hiking Machu Picchu and then had dinner with our last night in Cusco. She was a model-singer-actress, he a tech developer in the midst of a nasty lawsuit with an ex-girlfriend.

And there was my 11-year-old comrade, whom I sat next to during the collectivo ride from the Ollantaytambo train stop back to Cusco at the tail end of Nathan’s and my week away.

Linda, her sons and us at the top of Montana Machu Picchu.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Nathan and I curled up on the floor- and later the chairs- of the Lima airport while waiting for our early morning flight to Cusco.

Dinner in Cusco with Michelle and Garrit, another couple of friends we met on our hike up Machu Picchu's Montana.

****

Day 6 - Ollantaytambo to Cusco, Peru
5 p.m.

We were cramped.

Four passengers per row, an inch—if that—available by our feet for bags in our collectivo, or shared minivan.

I sat in the front, my 11-year-old new friend sandwiched between me and the driver.

Smushed in our collectivo headed back to Cusco.

He was a chipper boy, a youthful energy that blended a boyish dynamism with a tinge of shyness. We chatted about the struggles of learning a foreign language and the intricacies of who he was related to in the second row of the minivan we shared.

In his broken English and my relatively non-existent Spanish, I understood that he had just closed out the three-day Inca trail hike, the quintessential trek between Cusco to Machu Picchu. He’d befriended tourists from Spain. Spain was now top of his travel bucket list.

The van hummed as it mazed through the winding roads linking Ollantaytambo to Cusco. I traced the mounds of earth clumped across the terrain.

Veins ridged down the mountainscape, the indented grooves creating sharp color changes between kaki slopes and darkened shadowed in-betweens. The mountains towered over the villages we passed, the colors extraordinary against the piercing blue sky speckled by the cotton wisps of clouds hugging the mountaintops.

The driver turned the knob on the radio, gentle Peruvian music filling the quiet interlude. My new friend’s head bopped against my arm. He’d fallen fast asleep.

****

Day 6 - Cusco, Peru
7 p.m.

I pointed to the address for our evening’s Airbnb.

“Seis soles,” the taxi driver said, eyeing the collectivo that had just dropped us off in Cusco’s central square.

Cusco's central plaza

“Cuatro soles,” I said firmly. Nathan said I’m good at negotiating.

“Seis,” the taxi driver responded resolutely.

Then again, perhaps not.

The movement of the city slowed as the taxi chugged away from the hub of Cusco’s tourist center and into the city’s residential pockets. It was our last night in Cusco before flying out to Lima the following morning.

In all, the car stopped three times.

Once as I scurried out for a photo with two alpacas and their three owners waiting for me, my camera and my donation.

The second time at what we thought was our Airbnb. I, trusting the driver to know best, gathered my belongings. Nathan, the savvier traveler among us, paused. This, he said, looked like a hostel, not the home the Airbnb owner had described. I left Nathan to figure it out, stepping out from the car to meander to the road’s edge for a view of Cusco below. The lights looked like feather dust, twinkling across the otherwise stillness of the city.

Beautiful Cusco, from the Airbnb... that we eventually made it to.

I inhaled deeply, feeling the air constrict at the top of my lungs. We were back in Cusco—back in the city where the week vacation had begun. Where the altitude sickness of our first few days had forced us to pause, to let go and give in to Pacha Mama’s plan for us.

There’s no predicting how Cusco’s altitude will impact you. For us, it drained us of all energy, leaving us out of breath merely walking down the cobbled stones from our hotel.

The breath is a powerful force, as precious as it is innate. The breath centers, the breath fires and, at times, the breath mandates acceptance of life’s inevitable pauses. But it’s in those pauses do we step back, do we adjust our footing and renew our approach to life in the moment.

And the breath did acclimate over the week as we eased our way toward Machu Picchu and through our hikes up Montana and Huayna Picchu. I’d instituted a routine of setting daily intentions. The practice helped focus us on presence in the present, of appreciation for the slithers of goodness that came no matter where the breath would take us that day.

I could hear Nathan in the background thanking the hostel owner. The hostel, I gathered, was not our final destination.

I tore myself from the view, settling back into the taxi as we continued onward, eventually stopping at a home. Our taxi driver watched us knock tentatively on the door. I breathed in. A breath of hope that this, indeed, would be the right destination. A breath of uncertainty: neither of us knew in that moment the scurry that would ensue the following morning in our haste to catch a flight that we would almost miss.

The lock clicked; a woman in an oversized flowery dress opened the door.

“Nathan and Emma?” she beamed. “You made it!”

The Pursuit of Liberation

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 18:03:00 +0000

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

October 8, 2015

Umbrellas dot the rows like colorful dimes, angled on slopes of stairwells spread across the River Ganges. Streaks of sunrise’s pastel sheen glaze over empty chairs set under the parasols. By mid-morning, hordes of pilgrims will crowd priests stationed along the river ghats. But for now, and from my view aboard this canoe, all remains calm as dawn breaks over Varanasi.

I lean back onto the boat’s edge, eyeing the banks in front. Young boys cluster in groups, dousing scrunched clothing into the water before slapping it dry onto the pavement. A man stands laughing in the center of a step, waving his hands vibrantly in half circular motions. He undulates with an energy that seems to meld into the stream as our boat drifts idly by. “Laughing yoga,” our tour leader motions. “He welcomes the rising sun.”

For Hindus, the River Ganges elevates every procession leading to life’s culmination. Cremation at the riverbanks is said to bring the soul to moksha, liberation from nature’s cycle of life and death. Yogic meditation finds home alongside devotees submerging in the holy water as a Hindu cleansing ritual. Dust sprinkles trash mounds spilling over the steps. Flickers of the cremation flames dance in the distance.

They say India will pick at your every grain of patience in a confrontation with elements otherwise separate from our Western daily view. Death is an honor and cremation a public ritual, bodily ashes seeping into the same stream Hindus view as a sacred bathing pool and universal laundromat. India blurs the Western divide of public and private in a mergence of the highest honors within each of our holy beings. And in doing so, we, the tourist, are left to grasp the differences in traditions that define our worlds—and the parallels in values we share simply in being human.

****

Our group had left Orchha the night prior, bearing the discomfort of a 12-hour overnight train to Varanasi. We’d been warned of the rats that slept amid the bunks, the squat toilets that would undoubtedly reek and the unwarranted gaze Indian men oft plant on the white female traveler. Only one in our group awoke to a cockroach in her hair. The train’s security officer stared at me for a solid hour while Caitlan and I sat the early morning hours out on the stiffness of a 90-degree cardboard seat.

Varanasi marked the last stop in our two-week circuit of northern India. The trip commenced in Delhi, followed by hours-long bus rides to Jaipur (India’s “pink city”), Agra (the mandatory Taj Majal visit), Tordi Sagar, Alipura, Orchha and finally, Varanasi.

In India, food and language and saris change for every 30 miles you travel. Our two weeks in the North merely scraped the surface of the medley of culture flavoring the veins of the country in its entirety.

India is home to the majestic memorials and historic mosques, the grandiose pilgrimages and sacrosanct Hindu rites. Curries dosed in spices submerge the senses, all amidst the backdrop of an unspoiled landscape touched so marginally by the norms of Western living. Goats nibble at lettuce leaves dangling from market stalls, hurried along by the hundreds moving in and out amid the cars and cows and rickshaws sharing the same strip. Our bus rides through India’s countryside passed men and women working in the fields, women’s saris rich with color as the material swayed so softly in the wind. I’d watch them finger the fabric, modestly drawing the loose hanging pallav to cover their mouths.

India’s ever-present honking is the pulsating nerve of the country’s soul: cars, trucks, rickshaws (and cows, if they could) jam the “blow horn” unremittingly. In every village and city, at every juncture of each unpaved road, “here I am,” the honk signals. Indeed, in a country of 1.2 billion people, here they are.

India is a stark disparity of grand wealth surrounded by intense and widespread poverty. Children walk barefoot along streets caked with gravel, garbage and cow manure. Oddly, it did not strike me as out of the norm. This is simply their way of life.

Scenes from Delhi, Tordi Sagar and Alipura. Cows, viewed by Hindus as sacred, roam cities freely. During our stay, newspapers reported on a Hindu man who killed his Muslim neighbor for allegedly slaughtering a cow. The bottom picture shows child beggars asleep on the Jhansi train station floor.

****

Orchha, Madhya Pradesh

October 5, 2015

“Orchha,” our tour leader explained, navigating us briskly through the throngs spilling from the town's central square, “is the site of the famed Ram Raja temple. You will see thousands of pilgrims here from all across Northern India.” We trailed at his heel, maneuvering past block print sheets coloring designs onto the concrete floor. Children dozed on the blankets in oblivion to the cows meandering among the few open spaces. Our group paused as a magnificent thud prompted a stampede of men battling for entrance beyond the temple doors. From where stood, women conversed as if it were an ordinary day, unfazed by the palette of movement consuming Orchha's temple grounds.

Caitlan nudged me. A half curve of men had begun to form around us, peering as intently at our group as we were at the scene. We must have appeared to them what the pilgrimage site looked to us: extraordinarily different.

At first glance, the Indian existence seems so far removed from the daily of our American lives. Cows idle by village homes, the interiors largely barren save dangling wires hooked to a tube TV. We entered a potter’s courtyard in Alipura, captured by the swiftness at which he spun the clay mold into cups and vases. His wife crouched on their doorstep as she cooked over a portable mud stove.

Female pilgrims in Orchha trekked without shoes, their posture upright as they hiked up their saris, balancing luggage on the surface of their heads. Our hotel in the village of Tordi Sagar brought in a young woman likely no more than 14 to apply the traditional henna to our arms and feet. She bore the red dye on her scalp: a Hindu symbol denoting a woman as married.

I found myself contemplating the similarities between my religious customs and those of the Hindu practice. Cows do not grace my synagogue’s aisles, yet, like the pilgrimage at Orchha, like the rituals at the banks of the River Ganges, our High Holy Days do draw out devotees en masse. Hindu, Jewish—Christian, Buddhist, are the basic intentions set by our various traditions not the same?

I thought of the jitters the henna artist in Tordi Sagar may have felt on her wedding day, if she too had experienced the anxiety of life transitions. I reflected on my own personal challenges I had spent the months prior attempting to resolve. And through this rabbit hole of never-ending thoughts, I wondered just how different, really, is my reach for fulfillment from the experiences of those we came across in our two weeks in India?

Our worlds, at face value, resemble so little of each other’s. But when you strip aside the structures that define how we live, the core of our innate desires must frame around resounding similarities. The hope we seek as answers to life’s complexities; the sense of belonging so critical to the fulfillment we crave: this, I believe, is what we share as humans.

Our cultures dictate the application of our pursuits. But no matter the form, our journeys to fulfillment, to liberation, find common ground in the human connections that bypass our cultural differences. The beauty in traveling enables a certain appreciation for how we—the universal we— come to the varied traditions that instill hope and honor life.

India has left me starkly aware that it is not the things we live with that grant the fulfillment we desire. But rather, it's through the depth of our relationships that we forge our own paths, uncovering the richness of life in this pursuit of liberation.

*******

We ate at this farmer's home in the rural village of Tordi Sagar. He's a father of 9, wraps his head turban in about 10 seconds, and cooks up a mean dhal and chapati. According to our tour guide, 75% of Indians live as this farmer does. The picture below captures men bathing in the River Ganges.

Berlin: A lofted bed in the studio we almost didn't get the key for

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 21:28:00 +0000

October 2-6, 2014
Berlin, Germany

Berlin's iconic Brandenburger Tor.

“There’s no key,” the shopkeeper grumbled, sifting through the plastic bin on the register counter. She sighed, heaving every lodged particle of air into a forceful stream that, if she could, would whisk me out of her line of sight and, preferably, I sensed, out of her boutique.

My AirBnB contact had specified this jewelry store, located just off Berlin's Alexanderplatz, to collect her studio key. She, the apartment owner, was out of the country and I, watching the exasperated associate, was stuck.

“No,” the shopkeeper repeated, half to me, half to the container. “She does this every time. As if we're charged with delivering her key to her guests." She stared me intently, willing me to understand the gravity of the situation. "But can I tell you?" The associate was my gatekeeper between homeless for the night and access to the studio apartment Mariene and I had reserved for the next four days. I sensed I’d do better keeping my mouth shut. “Antje doesn't work here anymore. She shouldn't have sent you."

My exhaustion might well have been a separate suitcase parked at the boutique storefront. I had left Kayli’s early that morning after a late evening at Oktoberfest the night prior. Thick fog veiled the S-bahn platform, a brisk chill piercing the early hours as I awaited a train to the Munich airport and onto Berlin. I frankly did not have the energy to argue over this key. All I knew was that I wanted it.

The associate punched numbers into the store phone, a stream of English and German exchanged sharply with who I assumed to be Antje. The vocal tone escalated before abruptly, however thankfully, simmering. She knelt under the register, lodging the phone between shoulder and ear as she pulled out a separate bin. The hidden key lay at the very top. We exchanged no words, but I offered a smile: universal symbol for thank you.

****

Yom Kippur fell on a Friday. It’s the Jewish Day of Atonement, obligating a 25-hour fast intended to harden focus to prayer: redemption from a year’s build up of any less than holy behavior.

Mariene had arrived that morning, Kayli the night prior-- all of us regrouping to attend services that evening. The synagogue required neither ticket nor donation to enter. A High Holy day ticket in the States could well be my grocery budget for the week.

Certainly, the experience might have resonated more deeply had we planned differently. But the services, the Siddur and the rabbi's sermon were in German, losing total understanding to the obvious language barrier. Instead, the nuances of Yom Kippur day took shape around our own self-guided walking tour of the city: through the Holocaust memorial, past the Brandenburger Tor, dipping briefly into an egalitarian service in Berlin's largest synagogue and walking in and around the nooks of Berlin's stunning residential areas.

If anything, 25-hours spent atoning for our sins reinforced just how much you can do on an empty stomach.

T: The East Side Gallery: the longest stretch of a preserved part of the Berlin Wall.

B: Berlin's Holocaust Memorial: The city disappears as you walk individually through the blocks. It's a full body and truly incredible experience.

Where Munich’s Nazi history is ingrained in the fabric of the city's transformation, Berlin’s Cold War scars are far more raw than the atrocities of its Holocaust past. Plaques across Berlin's streets denote where the former Berlin Wall once stood; portions of the wall remain, with the longest stretch of the East Side Gallery adorned by artists worldwide.

Redefining a country takes time: time to build the history of new era, acknowledging the past's guilt in accepting the future's potential. Hitler had documented Berlin's architectural structure before storing stone sculptures into bunkers underground. The buildings destroyed in World War II are still being rebuilt, and the sculptures reinstated. They’re discolored from the buildings they’re attached to—some of the city’s few original artifacts representing, in their own right, the critical years they lay hidden away.

West Berlin reportedly has brighter lights; the street symbols differ from East to West, as does the coloring of the remaining architecture. But in our four days, I didn’t sense a stark divide. Cranes dot modern Berlin’s skyline. They're monuments onto their own: a powerful symbol of Germany's continuous motion to rebuild and redefine, to find its own redemption in letting go and embracing a fresh slate of the future ahead.

****

The metal bar felt jarringly cool under my toes, still warmed from the duvet moments prior to the shrill of my morning alarm. I gripped the ladder intently, maneuvering tentatively down from the lofted bed to the studio floor. It was neat in theory, a bed lodged over the kitchen. Still, the question beckoned: how’d you get down if, say, you broke your leg in the middle of the night?

The bed, in my own strange way, represented so much of the year lead up to my Germany trip. I’d spent the past 12-months navigating the unsettled motions life post-grad naturally throws. An August low had folded into a September high. I'd received the full time offer at a company I'd begun as a fellow, finally returned home to Florida after two years away, and had been given this: a week escape to travel abroad.

I loosened my iron grip on the ladder’s railing, pleased to see the ground floor firm beneath my frigid toes. My key ring rested on the kitchen ledge, securing the key that shopkeeper had so reluctantly handed over upon my arrival in Berlin. I reeled it off from its silver clasp, placing it back down onto the surface. It lay alone, an independent soul awaiting its rightful owner's return.

That boutique associate could have withheld the key. Our AirBnB contact could have missed her call. The studio door may never have opened. But as the great sages say (passed down by way of my wise acupuncturist), the stone that hits you could never have missed you. It all eventually works out as it should.

My blue shoes have tested the hoops of ladders leading to lofted beds, following through periods of growth, of doubt, and, at points, of unbelievable fulfillment. Life grants us tremendous opportunities. We're tasked with accepting when appropriate, redefining when applicable, and, as I gazed at the ridges of the key motionless on the kitchen counter, ultimately moving forward no matter the prospects in store.

T: Memorial representing the books, written by Jewish authors, that were burned by the Nazis.
B: East Side Gallery.

Munich: The Culture of Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 15:30:00 +0000

September 27, 2014
New York City - JFK Airport

The carry-on’s clutch shook as he clenched the handle’s grip, impatience fueling frustration. “This line,” he muttered, a mopped shag twisting to the exasperated shake of his head.

The man leaned over, surveying the curved JFK security line in front. Passengers and baggage snaked long ahead from where he stood, I watching from behind. The line mandated commitment. Commitment spiked with a generous pinch of patience.

In the security line of an international airport, worlds so easily collide despite check in signs for countries where cultures divide. But here in the queue itself, we’re all one and the same. A parade of ants trudging forward: the gift of speed handed over for the power of patience.

“Passport,” the gruffness of the officer’s tone connoted one of a man rooted in his seat far longer than the hour I’d stood waiting. The officer nodded sharply, maneuvering me robotically along the motions of the stringent U.S. airport process. My orange case-- the same that's followed my travels from Thailand onward-- slid through the mouth of the security reel.  I tugged the clutch upward and suitcase forward.

50 minutes left until takeoff.

****

September 28- October 2, 2014

Munich, Germany

Marienplatz, Munich's central plaza

It's always the trees, scattered like seeds across a cityscape that I notice first. And then the cars, how toy like they seem, moving but a hairline along weaved strips of roadway below. The minutiae of daily life among the history and culture embedded within a city plays no role in that initial observation. It’s a carte blanche of sorts as the plane submits to gravity, diving onto the smooth stretch of the Munich runway.

My jet lag would cloak over by 8 p.m., hours after Kayli, one of my oldest camp friends, had picked me up at the airport. She guided us onto Munich’s S-bahn commuter train and on toward Feldafing, where Kayli lived with the family whom she au paired for.

By 9 p.m., we met up with Kayli’s friends at Oktoberfest, the ambience thick with the thrill of the festival’s miles long stretch of rides and tents, vomit-strewn floors, women in dirndls and men in lederhosens.

There must have been thousands crowded inside the beer halls, bodies loose with energy as we joined in, stepping up onto a picnic tabletop. The live band energized the night, positioned in the center of the hall amid ribbons and frills adorning the interior from the top down.

I’d learn on a Munich walking tour that some 70,000 visitors flock to Oktoberfest over the course of the weeklong celebration. Picture it as the Mardi Gras of Germany’s south. The celebration feeds the culture of the city where-- be you a local or visitor-- the beer glass transcends country lines: international appreciation for the Bavarian national pastime.

The craze of an Oktoberfest beer hall.

**

"Germany?" my grandparents emailed back, a response charged with the familiar tone of those who grew up in the shadows of the Second World War. My grandfather lived in London, my grandmother evacuated to Wales. Their World War II stories are ones of sirens sounded and shelters sought during the German bombing blitz of the early 1940s. For my grandparents, Germany was a threat to their country, not just to the Jewish people.

My grandfather visited Germany in 1952 as a student, returning with my grandmother in the 60s to explore, as they explain, "new Germany." Yet among the majority of Jewish grandparents, the reluctance to visit and resistance to purchase German goods remains strong. The history, after all, is personal, the scars lasting. It's our generation-- three generations since-- that is among the first to shake the reservation, removed enough so not to let Germany’s past bar us from exploring the country it’s progressed to today.

The pitter-patter of rain slows as the S-bahn approaches Stranburg, the serene stretch of a translucent lake coming into view. Contours of the dewy mountainous distance add only slight gradation to the gray-blue scheme. From here, we're about 40 minutes to Marienplatz, Munich’s main square bearing the city’s central landmarks.

My decision to visit Germany had not developed at random, as my travels never, however last minute planning, are. It was three years ago in Paris that I’d befriended Natalia and Sergej, two Germans who, despite not being Jewish, joined me my last evening in Paris for Shabbat at Chabad.

New Town Hall in Marienplatz

My Shabbats at the Champs Elysees Chabad shaped so much of the experience I took away from those six months in Paris. The people I met, the friends I made—you never know how parts of your life trickle through as the years unfold. I used to always take visitors I’d meet to Trocadero after Shabbat. It's Paris’s best view to watch the Eiffel Tower’s light show, on the hour every hour once the veil of night cloaks the city.

That last evening Natalia and Sergej gave me the company I'd offered so many others-- as we raced from Shabbat dinner to Trocadero, the two of them sitting through the blur of my tears as the flicker of the tower’s dancing bulbs twisted my torn heart.

It seems so small in retrospect, but Natalia and Sergej’s selflessness served one of the early catalysts that would set me in motion to consider Germans today away from my preconceptions defined from a war seven decades ago.

Choosing to visit Germany challenged me to consider a world that has made steps toward accepting, with structure in place to never forget. No one asks us to forgive. But we can choose to push aside and enter proud—proud of the Jewish heritage that persists today decades since any plan to once rid it from existence.

The lake at Stranburg. From here, it's about 40 minutes to Munich's city center.

I spent my first two days in Munich exploring the travel book’s recommendations: stifling the giggles as I assessed a scene of sunbathing nude elders at the Englischer Garten; delving into World War I history at the Jewish Museum; and paying respects to Olympia Stadion’s memorial to the Israeli athletes kidnapped and killed by Palestinian terrorists.

Day one, however, began as I love to start first days in any new city:

Simply, walking around.

**

When in Europe, fashion flare over utilitarian comfort holds. Until your back gives out, and your shoulders hurt and holes form under your shoes. And whatever notion of looking semi a-la-mode in white flats with gold tips so quickly dissipates in lieu of the tourist in sneakers appeal.

Our group’s footsteps slowed as we—a group of 23 on a three-hour walking tour— approached the alleyway. I peered down, trailing the scaled rings curved around a thick weave of golden stones. The beveled pavement felt smooth under the soles of my worn flats.

Germans, our guide explained, would sneak down this very path in World War II's early days to avoid saluting the SS stop around the corner. But as SS officers caught wind of the cut through, they shifted their efforts to patrol of the passageway. Those with neither adequate reason to enter nor proof of identity were publicly beaten or shot.

“These golden steps here honor the courage of those Nazi resistors," our guide said. He was a husky man, his blue rugged jeans sagging clumsily over beaten sneakers. “Think of life under Nazi rule. Of the Germans with a family to support, children to raise, a life to protect," he urged. "Were you guilty if you didn’t resist the Nazis?"

My gaze traced the golden design, spokes of moss spotting ridges between stones.  I’m quick to consider the Jewish plight under Nazi rule. But how often do I remember those who risked their lives to protect others from threat? The culture of memory pervades the very essence of how we understand history, framing the heroes and villains within. But what-- or better yet, who-- defines the one who did wrong? Were you guilty if you didn’t defy Nazi oppression?

It's hard to imagine Munich once patrolled by Nazi officers, of swastikas blazed onto blood red flags draping building exteriors. What did it mean to be guilty? And what relevance does it hold, seventy years later?

There’s no simple answer, in the way the Holocaust is not a black and white story. Yet, no one asks us to forgive, and no one mandates that we answer. The scars of Germany’s past undoubtedly shape the framework of the country’s character, an ever reminder of the evil of man unto the framework of society. But the brutality of their Nazi history, the persecution of Jews before, and the country’s split following is not a story Germans shy away from.  And so we can choose to push aside-- to bear to witness the memory of the Holocaust's victims, and take a moment to consider the courage of those who resisted Nazi rule.

"Were you guilty?" our guide repeated, eyeing us carefully. "And if so, how guilty?" He sighed deeply, the breath compressing into his chest.

My gaze swept along the curved design, the golden color contrasting beautifully against the rich purple of the paved walkway. It’s the golden lining of a lesson for us all—of our potential to meet valor and courage, bravery and perseverance in the face of cruelty and horror.

I didn't come to an answer that morning, and haven't in the weeks since. For perhaps seventy years after a war that scarred and shaped Germany as it stands today, perhaps it's ok not to have an answer.

S-bahn stop at Feldafing, where Kayli lived and I stayed.
Photo taken in the early hours of the morning, as I took the train to the airport-- leaving Munich and en route to Berlin.

A Breath in Time: Final Thailand Days

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 16:58:00 +0000

June 18, 2013
The breath streams in, pressing deep through the chest before releasing hard into the core. Tension tears but the body grips to its balance. Each second passes— still, silent.

Our teacher guides us with a liquid lightness, curling her toes onto the edge of her mat. Her arms rise swiftly like knives slicing stillness in two.

Twenty hands follow.

The canvas of the room’s only window frames her fiery red hair, jarred by the aluminum domino view of Bangkok’s skyline. Twenty six floors up and life outside seems so distant.

Inhale. Outside, where each passing moment chips at our last few hours in Bangkok. Where later that day we’d shuffle into our last cab, sweeping through the rich curves of the city streets.

Exhale. Where the taxi would stall in the congestion of Bangkok’s traffic, eventually drawing in to the gateway of our exit.

The plane would tear through the runway that night, soaring over shrinking pieces of a downtown view, no care for my aching desire to cut the breath, to hook the sensation and keep it, just a moment more.

Inhale.

Wisps of hair graze my shoulders, clenched between folds of pressed skin. I follow our teacher’s lead, lowering the hands in prayer, softly scanning forehead to heart. I separate my lips to heave out a bellied “om." The breath skirts upward, fluttering up before disappearing out into the space.

I shut my eyes, falling into the breath’s patterned cycle. Time relaxes and all is still, just for the moment.

Bangkok, Thailand

****
June 14- June 18, 2013
Caitlan and I flew into Bangkok from Koi Samui that Friday morning, stumbling back into the hotel we’d stayed at our first week in Bangkok. But of course our room wasn’t ready until the 2 p.m. check in. “I’ll see what I can do,” the lady at the front desk said stoutly, whisking us away. It was just barely 9 a.m. so Caitlin and I curled onto the hard floor of the waiting area, too dazed to note our discomfort.

We’d registered for high tea at the swanky Shangri-La hotel a few days later. A heavenly buffet caved in our corner of the lobby’s lounge— a steaming porcelain pot serving our centerpiece for our little table for two. We were the few white faces among the majority upper-crust Thai families. The women, I noted, were pale, their coiffed hair permed. Couples—husbands with their wives, elderly women with their troupe of male dancers and the token older gentleman with his notably younger female counterpart— sashayed the afternoon away on the ballroom floor, gracefully tapping in tune to the band’s live music.

I had a made us a list of the must-do itinerary that turned into the never-happened bullet points. (Museums reservations at a counterfeit museum were overbooked; Our dress code, at one bar, was off.)

But what I did manage to get was a fake designer watch at a Bangkok night market, after weeks of egging Caitlan to stop at each watch stand we passed. I had managed to get us pulled into a shady alleyway in Chiang Mai, an enclave concealed by a velvet curtain where stacks upon stacks of watches were piled. Four businessmen huddled in the narrow corner eyeing us deftly. I, naturally, got the giggles.

“Kapkoonka, but no thank you,” we spit out, scurrying back out into the flurry of Chiang Mai’s bustling market.

Khao San Road, Bangkok, Thailand

****

A tuk-tuk ride was on the itinerary that last night in Bangkok.

"Where to?" Caitlan asked, eyeing the clothes strewn among our hotel room. We’d be leaving the following afternoon.

"Anywhere," I responded.

And so after a kapkoonka (or ten) and a bigger baht fee than anticipated, we haggled a driver into giving us a round trip tuk tuk ride. Caitlan and I gripped the steel poles as we winded from the backpacker strip of Khao San toward the Grand Temple complex, streaming toward spokes of jeti golden tips towering overhead.

The breeze whipped our faces as the tuk tuk rattled on, memories and moments of the month rushing forward. We had walked those steps our first day in the city, dodging the tourist dupes of “friendly men” keen to explain the Grand Temple was closed, “but we can get you in our own tour.”

And it was in that moment that I let go. Let go of my search for the story I’d been chasing that month. Let go of the anxiety of returning to the states (post-grad jitters to attend to, internship to begin, new lease to start). I let go, forcing focus on the moment and my appreciation for the time spent sharing this experience with one of my closest friends. Because that’s what our month, this story was about: guiding each other through the unknown of both our worlds, the changing pace of life post-grad and the adventure of a pause in between.

Caitlan says she watches movies for the moment. I travel for the moment. For the moment it clicks, for the rush of the feeling, the step back from life— the freeness it breeds and the greater clarity it allows.

I’ve been playing with the idea of time since reading Jess Walter’s book Beautiful Ruins. He leaves off the novel with a note addressing the place time as a concept has in developing a story's meaning.

Time didn’t define our trip. It shaped it. It enabled it. And so what place does time have in the story and memories we've taken away? Time has every place and no place in memory. Time permits experience. Experience provides memory's basic plot of time. And the story folds over once meaning is found.

****
The taxi draws into the airport’s departure gate, stalling as it parks. The driver unloads our carry-ons, packed in more tightly than how they’d arrived.

It all blurs, the check in to security to the hours waiting for the flight. The yoga class that morning seemed as if it had happened years back.

Inhale.

We board, the two of us seated at opposite ends of the last row. That had been my luck on my flight back from Australia. On a positive, it meant we were closer to the bathroom.

Exhale.

Seven months later and Thailand has settled in as another chapter to life’s bounty of experiences. We’ve taken away the memories—stories of bartering down taxis, zip-lining our life down the slopes of Chiang Mai’s rattled ropes. Of curling up on an overnight train and booking a flight from Koi Samui to Bangkok 13 hours before take off.

Our story was of paying that extra $7 for air conditioning in our Ko Phi Phi bungalow, only to awake the following morning to a power outage. Of the time I ran from a dog, thinking it were a bug while in Pai (don’t ask) and subsequently crashing into a tree, scraping my gum on the bark. Caitlan rolled her eyes each time I struck conversation with a taxi driver (who never spoke English), and I can’t count the times I mistook a customer for a waiter.

What place does time have in memory? Time, as a concept, gave us the moments. Time in numbers: one month. Two girls. Ten cities.

Inhale.

One incredible adventure.

Exhale.

And that’s the story. Really, no more than that.

Grand Temple, Bangkok, Thailand

Ko Phi Phi and Koi Samui: A piece of the whole

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:45:00 +0000

June 11-13, 2013

There are the moments when words escape. Where all clears and clarity breaks through. The ends tie and-- just for a moment-- the meaning I'm forever in search of surfaces, ushered in by...

something.

Bullets of rain puncture the peace, setting off a current of ripples across the expanse of the water. We've been away for three weeks. I still haven't captured my story.

The drops fall as if in choreograph, slowly letting up as the rain lessens. The tide washes over, the islands in the distance reappear and again, all is calm.

I turn to walk away, nowhere closer to finding my story—yet vaguely aware it’s not really about the story.

_____________

The ferry’s door had been left ajar as we trudged abroad our third mode of transportation: hour six of the day’s total eight-hour trek from Ko Phi Phi to Koi Samui.

We’d spent two days in Ko Phi Phi, a stunning island run rampant by the white tourists flooding the small space. It’s where I met my monkey-to-be, my macaque prince charming named JoJo who wore a diaper and a shirt. His owner had let me hold him in exchange for 100 baht ($3).

Prince charming

Ko Phi Phi is on the one end of Thailand—Koi Samui on the other. It’s a four hour ferry ride from Koi Samui to the island of Krabi, a two hour bus ride (themed 70s style with faded pink curtains and worn, neon blue seats) across Krabi.

And finally this ferry, our final, two-hour boat ride.

The Hangover 2 was playing in the ferry's downstairs room. We settled in just as the ferry official walked through, row by row. We watched those seated grab their items, stand up and head out.

“An extra 40 baht to sit inside?” one huffed. I turned to Caitlan. 40 baht? The chutzpah.

You know you’ve been in Thailand for some time when 40 baht is reason to curl up on the floor of the outdoor deck—which is what we did, grabbing our stuff and following the trail of others in no mood to dish out 40 baht for a cozy seat.

Even if, you know, 40 baht is just over $1.

_____________

The vibe of the south differs sharply to that of the north. Touristy and far more expensive. Water was 28 baht. Anywhere else, 14 baht for a tall bottle was the norm.

We spent an evening and full day in Koi Samui, letting the afternoon drift away as we laid out on the island’s largest beach.

We left Koh Samui somewhat on a whim. Our plan that Wednesday had been to leave that Friday. Destination: Bangkok. Transportation: TBD. By Thursday, we crossed off the overnight train ride option, deciding, rather, to book a flight-- which we did, 13 hours before it was due to take off.

____________

It was a few months back-- well before graduation-- and I was at coffee with a friend. He asked me for a story. So I told him about my interview with a Civil War connoisseur.

Cool, my friend had responded. But that’s not your story. Think about it, he challenged.

It’s the challenge the follows today.

I dig my toes in the sand, letting the smoothness of the waves crash over the bareness of my feet. The shrill of the music’s vibrations power the moment. It's a refreshing contrast to the stillness of the water.

I stop, my gaze fixed ahead as if, for the moment, the world stops spinning and I’m standing, at the center of where I’m supposed to be. There’s an infinite tide of possibilities so far ahead. I can sense that. There’s a story that awaits. The same one I’m living today.

Life is our story. Each moment is the experience. And it’s the moments that piece together to create the whole. From here, on the edge between water and depths of opportunity, there’s no way I can see my full story.

My toes tingle as the water gapes through the open spaces.

For now, I’m just experiencing a bit of the whole.

No plan goes according to plan

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 05:45:00 +0000

June 3- 10

View from our last hotel in Chiang Mai.
The most awful hotel we stayed at,
but the most beautiful view out of all.

The thud of the clock’s every stroke is the only movement within the stillness of the drab, hospital room.

Time is eerie in a hospital—the fluorescent, stark lights unchanging, the faces of patients and individuals worn with worry. There was a father in the elevator, a girl's small hand snug within his tender grasp. She wore the pale, turquoise patient garb, soft features framing her young face. If you could pick through all a hospital elevator sees within the day, it would be like sifting through the thickest current of a range of emotions.

Only as you step out from the hospital doors do you realize the world has moved on, nightfall replacing the late morning you'd arrived in. Though it's all the same to the patients on the other end, hooked to an IV as each drop swivels through the translucent tube under the skin.

Or at least, as is the case with Caitlan who's been stuck inside the Bangkok Hospital of Phuket for the past four days. Diagnosis: Dengue Fever.

________________

I slumped into the backseat of the taxi, noting the faint glow of the moon up ahead.

"How are you?" the driver asked, pushing aside his ruffled shag of black hair.

I sighed, charging off onto a spiel as Caitlan had entered that morning, her fever high, the two of us unsure as to the cause behind the symptoms. She underwent blood work, the nurses returning with her diagnosis. We'd read up on Dengue Fever when Caitlan first felt ill. It's one of two illnesses listed in the back of our Thailand travel books. The other: malaria.

Symptoms-- high fever, headache, gum irritation, dizziness, decreasing platelet count-- can develop anywhere between three to 15 days after infected and last between seven to 12 days. The fever is transmitted by mosquitoes; there's no cure nor precaution, save avoiding mosquitoes. It's a matter of riding out the fever while restoring the platelets. Caitlan, as a result, is hooked to an IV; The fever could have turned lethal had we waited just a few extra days.

"Long," I told the taxi driver. "It's been a long day."

He beamed, his hair bobbing as he nodded animatedly.

"Good, good," he responded, looking pleased with his English.

And for the first time, Caitlan wasn't next to me to laugh for she's always the one to make fun of my never ending attempts to converse with our Thai taxi drivers. Who, all but one, can never fully respond.

Her fever had started in Chiang Rai, Thailand's northernmost province. It was day three of our stay (too long in both of our books) and we were en route to what we thought was Chang Saen.

Caitlan was dizzy, though that morning, neither of us thought too much of it.

________________

Chiang Rai bus station

We’d returned to Chiang Mai after two nights in the hippy, mountain town of Pai-- setting off to Chiang Rai the following day. Chiang Rai is a sleepy town-- little to see, save the night market, a white temple and town clock that lights up on the hour at night with a musical ensemble that blares from city speakers.

Chiang Rai's location allowed for a day trip to Mae Salong, a Chinese tea village up in the mountains. We arranged for a hotel van to shuttle us to and back. The cost had been an arm and a leg, so we opted for a DIY trip to Chang Saen-- the center of the opium trade and the city the closest to the Hall of Opium, a privately owned and funded museum.

There’s no obvious booth to buy a ticket at the Chiang Rai bus stop. Not, for that matter, that there are obvious places in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, but at least in those cities, there are enough booths with people able to help. The two of us moseyed along the numbered, nameless stops, a kind gentleman overhearing Chang Saen and pointing us toward a driver pacing by his van.

Vans in northern Thailand are 14 seat shuttles—with a stroke of luck, perhaps with a/c that works. They stop at their share of random locations along highways and side streets—and seeing as our driver assured us we were headed to Chang Saen, Caitlan and I assumed the last stop would be our requested destination.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” our driver said, a touch of a smile as we stepped out the van, a pristine view of the river in front, mammoth sculptures of elephants anchored by golden posts off in the distance. "This is Golden Triangle," the driver laughed. Chang Saen had been the stop before.

There was a small information desk, manned by a few women who spoke fairly little English.

We needed to know what time the last bus would leave from the Golden Triangle. But the desk womens' English conveniently stopped after their line about the motorcycle they'd offered to rent to us in lieu of the oddly, nonexistent taxi cabs around. We spotted a group of tourists, I picking up that they were French. And so switching to the language that guided last year's experience abroad, I got us directions to the Hall of Opium, found out that the last bus to Chiang Rai would leave at 5 and asked after their whereabouts. "Fontainebleau," one of the ladies responded. It's a small, well-to-do town outside of Paris, known by the chateaux in the center of it.

I smiled. I’d been there, just over a year ago. It’s funny where life takes you—what carries through as the adventure unfolds and life all blends.

Top: Golden Triangle
Bottom: Chiang Rai's white temple

__________

A monk rode in the front our van that afternoon. He work bright orange robes; We'd learned that the orange of their robes references the story of the bark tree the Buddha used to dye monk shrouds. Monks wear one of four shades of orange (saffron, bright, dark and a red/brown). The colors once differentiated where the monks lived. Today, it's merely tradition.

The monk had a round face, a thin layer of prickled dark hair, salted by gray strands. He smile was wide, stretching all sides of his cheeks, two twisted front teeth poking in front of his gaping grin.

We had been chatting with a lady to our right, a young woman from Georgia who'd spent a year and a half working in an elephant research center in Bangkok and Chang Saen. She spoke Thai, translating the monk’s words for us as he turned to ask after our birthdays.

"Honesty," he said to me. "September, you are honest."

__________

Chiang Rai bus station

Cailtan’s fever had peaked by the time we got back to the hotel that evening. We left for Chiang Mai the following day, stopping at Chiang Rai’s white temple in the morning before heading back to the chaos of the bus station.

It was our third time back in Chiang Mai, staying in a cheap daily/weekly/monthly apartment at the other end of the canal that cuts through the old city. The area was less touristy, less English and I sensed home to more expats.

I paced through the narrow alley from the hotel and onto the busy road of the main street, headed to find a pharmacy to purchase a thermometer. I mimed sick to a lady on a bench outside her store. She responded—her English surprisingly perfect—directing me to the drugstore down the street. But none of the nurses understood my rendition of thermometer, and so I took to pen and paper, drawing out my request.

With Caitlan inside the room, I ate meals alone. I sat outdoors for breakfast, losing myself in the view of the morning rush as the city awoke. A father sat outside of his shop—he spoke in French as he played with his young, Asian daughter. A monk walked past, slow in his step as he ambled ahead. One of the girls who worked in the restaurant arrived on her motorcycle; She was dressed in her school uniform, the standard navy skirt inched just below the knee, tucked over a a plain, gray-blue, button-down shirt.

A thin, scrawny man rode by on his bicycle, waving to catch my attention. He framed two fingers into a half circle, pulling the corners of his mouth.

Smile, he seemed to say. I did, laughing as he cycled by.

I came to Thailand for the adventure, though just as much in search of a story. But halfway through of our month away, I can’t quite put my finger on just what the story is.

You can't plan things in life, nor chase a story you're in the midst of creating.

This could be my story if I lived here, I thought as I walked back to the hotel to check on Caitlan, her fever having spiked to 103 degrees Fahrenheit. A lady sat cross-legged on the bench by the hotel, her back to the sidewalk, her gaze fixated on the television screen at the end wall of her storefront. She'd been sitting in the same position the day prior.

Carving a place in this Thai life wouldn't be easy, but I know with time I could adapt. The lady outside her shop and I would exchange a sowatdeeka-- hello. The family opposite the apartment building we're staying in would become familiar faces.

Though, as I mentioned to Caitlan once back in the room, what’s the purpose in lifting all we know as comfort into the challenge of finding a new place and recreating the routine of life away from the one we already have?

I think the clearest when away from my routine. I find my stories in my travels. And I feed from the accomplishments that rise from the challenges I set myself upon.

Yes, that could be my story. Running away from life, following the Buddhist, honest trail to a new place in a Thai world.

__________

We caught a flight to Phuket that evening, headed south to Thailand's largest island and beach resort. We would have just over a week to explore the southern islands before somehow working our way up to Bangkok.

Which, at the time, neither of us were worried. There’s no plan to anything as life goes on—no plan to our trip, no plan to Caitlan’s fever. A fever that two days later would still linger at 103 degrees Fahrenheit—as we hailed a cab to the international wing of the Phuket hospital. Caitlan would be admitted and the slowest four days would settle-- each drummed stroke of the hospital room's horrible clock serving the reminder that no plan ever goes according to plan.

Top: Mae Salong tea plantation
Bottom: Mae Salong village

The thrill of life without the fear of trying

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 02:11:00 +0000

May 30- June 1

They say you eat an average of eight spiders per year. That is, in your sleep—although in this part of the world, perhaps on a stick.

And seeing as there was a spider on top of the towel and a lizard on the wall and some sort of flying creature trespassing through our bungalow, I reckon I'll reach my year quota in the two nights of our stay in the northern, mountain city of Pai.

To add to the matter, my covers had a dead bug and the sheets were smeared with some sort of pink smudge—lipstick stain… or insect remains?

Whichever way, unsanitary in my book.

I had been fine that afternoon as our van of 14 curved through the 762 bends of the mountain drive from Chiang Mai to Pai. The ride should be my proof that if I could make it through four-hours of motion sickness, I can sleep through two nights of a mountain bungalow shared with resort critters. For that van offered the same amount of room to be car sick as there was to stretch my legs.

Precisely none at all.

____________

May 29

It came to me while white water rafting in Chiang Mai.

Life doesn't have to be about conquering fears-- More so, I believe, not letting our fears stop us from trying.

It’s been some time since I last white water rafted-- my hesitation a result of a fatal incident that occurred within my camp community a couple years back.

The creek we rafted through. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking.

Caitlan and I had signed up for a group, day trek on our third day in Chiang Mai-- white water rafting a part of the itinerary. Seven other Chinese travelers had also registered, all of whom were coupled up save one. His name was Ju and was traveling alone.

We spent the day shuttling from our hotel to an orchid farm (thrilling), before parking at destination day trek. We hiked a short way up the mountain, harnessing ourselves to a thin wire of a zip line and zig zigging our way back down. The lines were attached to the trees with a man at each of the 19 platforms to catch our fall.

Though catching must have been a loose term for they tended to focus more on taking our picture (for us to later buy), forgetting to yell “brake” (in which we were to stick a hammer-like tool onto the wire in order to brake the fall) and then, for the times they managed to throw the camera aside in time, catching us in the last few seconds.

We later paired off for elephant riding, joining together again for an hour floating on a relaxing bamboo raft, before heading out to a shallow, rocky creek for white water rafting.

____________
I froze getting on the raft, tense as we bumped along the rocks though I knew there was no need for concern. The water toed just above the ankle.

Our raft leader instructed us all to jump the raft's right or left side each time we got stuck on a rock. Ju sat to my right, leaping (however possible while sitting on a blown up tube) as if he were wired with a box spring. Ju got creative with his jumping, covering all bases of the front end of the raft-- rather than just the edges, as the raft leader instructed.

The rafts actual leader was probably no more than 15—a young boy that shouted instructions in Chinese.

Which was great safety protocol seeing as two of the total spoke only English. He disappeared at a point—I close to fainting. Perhaps he had drowned and why were we laughing rather than turning back and saving him? But he popped back up, having hid under the boat as, in his words, a joke.

I sensed my initial hesitation waning off as the afternoon progressed. It was a level of camaraderie that built as we fell into rhythm, I following the gentle counting of the man seated behind me in his attempt to synchronize the motion of our group's paddles.

There's a natural human instinct for connection that transcends language barriers. Albeit our group's inability to communicate fully by conversation, we managed to work as a team getting through the creek’s bumpy course. I let the tension weigh off my chest, allowing my gaze to gloss over the breathaking scenery: the shades of green within the slopes of the mountains, the light orange buds of the fine leaved trees. Bamboo huts lined parts of the river, people sitting lazily within—many sharing a small smile as they watched the struggle of those rafting along.

A rainbow appeared overhead as we neared the end: Mother nature's finish line, of sorts.

____________

Elephant riding, earlier that day. Elephants don't come with seatbelts...
which makes the downward descent into the water a tad bit terrifying.

The rafting trip had been a step from my comfort zone—the zip line, one that tested Caitlan. But the tigers we spent 10 minutes petting the day before, our daily tuk tuk rides, even coming to Thailand with only eight days planned of a month away, is all just about as dangerous as a zip line with a rickety rope and a raft slipping down a shallow creek.

We learn a bit about ourselves each time we exit the straight path of comfort. For it's the bridges and dips, the acceptance of the unplanned (a midnight treat of eight Pai spiders) and the decision to push aside a fear of trying, that can send us spinning in search of the thrill.

Of course there's worth to approaching what we fear with caution-- but in avoiding the fear, we also succumb to the fear. The definition of thrill differs per individual, but it's one that can embrace the spirit within the uniqueness of our lives.

There's a thrill to life that we can achieve without letting the fear of trying stop us from stepping forward. In the process, that's how we stumble upon life within our lives.

What it 'tuk' to get to Northern Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:18:00 +0000

May 26

She had pulled her hair into a clip behind her head-- thin, dyed auburn strands framing her pleasantly round face.

“Sit, sit,” she urged, taking our juice and food orders as we slid onto the outdoor wooden benches of her restaurant guest house—a walk down from the train station we'd just arrived from. We had left from Bangkok at 9 that morning, seated aboard an hour and a half train ride to Ayutthaya, Thailand's historic capital city. Our luggage was left under watch by the Ayutthaya rail police—they having stamped our bags, handing us a slip and directing us to place our items on racks in an unlocked, central store room.

Our waitress pulled out a map, circling the sites she suggested we see. We told her we had until 9 that evening, with plans to catch an overnight train up to Chiang Mai.

She smiled gently, revealing a small gap between her front teeth. “You've got time. Eat and then I’ll call you tuk tuk.”

And so we gorged on our afternoon lunch, savoring the freshness of the mango fruit juice.

Our waitress returned. Saifon was her name, she said, holding a small child nestled comfortably in her arms. Her boyfriend the tuk tuk driver had found himself a new girlfriend, leaving behind her now five-month old baby girl, Saifon said.

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Newya,” she seemed to said. Saifon gazed tenderly at her daughter, "She was born on the New Year."

__________
Saifon’s brother was our tuk tuk driver, shuttling us through the temples of the city—only one of which was a working temple. The rest were ruins, remnants from around the 1700s when the Burmese invaded the city.

Temple ruins in Ayutthaya

Tuk tuks have no doors, nor seatbelts. It's about as safe as riding a bicycle blindly along an American highway. Only Thai residents can obtain permits to drive a tuk tuk; Caitlan pointed out that we've yet to see a woman tuk tuk driver.

Save the traffic lights and road signs (the few scattered in town), there are no rules to Thai driving. Our tuk tuk followed the course of cars and motorcycles—with as many as four people cramped into a seat, often a young child or small dog standing in front—as we merged with the maze of traffic onto the highway. You’re to drive in the middle between two lanes before crossing over—creating a cluttered mess as drivers speed through-- speed limits also, I assume, merely a recommendation. Some drivers look over their shoulders as they cross lanes, but most rely on the driver behind who will honk (a light tap and faint sound) to signal his nearing approach. Our driver from Chiang Mai to Pai a few days later honked at a cow taking up the side of the road. It mooed back. Not all along the highway take the honk seriously.

____________
We handed the luggage slip to the Ayuttaha rail police that evening. The guard gave us a quick nod, granting Caitlan and I permission to enter the ajar door of the luggage room.

____________

The train car was narrow; Mint green curtains pulled on the car's either side covered those asleep in the bunkers. We stopped at 13 and 15, two upper beds about half the size of twin beds in width. I layered the pillow with my skirt (G-d forbid my head touched the who-knows-when-last-washed pillow case, regardless of the fact I was still clothed in the day's sweat ridden wear) and perched my feet on top of my purse, so as to ward off any eyeing the camera in my bag.

And then I passed out, exhaustion from the day canceling all hesitation of sleeping on a bunker train, the sound of the wheels along the track calming as I drifted to sleep.

By 7.30 that morning, Caitlan and I were awake, a train official asking us if we wanted breakfast.

We sat on the seats below, eating our six, bite sized cookies with flavor the surfaced once dipped in our miniscule cup of coffee.

The waitress appeared 30 minutes later, a 460 baht check ($15) for our meal—the most expensive bill seeing as we normally budget 80 baht ($2.60) for breakfast, perhaps 150 baht ($5) at most. Absolutely not $15 for six cookies. A chutzpa, if you ask me.

I watched the train official work his way through car, stripping the upper and lower beds of the sheets, before pulling down the mattresses, undoing the planks and turning the lower level into two separate chairs.

By day, the train is an ordinary passenger car—by night, bedtime on tracks.

____________

We survived the overnight experience, albeit the aches from the cramped position we slept in (nothing that wouldn’t be fixed with a 30-minute Thai massage later that day), smelly from a full day’s outing and evening sans shower and $15 poorer from an overpriced breakfast.

Caitlan and I arrived in Chiang Mai early that morning-- our first stop in our journey north. It's special that Saifon, our waitress from the Ayutthaya guest house, had named her daughter New Year-- a symbol for a new beginning. Our arrival in Chiang Mai is a new beginning in the month of our travels-- inching closer to the days we have yet to plan as we develop a fresh part to our journey each step of the way.

Asian flavor, kosher chicken thigh (The Bangkok Shabbat experience)

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Tue, 28 May 2013 16:54:00 +0000

May 24

Hand me the destination and I'll track you down that kosher chicken thigh.

I'd been recommend by my D.C. rabbi and a family friend to contact Rabbi Kantor, Bangkok's Chabad (orthodox) rabbi who, coincidentally, is also my family friend’s rabbi and my home rabbi’s first cousin.

No surprise, really, that Jewish geography applies worldwide.

Friday night rolled in, and Caitlan and I headed to Chabad—she had joined me for Shabbat dinner during her visit in Paris and, while not Jewish, she’s familiar with the Chabad environment.

We stepped into a cab, my iPhone in hand with the synagogue's address typed in. I love the taxi rides, staring out the window as the stream of the city blurs—views of the different neighborhoods, of the downtown and side streets, the shrines scattered among homes and markets.

Our driver slowed after 45 minutes, turning to face us as he shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head apologetically.

“I don’t know direction.”

Which was great, because neither did we.

We paid and wandered into the Holiday Inn across the street-- the hotel concierge drawing a similar blank. He stepped outside, asking a motorcyclist who talked to a cab driver who motioned us into his car, driving up to a street local who pointed him in the direction of the synagogue ahead.

The temple was barred off—an embossed menorah the only sign of any Jewish context. The security guard—a tall, bald Israeli man—asked for our ID, wanting to know if we had made reservations for dinner.

No, we hadn’t.

He let down his stern gaze, allowing us into the synagogue’s courtyard. Caitlan and I made our way up to the sanctuary, joining Shabbat services. The room had no windows—we could be anywhere in the world, tunes of a service that’s all too familiar and surrounded by a community no different than mine from home.

Chabad in Bangkok. The gate barring the synagogue from view.

Shabbat dinner followed—kosher chicken thigh, thankfully, on the menu. A South African, young man sat behind us, pulling over his chair to introduce himself—he had moved from Capetown to London to Bangkok, a lawyer by trade, a Thai boxer in his spare time. He introduced his Israeli friend, an IT professional who missed home in Israel—full plan to move back, he assured us.

The three, Israeli men opposite us hadn’t seen each other in 20 years—now in their 50s, the men reminisced over memories from their past and stories of their adult years. Only one of them lived in Bangkok after having spent time in Germany-- the other lived in Israel and the one directly opposite me had moved to Montreal and now in Aventura, Florida—the city I grew up in before 8th grade.

Small world.

To their left sat an Asian woman and Israeli man, I initially assuming she was Thai, joining perhaps her husband for evening services and dinner.

As we got to talking, I gathered she was an American-born Korean, having owned a store in D.C.’s Union Station and living in Georgetown before moving to Bangkok on a whim. She had met the Israeli man three months back, while on a business in Singapore.

She feels more Asian than American-- though Thais notice she’s different, albeit her Asian appearance, she said.

I've spent such time toying with the notion of identity, coming to terms that identity changes as life progresses. We adapt to context—adjusting the manner we define while maintaining a core sense of values and ideals to structure our lives upon.

The rabbi that evening spoke of the individual purposes and collective mission we each hold. We're to accept our faults while acknowledging our success- for in that way we can embrace humility, "the absence of arrogance in yourself," he explained. Our biggest problems, he said, is our self esteem. And in overcoming the areas we fall short, we’re able to achieve our mission, understand our purpose and perhaps, I believe, come to terms with our identity.

Developing connections is my purpose that guides my mission—one that remains constant among an identity always in flux. The connections within my life help frame the manner I define identity. I am Jewish above all—in part because it’s a community I can connect to no matter where I am in the world.

And here, at Shabbat at Chabad in Bangkok, I met those with connections to parts of the life I come from—the man who lives in Aventura, the rabbi who is my D.C. rabbi’s first cousin; And the people with stories of the life paths they followed, never knowing where it would bring them.

Somehow we all end up where we're supposed to be. It's our mission— the greater plan, if that's what you believe.

Follow your gut, the Korean-American lady told us before turning out that evening. "I never imagined I'd work in Bangkok," she said, turning to smile at the Israeli man seated to her right. "I never knew my life path would bring me here."

Stories from Bangkok: The Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Mon, 27 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

May 22-25
Drizzled rain sprinkles the city, cooling the humidity of the afternoon heat as the evening settles in. But we're dry, seated in a fuscia pink cab, maneuvering through the stalled traffic of Bangkok. A thumping beat grows louder as our taxi pulls in to a side stretch of the long road to our left. “Walk down,” the driver says, his arm extended, motioning down toward the street. “You’ll see hotel.”

Khao San Road: Bangkok's backpacker hub

Caitlan and I take our first step onto the streets of Bangkok, staring ahead at a road alive with a pulse drawing from the movement and urgency within.

Travelers lugging backpacks pace through the strip, passing merchants spilling onto the road’s either side. Peddlers weave through pedestrians, carrying platters of black, scaled bugs on long, wooden sticks. Vendors sell food, leaning on carts of pad thai and smoothies, non-refrigerated meat and Thai-style crepes. Neon signs hang overhead, beckoning those into tattoo parlors and massage shops, restaurants and hotels. And the American music-- vibrating from rooftop bars and floor level restaurants as customer sit on the plastic seats in front, soaking in the life of Khao San Road.

With confidence powering the jet leg of our 21-hours of travel, we step forward, entering the heart of Bangkok’s backpacker hub and our home base for our first four days in Thailand.

_______________
Bangkok runs on a bring your own toilet paper system-- and, for the germaphobe abroad, a carry your personal surefire stash of always filled Purell. Public bathrooms usually cost 2 baht (7 cents), though it seems the more you pay, the less you get. The stalls reek and the floors are strewn with urine and dirt. All of which complement the hole in the ground or just barely a seat labeled as toilet for use. Toilet paper is an extra price should the bathroom fee collector-- seated comfortably at the bathroom front-- provide it. Which is why I’ve started packing a toilet paper bag, a mixture of hotel tissues and restaurant napkins.

Clever thinking.

The city is the sharpest blend of tradition meets modernity: the Buddhist shrines and temples of the Old City juxtaposed by the extensive skyscrapers of Bangkok’s downtown.

We spent late morning to early evening of our first day touring the Old City's Grand Palace complex-- a widespread ground of jeweled temples. The colors are stunning: greens and reds, whites and golds of the painted decor within the temples and shined stones of the exterior jewels. A 15 mile high and 43 mile long, golden reclining Buddha lies inside Wat Pho, the temple adjacent to the Grand Palace. I imagine the spiritual connection a Buddhist experiences while visiting the grounds must be powerful-- the splendor of architecture and intricacy of design adding to the grandeur of it all.

Instagram shots given I can't upload my SLR pictures. Above and below: The Grand Palace.

For your viewing pleasure.

Thais are largely Buddhist and monks are commonplace in a society that places heavy value on their reverence. Monks wear the traditional orange garb, their heads shaven clean-- a symbol for having stripped down to the fundamentals of life's basic needs. But you'll see them with an SLR camera and using a cell phone-- necessities exempt from the monk list of unacceptable life luxuries. Caitlan and I had gone to the train station Friday morning to purchase a Sunday day ticket from Bangkok to Ayutthaya (Thailand’s historic capital city) and an overnight ride to Chiang Mai (a city in the north). There's a sign in the train station reserving an area for monks-- right across from a Dunkin Donuts and just in front of a golden, Buddha sculpture.

_______________

Thais are calm by nature and, from our experience, more than willing to help. We don't hesitate to ask for directions; They'll point in the direction if they understand and find someone who knows English if they don't. Cab drivers don’t always have cash for larger bills; We had a driver step out from the car, flagging down others to see if they had change for our 500 baht ($16) note.

We stick out as the few white faces among a largely Asian crowd; As two, female travelers in a country in which we don’t speak the tongue, we can’t be sure we haven't been taken advantage of, nor been ripped off. But we haven’t felt unsafe, nor ostracized by way of being different.

Caitlan and I enjoyed our first Thai massage our first afternoon, a 30-minute body rub in Wat Pho's Thai massage school. It took me a few minutes to adjust to having a Thai masseuse sitting on top of me, contorting my body as she dug her coarse fingers into knots I had no idea parts of my body could possibly develop. We went for a massage Friday night as well, seeing as the prices make it appealing-- between $4 and $7 for a 30 to 60 minute massage. I asked my masseuse how she soothes whatever hand pain massage giving causes the massage giver. But she smiled, for the question was past her English comprehension. And so I resorted to the thumbs up sign and smile, a universal thank you (or so I hope) for a job well done.
_______________

Travel book bible says that a flat rate, taxi fare is an automatic rip off. I initially attempted bartering the price down, asking for 40 baht before the driver would shake his head, rolling back up the window and rejecting our offer. It was Friday evening on our way to Chabad, Shabbat dinner that tables turned as we entered the taxi, I showing the driver my phone with the address written into my notes. “Meter," I asked, firm in my request.

And like that, he nodded his head.

It’s the little things we learn each day. You're not to accept a tuk-tuk (a bicycle taxi) from a driver that offers a 10 baht ride, for he’ll whisk you away to an illegal, underground gem business (so says travel book bible), forcing you to purchase his fake jewels. You barter your way down in markets, you carry a bag of toilet paper, you stir clear of insects on a stick and you don’t buy a converter. For Thai sockets take European and American plugs.

And, as learned one afternoon, you're to be hesitant of the young, male cab driver who speaks English and asks after your whereabouts.

"America is 2 million baht,” the afternoon's driver had commented. He looked into the rearview mirror, locking eyes as he smiled. “I have no money." He was dark-skinned, his hair just above shoulder length, oily from the heat of the day. He wore Ray Band sunglasses, thick dark frames shading his eyes from view.

The Oriental Hotel lobby

“Your English is good,” I commented. He teaches himself: books and music, customers and conversation. He told us he had come to Bangkok to work, moving away from his family of farmers in the northeast of the country.

He rarely sees them, he commented. "And I have no girlfriend." His friend the taxi driver had met a British girl in a cab, marrying her and moving to England. He had money, our driver added stoutly.

Clearly the be all to future happiness. Complements of the taxi driver's wise words.

Which is when I realized I had dug ourselves into a hole that neither Caitlan nor I needed to be; Whatever his intentions were, our driver with no girlfriend nor money had full control as to where he wanted to take us. My nerves surfaced as we passed gem stores—the paragraph in my travel book of tuk-tuk drivers and gem store scams pouring into the forefront of my mind.

And so the made-up stories streamed out as we answered his questions: Yes, we were on a school trip, staying in Bangkok for 5 days, leaving tomorrow and definitely not staying in a hotel. “Boyfriends?” he asked.

"Married!" we threw out, my fit of giggles reaching their peak as he pulled into the valet of the Oriental Hotel, a famed, five-star luxury hotel known as as top destination for celebrity visits.

“Friend on Facebook,” our driver said eagerly, handing back his business card.

And clad in gym clothes—Caitlan more socially acceptable in a skirt and tank top—the two of us walked through the automatic doors of the breathtaking hotel, letting go a deep breath of relief for we had made it past the gem shops and to our desired destination: an afternoon break in the gardens and lobby of the historic hotel.

Next time, perhaps a bit more caution.

It's the little things we pick up on each day. That’s the fun of this. Each day brings a surprise, a takeway lesson and accompanying story. The important thing is that we're safe-- though at the same time, taking advantage of the excitement each new adventure, every new opportunity can and will provide.

Street food along Khao San Road

Blue shoes, back on board. Destination: Thailand.

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:20:00 +0000

When in doubt, escape via travel.

I’ll admit. I don’t really know where the blue shoes are. Stamped "out of service" and likely piled somewhere beneath the mounds of mess in my half of the closet space.

But blue shoes or not, the blog remains and the adventure continues. This time, for a month in Thailand.

It'll be just Caitlan and I, a girlfriend I met month one of freshman year. We both tossed the tassel over our caps last Saturday, accepting our status as college graduates and joining the ranks of those unsure as to where the next step would be.

Except for this trip. Because like I said, when the next chapter of a blurred future has yet to present itself, the certainty of travel plans should always be an option.

I returned from London and Paris back in November, still in love with all things Parisian though keen to experience something so radically different than the churches and rivers and bridges of every European city.

And so I let the travel ideas drift off, contemplating a tour of the Greek islands and a trip through South America, (every intention to track down my Peruvian alpacas). The plans didn't thrill me as much as my wishful thinking for a trip to Asia. Which is when Caitlan and I stumbled upon roundtrip tickets to Bangkok, sparing little time to snag our find.

We leave this Tuesday and return next month. All of which was organized two weeks back.

The first eight days are planned—four nights in Bangkok, an overnight train ride up north and three nights booked in Chiang Mai. It’s listed on some Google doc drafted last week, though neither of us are looking to have the month fully organized.

That’s the beauty of backpacking: We’ll take it as it goes.

We’ve checked off the necessary health precautions—shots and pills to proof against malaria, Hep A and typhoid. I’ve stocked up on white V-necks (a takeaway from summers at sleepaway camp), in addition to Tums, for who knows the affect of Thai food on a western adapted, digestive system.

I’ve wanted an adventure for some time, and this--a month in Thailand-- will be just that. Who knows where the four weeks will take us: the people we’ll meet, the stories and memories we’ll create. But I do know that this is the one time--potentially the last time-- we have to take a month away from the responsibilities and expectations that await us come return to the real-world.

There's a quote that says life begins at the end of your comfort zone. And I agree for it's a combination of doing and trying that allows us to maximize the potential life has to offer.

We've got this: Four weeks. One tiny suitcase. Infinite opportunities. I'm ready to do and keen to try. The girl and the traveling blues shoes is absolutely back on board.

Returning to the city where you studied abroad | USA TODAY College

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:48:00 +0000

My article, as published on USA TODAY College:
Returning to the city where you studied abroad | USA TODAY College

Returning to Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:30:00 +0000

The roar of the engine pierces the otherwise still morning—the dusk haze glazing the view out of the airplane window.

The plane gains momentum, breaking through the air as it cuts into the sky, tipping to its either side as if allowing us a final farewell. Or rather, a bientot. Because for Paris, it’s never completely goodbye.

I’m ok with leaving this time. Three days and back in Paris, and the romantic, picturesque city of the Paris I remember, remains. But for the first time, I stepped back no more than a visitor, tied by memories of my six months abroad in a city I never quite left behind.

_______________

Paris looks no different, save the bare winter trees that replaced the lush greenery I had left last August. I’d forgotten about the pastel sheen that drapes the city, the gentle sounds of the daily flow of life. I’d forgotten how the metro reeks of urine and of the performers onboard the metro.

You lose touch of a city after a few months away; the fluidity of conversation in another language loses its ease, the expanse of vocabulary fades. And the purpose that once structured your day no longer exists.It's been four months since I left Paris and for the first time, I'm strongly aware that I'm no longer a part of this life, merely an observer onto a world I once had a place within.

__________

I spent my three days visiting friends—catching up with my closest girlfriends from the summer, meeting for drinks and dinner with a handful of my French friends and a lunch date with a couple from my grammar class.

I revisited my summer homestay for afternoon tea with Madame and her friend. It was lovely catching up with Madame, the creases of her faces as animated as I remember, her hair less ruffled but her warmth no less genuine. My fluency in French isn’t what it once was, but I appreciated her patience as I hesitantly strung my thoughts into testy, French phrases. She took me through the apartment, introducing me to her current homestay student-- a boy from California just finishing his fourth and final month abroad. He lived in the room opposite to the one I’d spent my summer in-- the same one my former apartmentmates, Arien and then Fernanda had taken over.

People flow in and out of Madame's home. Each student has a unique story, yet there's a common thread that ties their purpose for the time spent within her home. Our context shapes our purpose and defines our connections. It's incredible how quickly connections change as life unfolds.

Madame and I left her apartment together—she had errands to run before preparing dinner for the homestay student that evening. Why didn't I walk to the metro stop with her, she asked. But I shook my head, telling her I wanted to wander into the Longchamp store just around the corner.

“They’ll go on sale in three weeks,” she said. “Why not stay?”

From L to R: Dinner with Mariene (British nanny), Lili (German-Jewish law student), Lara, Eric and Audrey (my first French friends)

______________

An elderly woman asked me for directions on the metro this morning.

"Ca va a Denfert?"

"Denfert?" I responded, racking my mental image of the Paris metro map. Line 4. Line 6. I had met Nathaniel there for coffee his last week in Paris. “Oui, bien sur,” I responded.

It used to be a mark of pride having someone approach you for directions. Four months away, the feeling hasn’t changed-- even if Paris is no longer home, however temporary of a home my time spent in the city had been.

It's strange to realize that the life I built during my six months abroad no longer applies as my purpose no longer exists; but my comfort within the city, my familiarity of their culture remains—allowing a base to work off of should it be a life I one day choose to return to.

Revisited Musee Rodin. One of my favorite art museums.

Connections change; it’s with each experience that we learn to adapt, understanding that nothing is permanent. It takes time to feel as if you fit within a context, patience as you slowly meld with the differences of a foreign culture—a lesson important to understand given change in context doesn’t only apply to life abroad.

Life post-graduation will also bring change—the purpose structured by college stops as we accept the diploma that ties our years of an undergraduate education. For then, it’ll be for us to carve a new place within our environment, seeking out a fresh purpose to structure our reason to stay. Unless we move on, adjusting as we create a new life somewhere else.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to have lived a life abroad, grateful to have returned to Paris with at least an understanding for the culture that shapes the makeup of the city. It’s revitalized my desire to live abroad—to work in London, to move back to Paris. But I’d love to live in New York, test out San Francisco, visit Chicago, travel the world.

My experience in Paris didn’t end in August. But nor does it end now. I’m ok returning home, for this time, life in D.C. isn’t paused; Paris remains and my connections could one day be renewed, but for now I’ve got the responsibilities of my last semester to focus on. Who knows where the next four months will take me. Who knows where the connections will develop, where the purpose will be.

What I can be sure of, however, is that it all changes. Life refreshes. We adapt. And that's ok.

Searching for definition

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:30:00 +0000

View from the Cliveden House- location for my grandfather's 80th birthday celebration.

London. Nov. 29- Dec. 3
The five of us squeeze into the back of the car as the cab winds toward our Regent Street hotel, the darkened winter sky cooling the early evening.

My dad chats with the driver, commenting on the winter fair set up in Hyde Park—“a whole lot of money for a whole lot of nothing,” the cabbie said.

“It’s up every year?”

"Of course not," the driver responded. “You’re not from here?” he asked, confused by my father’s accent and taken aback after my dad’s response that the family now lives in Florida.

“I love Florida,” he replied. “How long since you left London?"

“17 years,” my father answered.

“Eh,” the cab driver said, drawing out his answer, a slight twang to his British intonation. “You’re American now, ain’t you?”

______________

The blue shoes are still snug in their plastic bag, a musty smell from the months stored away in the UPS box. I had bought a replacement pair prior to leaving for Paris in January, but those too had broken while abroad. There’s a holey trend to the shoes; apparently none are meant for walking.

I returned from Paris early August with two weeks in Florida before heading back up to Washington—a semester to tackle among job and internship responsibilities to balance. I'd laid my life abroad to rest, never expecting I'd return across the Atlantic so soon after six months of life abroad. But the call had come about a month ago, the telephone ring having replaced my morning alarm-- my parents asking if I’d be interested in a four-day trip to London for my grandfather’s 80^th birthday.

Any chance to travel, really. Might as well just buy me the ticket and tell me to pencil in the dates into my calendar.

Which is when it came to me; why not extend the trip. A side trip to Paris? I asked.

Sure, my parents answered. But that, ma cherie, would be out of your own pocket.

_______________

I love travel—the rush of lives across the globe, the challenge of observing without judging, accepting the differences in culture among the similarities within the daily pace of lives around the world.

I met William, my 19-year-old brother, at customs in the Heathrow airport. We had arrived 30 minutes of each other so as to take the train into central London together, flagging a cab at Paddington to get to our hotel.

We haven't gone to London as a family since getting our Green Cards twelve years ago. I’ve been back on my own since, having spent my sophomore year spring break at my grandparents’ central London home, tackling the city through tourist goggles.

I had used the trip as a means to discover my place within the city, leaving with a stronger understanding of my British heritage yet still feeling American, above all else.

I visited London this past summer for a few days during the Queen’s Jubilee. The national pride ran rampant throughout the country, my grandparent’s having draped their front window with two Union Jacks bearing the Queen’s face.

It’s strange to have ties to a place nowhere near the environment you grew up in, yet an understanding it’s a part of your definition. It was through my summer and spring break trip that, for the first time, I faced my own challenge of understanding where my British nationality fits within my own identity.

_________________

My grandfather, on the left.

The celebration for my grandfather’s 80^th spanned the course of three days: Friday night, Shabbat dinner at my grandparent’s home; Saturday morning services and Kiddush at synagogue; and Sunday afternoon’s luncheon at the Cliveden House, a historic home just 45 minutes outside of London.

We began the afternoon with drinks in the library, moving into a separate room for the meal. My mother, uncle and former ambassador gave speeches—honoring the man who had inspired so many in his service to the country as a British diplomat to Paris, as a grandfather, father, friend and husband.

My grandfather's speech was last, using snippets of memories from his 80 years to emphasize the value of leading a fulfilling, promising and enriching life.

I can’t completely put to words how incredible it was to celebrate such an honor as a family. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t grow up surrounded by family outside that of my parents and brothers. But to sit at a table with my aunt, uncle and cousins, to watch my mother and uncle speak such warm words of my grandfather and to see my grandparents surrounded by some of their oldest friends- it truly was special.

On the other side of the Atlantic, there’s a connection that binds my family, the strongest reminder of the British roots that tie to a part of my definition.

I've come far in my own discovery process over the past three years, and it with this trip back to London as a family that I had the opportunity to apply what I’ve learned into where it all began.

The birthday boy!

Identity is a tricky term, yet it’s one I believe is structured by the connections we develop within our context. I’ve realized I won't ever have a set answer as to who I am. But in the search, I come away with a stronger grasp as to what of my roots build to create who I am today.

This trip back was the most British I’ve ever felt, watching how at home my parents seemed within the environment they grew up in. My parents pinpointed landmarks during our drive home from the luncheon—a countryside, quaint restaurant in which my mother’s family had eaten an egg brunch; the King David room, “where all the young Jews get married,” my dad said—my parents included.

It's comforting knowing that at a point, my parents too had to redefine their place as they created a new life in America. There's a sense of a nomad existence to their living: to not really being an American, yet having lived in the states for such an extended time to warrant the title. The trick: to not merge the worlds, my mother said. Context shapes behavior, frames connections. Her American life relates little to the norms she applies to that of her British roots.

Life isn’t a single definition, but rather a series of defining moments that we build and continually renew over the course of our lives. For now, the hardest part is not seeing ahead. My friends and I are at a crossroads in our lives—graduating school in a semester, the blur of the future hazing the comfort as to where we go next.

We develop an identity in order to understand our role within today’s framework. But with tomorrow’s changes, it's for us to reevaluate where we stand. And in doing so, identity and and definition adjusts.

It’s not about letting go. Nor is it about a new replacing the old. It’s about building, constant acceptance of the experiences that shape how we approach what lies ahead.

I bid my parents farewell Sunday evening given I’d catch an early train to Paris the following Monday morning, my father headed to Switzerland, William headed to New York and my mother and Adam back to Florida.

My grandparents would stay in London, my grandmother under strict medical orders to put the travel to rest until her health betters.

But they too will be back off.

We’re a unique family, I’ve decided. Jet setting the world in search of our place within it.

Though maybe if we stayed in one place, we wouldn’t have the challenge.

But then again, life wouldn’t be as exciting.

The family

French and friends

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 22:09:00 +0000

I met up with Chris and Jamie for lunch, the Wednesday of my visit back in Paris. We had agreed to meet at Shakespeare & Co, just outside the garden my friends and I used to eat our boulangeire lunches before our phonetics course.

I had gotten to know Chris and Jamie in my French grammar course, a warm pair who moved to Torcy, a surburb just outside of Paris, about 14 months ago in effort to learn French while pursuing their Christian, missionary activities. They’re a lovely couple, exuding such positive energy, genuine care—a good outlook on the world, their lives and purpose within.

I asked after their process of developing friendships within the French community. The difficulty exists, Jamie had answered.

The French, in large part, are a closed off culture, heavily guarded. It takes prodding to break into their circle, for them to warm up, to accept you into their lives.

My grandmother likes to tell the story of the time she had planned a birthday party for my mother, having invited families from my mother’s class during the time they lived in Paris. The day of, however, and no one had showed—my grandmother to find out later that none had verified, in a way, that my grandparents were “acceptable” to mix with.

The French are weary of the stranger, hesitant to allow space within their social lives to welcome the unknown face. I haven’t come to understand the reason they do so and I realize that from an American viewpoint, it seems rude.

You won’t have a scatter of acquaintances in France, Jamie said. But the effort it takes to develop friendships with French individuals, eventually guarantees the few, quality friends.

Friends for life, she said-- a cultural difference that I have yet to understand.

Parisian dinner, for when I get back

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:21:00 +0000

Called it: as Eric and Audrey had driven me home, passing through Paris’s Place de la Concorde on our way back from my last, summer Jewish soiree, merely a few days before packing Paris away into two suitcases brimming with the memories, the stories, the adventures of my six months abroad. I had assured myself leaving Paris was merely a pause-- a life I could pick back up, should it be a decision I chose to pursue.

I’m sitting at the desk of our London hotel room emailing French friends, arranging the evening plans I had, but four months ago, toyed with in hopes of coming back to Paris.

But I never guessed return would happen so soon, however quick of a visit this Monday's trip to Paris will be. I never imagined that Paris—my summer social circle—would welcome me back so warmly for the three days I've booked in a city I never quite left behind.

But first I’m in London, having arrived early Friday morning. It’s my grandfather’s 80^th birthday and for the first time since my eight-year-old brother was born, we're here as a whole family. I was nine the last time we were in London-- but then as a family of four to collect our Green Cards, a step closer toward what would eventually lead to an official new nationality.

That, and a massive case of identity crisis.

The six months I spent tracing the roots of a European background I left at the age of four, piece together this trip back with my parents and brothers. As for Paris, to have created a life for myself--a group of friends, a daily routine-- to have left and now to return: I'm excited to see how it all applies after four months away.

I probably should get to writing a complete blog post, jot down the thoughts, document the excitement and unearth the tale of the traveling blue shoes-- the legacy of a pair of five-pound Primark fake keds. For the two years they've symbolically followed on my journeys abroad: the ever-reminder of the adventure that forever lies ahead.

An open mind to cultural differences while studying abroad | USA TODAY College

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:59:00 +0000

My article, as published on USA TODAY College
An open mind to cultural differences while studying abroad | USA TODAY College

Even the Eiffel Tower's light show turns off at 1 am

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 23:09:00 +0000

August 3, 2012

It’s my last time walking up towards the Arc de Triomphe, the three of us pacing the Champs Elysees as we leave Chabad—headed to Trocadero. The lights, the movement, it all disappears as we step down into the metro. I hurriedly whisk out my wallet, undoing the button as I finger the few tickets left in my coin compartment. I slip my ticket into the mouth of the machine, the bud of the paper sliding out on the end.

It's four metro stops and six minutes left. The thump of my heart is the beat for our steps. It's a drum race with the clock and for the first time, it's me that's in the race.
_________________
I was the only one at work this afternoon—save the two hours my boss, Arnaud, came in. He had called me into his offer, complimenting me on the notes I'd prepared for the future intern. If I ever wanted to come back to Paris, Arnaud said, I should contact him. Of course, no guarantee of a job, but “we’ll see,” he added.

I took my last stroll to the Jardin du Luxembourg for lunch, returning to the office to put my final touches on my work, before leaving a little after 2:45.

I handed the office keys to a lady in the architecture firm. She asked if I was leaving for my three week vacation.

Something like that.

_________________
I closed my bank account, withdrawing the euros of my paycheck before snipping my French credit card—each slither falling into the haphazard pile scattered in the garbage.

I spent the rest of my afternoon on a walking tour of Paris—stopping into ACCENT (the French organization that coordinated my semester program) to say a final goodbye, before heading to Centre Pompidou for a last overlook of the city. I wandered through to l’Hotel de Ville, stopping to watch the Olympics on a large screen installed just outside Paris’s town hall.

From there, I walked to St. Michel, visiting one of my favorite boulangeries, eating my patisserie in the garden my friends and I used to eat our lunch in before Phonetics. A free shuttle was running in between St. Michel and Invalides (given the RER was down), and I hopped on board, stopping off at the Musee d'Orsay, before walking home, exhausted by it all.

I had planned to go to Sacre Coeur before Shabbat that evening. But my afternoon walk had left me drained, and it dawned on me that there was no real reason to pay a last visit to my favorite spot in Paris. I've been so many times before. It'll still be there once I come back.

View of Sacre Coeur from the Musee d'Orsay

_____________________

I hadn’t planned to go to Chabad for my final Shabbat—my last evening—in Paris. But a French friend, Julia, had offered to join me and I had agreed, messaging Natalia, a German law student studying in Paris, to let her know of the plans. I had been put in contact with Natalia through my German- Jewish friend, Lili, a few weeks prior. And though Natalia wasn't Jewish, she had expressed interest in joining for a Shabbat.

While Julia ended up canceling due to work commitments, Natalia remained firm on her agreement. Her friend, Sergej—a charming German boy with piercing blue- green eyes and blonde hair-- was in town visiting. And so he too, joined us for the evening.

With the exception of one guy I had briefly met at the Jewish soirée this past Wednesday, I didn’t recognize any of the attendees at Chabad. The Rabbi too wasn’t there—he had told me the week prior he’d have already left for his vacation. The freshness of the faces was strange, yet it’s the ever-constant reminder that the flow of people, the flow of experiences, the flow of connections, come and go in life. In many ways, the fresh faces eased my goodbye to the synagogue that had had such an influence in my six months abroad.

It's tradition to go around and introduce yourself during the Shabbat meal. Strangely, all seemed to be paired with husbands who felt it their responsibility to introduce their wives (not sure why given women aren’t mute). And through the paired introductions, somehow my German friends, the Belgian man at the end of our table and I got skipped.

I had wanted to say that I've come here for six months—that tonight was my last Shabbat. But no one here knew that this was the Chabad that’s given me home for the majority of my Shabbats in Paris. That it was here that I met all that enriched my experience this summer. I wanted to say thank you. But I guess no one really would have cared anyway, nor had they been here for the six months to follow me through.

I enjoyed the conversation at our dinner table—a couple from London, another from Australia, my two German friends and a man who commutes weekly from Belgium. The British couple spoke of their time while studying abroad in Germany-- the Australian couple inquiring as to the lingering affects of the Holocaust within modern society.

The Holocaust doesn’t define our people, yet there’s no denying the weight it places on our most recent past. Jews throughout history have been persecuted; Yet through it, we've maintained a sense of tradition within our culture. This Shabbat dinner here in Paris is the same Shabbat dinner worldwide. It’s our shared traditions that provide us with a shared connection, no matter where we are in the world. Not all at the table realized my German friends weren’t Jewish, and while it’s natural the conversation shifted to Germany and the Holocaust, I felt strongly that I didn’t want my German friends to feel uncomfortable.

I’d never wanted to visit Germany, prior to meeting my German- Jewish, friend Lili. I think Jews come in twos—the ones who are proud of their right to enter Germany freely. And the others, who wish to never step foot in the country.

I’d forever been the latter—regardless of my awareness of Germany’s immediate step to repair the past, the depth of Holocaust education they receive in schools and the burden this generation bears as a result of their ancestors’ past.

It was through Lili that I gained insight into a Jewish family who, following the war, made a home for themselves in Berlin. Who let go of the past—who moved forward, putting behind the pain and suffering of yesterday in starting the new life of tomorrow. Yet, in doing so, her family hasn’t let go of their identity as Jews. They’re Jewish- German, every right to practice their religion as they please. In Berlin, Lili can walk with her Magen David showing.

Which is ironic, in many ways, given that’s not one that Jews feel comfortable doing in France.

_________________

I noticed the time had just passed 11:30. I motioned to Natalia and Sergej.

There was somewhere I wanted to go.
__________________
I remember running from the metro stop with Michelle, racing to get her to Troacdero in time to see the Eiffel Tower's on- the- hour, five minute light show. I recall her smile, her few moments of silence as she stared ahead, amazed by the beauty of the sparkle of the tower’s lights.

Michelle was my lucky charm this summer. For it was the weekend I had offered to take her around Paris-- given she was traveling alone-- that I had received the party invite from Deborah, the same party I had bumped back into Eric. And it was the following day that I had gone for drinks and dinner with Joh and Phillipe—Michelle with Phillipe, I with Joh. It was Joh that I dated for the two months of my summer— our first date in which he surprised me with an evening boat ride and dinner on the Seine. It’s not everyday you find a connection with another—one that you build so quickly, so naturally. And while our romantic interest slowly faded, it was a remarkably strong friendship that, rather, replaced.

You never know the power of the people that come into your life. That weekend with Michelle changed my summer—what had all started with my suggestion that I spend my Sunday with her.

Which was right before I asked if she had time that evening, for I wanted to take her to Trocadero-- the best spot to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle.

__________________
Mariene, Lili, some random Asian girl (who we had thought we were saving from a man who appeared to be harassing her) and I rushed Ari to Trocadero, after a Shabbat dinner. Ari had been visiting Paris alone, and a camp best friend, Nathan, had put the two of us in contact.

We had made it to Trocadero just as the Eiffel Tower’s light show flickered on—the five us energized by the surge of adrenaline from our race to get to the viewing point in time. It was Ari’s first time seeing the Eiffel Tower’s light show—and it left me with the deepest feeling of satisfaction for having shared the experience with him.
__________________

It was a full moon, my last night in Paris. A full circle, like all within my summer.

Natalia and Sergej raced with me to get to the Eiffel Tower for the midnight light show. They too had wanted to give me the moment, sitting with me for an hour after-- half in silence, half in conversation, soaking in my last few hours remaining in the city.

There's no planning to where experiences will take you—to who you'll meet, where you'll go. I don't know how I got so lucky this summer, how everything fell into place so perfectly. I don’t know how I managed to secure a job, how I fell into my summer living arrangements and how I managed to never spend the important moments alone.

I don't know why I got lucky. But I had it all this summer. Each puzzle fit, everything made sense.

The universe pulls together in helping get you where you’re meant to end up. I had followed my instincts in piecing together my plans for the six months. And where it's left me?

Well, here. Here, sitting on the steps at Trocadero, watching the shimmer of the Eiffel Tower’s lights with two friends.
__________________

The firing lights seemed to blaze off the metal hatches of the Eiffel Tower. There's an urgency to the flickering of the lights—a bulb for each hope, each dream. All waiting to be picked off.

The lights are beautiful—the tower, as always, magnificent.

I could feel my heartbeat getting louder, the weight settling just below the lobes of my eyes. But I held in the tears. Because why cry? With six months of memories, there's nothing to be sad about.

Natalia, Sergej and I talked forever; Natalia and I sharing memories of Paris, our hopes for the future. They laughed when I said my future husband would be taking me here on our honeymoon.

Except, I wasn’t kidding.

Paris is the city of dreams and romance, of class and culture, of life and energy. It's a city that doesn't extend the warm welcome to the visitor; They raise their nose and click their heal as the walk on. It’s for us to tail behind, to blend in (though they know we never will) and go along too.

There's a refinement to their culture, a beauty to their manner of living. Paris is a city unlike any other.

Six months of life in Paris.

I really am quite lucky.

_________________
August 13, 2012

It’s been just over a week since I’ve been home. And weirdly, my life across the seas doesn’t seem as if it never happened. It sort of feels, rather, as if it’s on pause. Awaiting my return, someday.

Florida seems so quiet, so still in comparison. I’m back to writing in my favorite Starbucks—just down the street from my house. My usual table I like to write at is typically empty. It’s the one right next to the window that looks out onto the parking lot— the scatter of this evening’s yellow lights illuminating the few seated outdoors.

There had been a man, a few days ago, who had walked in, complaining of a group smoking outside. “I can’t sit around that,” he had said. I smiled. I haven’t heard a comment like that in quite some time.

I’ve maintained the contact with my Parisian friends, writing our messages in French in attempt to keep up my progress of the past six months. My mother also speaks to my baby brother in French—and every once in a while I’ll join in on the conversation. But it doesn’t last for long, given it’s a lot easier to speak in French when you’re not used to speaking to the other person in English.

It’s amazing how little has changed in the seven months I’ve been away from Florida-- how quickly all that I had left off has picked back up. I’m back on the journalism track—having just received the incredible opportunity to work as a collegiate correspondent for USA TODAY. I’ve been offered an internship from The Washington Post Express—and am waiting to hear from an internship from The Washington Post before making a final decision. But first, I’ve got D.C. to move back to and a new apartment to settle into.

Every once in a while I sit back, wandering what life is like in Paris right now. And while I’m not always sure of the time difference, I do know that at 7 pm my time—1 am Paris time— the last flicker of the Eiffel Tower’s bulbs shine, before the lights of the entire structure shut off.

Lights have to turn off at some point. But off never means forever.

Around 6 am, Paris time, the Eiffel Tower will reawaken—shining it’s beauty on the city below. I’d love to turn my lights back on in Paris—to one day move back. I don’t want to give up on my dreams of writing and so if it's meant to be, I think it’ll fall into place. One day, perhaps I’ll have the two.

But first, I’ve got the honeymoon in Paris to take—the future Jewish (Parisian or not) husband to find. The job to start, a year left of school to finish.

As a chapter of my life folds over, a new part takes place. There’s a lot in store as I move forward. Yet in doing so, I carry forth six months of an experience that truly marked the me I brought home.

Everything works as it should— everything in life fits together as it’s supposed to.
Thank you Paris for teaching me just that.

A bientot, Paris. Tu me manques, déjà.

Sacre Coeur- my favorite spot in Paris. From the top of the hill you can see the entire city, below. Picture was taken back in February.

The summer friends

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:36:00 +0000

- Deborah: Had met Deborah at Chabad just before I had left for spring break. She invited me to a party, my first weekend during the summer.

- Amelia: A California native and fellow AEPHi sister, Amelia and I met, as she was finishing up her year working as an au pair in Paris. She returned home at the beginning of July, headed back to start her studies for a teaching certificate.

- Eric: I had met Eric at Chabad, a few weeks before the end of the semester. I had bumped into his girlfriend, Audrey while on a bus headed to Sacre Coeur. She was meeting Eric for coffee—inviting us along? Eric and I ended meeting back up at Deborah’s party. He had spent his summer alone, while interning in Haifa during his college years. As a result, he took me under his wing—calling me often to set me up with plans to got to Jewish get- togethers, drinks with his friends or dinner at various kosher restaurants. I also had the pleasure of joining Eric and his family for Shabbat dinner at his home.

- Audrey: (Hopeful future wife of Eric), I had met Audrey at Chabad, the same evening I had met Eric. In addition to coffee, I got together with Audrey for dinner with Eric and Erica—getting to say our last goodbye at the Jewish soiree I attended, my last Wednesday in Paris.

- Mariene: The girl who became one of my closest friends this summer. A British nanny, who I had met my first shabbat during the summer, Mariene had moved permanently to Paris. From spending evenings with her various friends to cooking pasta dinners, watching the fireworks on Bastille Day and getting lost on our way to a Jewish bbq, we shared real quality moments together. She’s promised to come visit the states in April—and I’m truly looking forward to it.

- Lili: Also one of my closest friends this summer. I had been put in contact with Lili through Eric, meeting her at Chabad. She has such a unique sense of humor, a genuine kindness and warmth to her personality. And while I only got to spend about a month with Lili (given she headed home to Berlin for her summer break), I truly savored each memory from our adventures—evenings at Jewish soirees, afternoon in the Marais and shabbat dinners at Chabad.

- Arien: A boy from the Netherlands who lived in my homestay for the first month. We had interesting conversations, typically centered on the differences within our religious beliefs.

- Fernanda: A girl from Brazil who took Arien’s spot in my homestay. She and I became quite good friends, eating and cooking our meals together, spending our morning on the Champs Elysees for Bastille Day, heading to the Jardin de Tuilleries and taking a quick nap before ending our afternoon together at the Louvre. We also spent an afternoon at Angelina’s, me introducing her to the loquid goodness of Angelina’s hot chocolate.

- Alexi: Madame’s 31-year-old son. Often in his own little world, as a result of functional mental illness, Alexi was nothing but warm. I loved our conversations, his touch in making the apartment I lived in feel more like home.

- Madame: The most charming, sweet and genuine woman who I lived with, this summer. I rented out my bedroom in her apartment—a beautiful location in the 6^th arrondissement. Madame was a terrific cook, stirring up home cooked meals for each of the four dinners I paid for. We’d sit for over an hour, during dinner. Wonderful conversations and good practice for my French.

- Nicholas: The French intern at work. I had thought we weren’t going to be friends, given he didn’t talk to me much back in June. But come the end of my internship, he and I regularly had conversations.

- Eric: My co-worker who trained me.

- Michelle: My summer, good- luck charm. Had met Michelle, a Canadian, med- student, at Chabad—she was traveling alone in Paris for the week before meeting up with friends for three weeks in India. Michelle and I spent a Sunday together—showing her my favorite parts of the city before meeting Joh and Phillipe for an evening in Montmartre.

- Joh: My summer Prince Charming. From a boat cruise along the Seine to dinner in a restaurant in the Jardin des Tuileries, Joh added quite a different dimension to my summer.

- Phillipe: A recently, turned orthodox- Jewish man, Phillipe is on the hunt for a wife. But I told him his best bet is not to look. For when you’re not trying is when you end up finding.

- Judith: A chatty, lovely 22- year- old, who I had the pleasure of meeting at a birthday party Eric had invited me to. She had invited me for drinks, two weeks before I left Paris. We grabbed kosher sushi for dinner in St. Germain, my last week in Paris—wishing eachother goodbye at the Jewish get- together on my last Wednesday.

- Julia: Also put in contact through Eric, I joined Julia, a Parisian native, on her mission to take Paris on as a tourist. We met up at free yoga at the Jardin du Luxembourg, in addition to heading up to the Montparnasse Tower’s viewing point.

- David: A native Mexican who spent time living in the states (in addition to studying at Georgetown), David moved to Paris as a result of a job offer. I had met him at Chabad a few months into my semester, meeting back up during the summer. We walked to Pont Alexandre, one evening after Chabad—pretending to be on a guest list for Showdown, the club just under the bridge. David joined Naomi, a camp friend who came to visit during a weekend, for an evening at light and sound show at Versailles.

- Naintara: A classmate from my time in French Grammar. I had always quite enjoyed talking to her during class—both on the same page as to how confusing our teacher made the lessons! Naintara and I got together for drinks with Astrid, a fellow classmate. Naintara joined me the following Friday for Shabbat dinner (although she wasn’t Jewish), ending our evening at one of Joh’s friends, Benjamin’s apartment just on the Champs Elysees. Naintara met me for lunch one afternoon at work, the two of us spending my break at the Jardin du Luxembourg.

- Astrid: Out of the hundreds of people at a free concert at l’Hotel de Ville, I happened to bump into Astrid and her boyfriend! We, along with Naintara, went for drinks an afternoon after work.

- Naomi: A camp friend who came in town to visit. We spent a lovely weekend together—starting as just over acquaintances and ending off as truly good friends.

- Ari: A friend of a friend who I had been put in contact given he was traveling in Paris, alone. I spent the weekend taking Ari around the city-- from Chabad Friday night to a Gay Pride festival at St. Michel on Saturday.

No more flies in my bedroom

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:30:00 +0000

The only good thing about this American Airlines flight are the seats' built in pillows. Which are ridiculously comfortable given the plush leather (fine, pleather) melds to shape your head.

That and the fact I only got two hours of sleep, last night. I've been falling in and out of sleep throughout this nine hour flight. A nine-hour flight that, I should mention, comes without in-flight entertainment.

Right, no personal screens for passengers. And the ones fitted into the airplane ceiling are broken. But what airline offers shared viewing pleasure for a transatlantic flight anyway?

Maybe they'll give us air miles as compensation. Could go back into the save- to- come- back- to- Paris- piggy- bank- of- desperate- miles.

_______________________
I left early this morning-- 5.30 am early. The streets were quiet, the air, warm-- a cool trace to the early morning breeze. I felt as if I were sneaking out—before the bustle of the day began, nagging at every bit of yearning desire I had to stay.

So casual sneak out was probably better.

I don’t know how I feel about this trip back. I hate that I've left. I know I had to. There’s a sense of numbness to the emotions that have built up ever since it finally settled that this-- the experience, my summer-- was nearing finish.

It’s better that I’m heading to Miami before my return to D.C. The district is incredible and it wouldn’t be fair to compare it to Paris. As for Miami? Well it loses regardless of whether or not I compare it to Paris.

I'm looking forward to hugging my 8- year- old brother. I'm looking forward to playing Scrabble with him— aware he'll likely thrash me at first shot.

I wish my window at home didn’t only open upwards and that I could the city noises from my room. And I wish there weren't a netting on the outside of my window—Florida’s solution for blocking the bugs from flying in.

I remember so vividly the first time I found flies in my room in Paris, during the summer; it had been three flies that circled the open space of my room. And I desperately tried swatting them back outside, making a racket as Alexi peered into my room to see what was going on. He joined me in my ridiculous attempt, the two of us waving our arms as we tried getting the flies back out the window.

Until we both gave up. I eventually came to terms with having flies in my room. Because it wasn’t like I was going to close that window; I loved the sound of the movement below.

I'm going to miss my mornings. Of buying a baguette from a boulangerie— of walking through Luxembourg and up Rue Vavin on my way to work.

You can walk all of Paris. It's incredible. What a funny idea once it translates to Miami. You'd pass out of dehydration from the hours it would take to walk from A to B. Except A would be our supermarket and B would the movies. Because in South Florida suburbia, there really isn't anywhere else to go.

I'm sad I won’t speak French daily anymore. It's been the most amazing of challenges that's truly left with me a real surge of accomplishment, six months later.

And I'm going to miss the friends. It truly moved me receiving the few texts from my French friends, wishing me well as I folded the page of this Parisian chapter, heading back to the states and stepping back into the life I had left behind. I recall the flood of goodbyes that I had received, the day I had left D.C. I'm lucky to have the friends to say goodbye to—be it D.C., Miami or Paris. I place such value in people—the power of another in enriching an experience and their touch in leaving you connected. I'm grateful for the connections, for the friends, and now, for the memories.

I don't know how good of a plan it is to go back to sleep. There are three hours left of this flight and I don’t want to be jet lagged, come tomorrow.

Tomorrow in Florida.

Warm Words

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 23:38:00 +0000

The woman onboard the metro

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:49:00 +0000

She made it on board just as the metro's doors closed-- the click as the doors clamped shut, the still image of the metro stop outside transforming into a steamed blur.

She turned away from the car's door, facing those seated onboard.

Her face was round, plump around the cheeks, a faint dab of freckles spread across the bridge of her nose. Her ebony hair was clipped into a twist behind her head, leaving only a few slovenly curls hanging out in front. She wore a pale pink sweater, zipped to the collar.

She spoke softly, almost at a whisper. “Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” she said. “I have a presentation.”

And so she began, a gentle song barely audible amid the rattle of the metro as it winded through the blackened tunneled. None watched, none could hear. Yet she carried on, closing her eyes as she let the notes ring through—her small plead for help.

She finished as the metro stalled, slowing to enter the oncoming stop. Retrieving her purse, she made her way through the metro car. “A small donation for the performance, please.”

None gave as she shuffled around the passengers, making her way back to the center of the metro car. But she had gotten back too late and the car’s door had closed, leaving her trapped behind with the passengers who averted the eyes of a woman in need of help.

It felt like forever, as she stood still, shifting her body weight as she waited. The florescent lights of the next stop finally came into view, the individuals awaiting the oncoming train quickly becoming larger.

She didn’t look around as she lifted the metro car’s door, merely gripping her purse as she stepped out, blending into the swarm of passengers all making their way towards the exit.

From the outside, no one could have guessed that a few seconds prior she had stepped onboard, letting open a part of herself in song, hoping to receive a few coins in return. She looked no different than the others as she transformed into the rush of the many. All too on their way through life. All too with their own stories to tell.

I'll have dinner plans for when I come back, whenever that will be.

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:10:00 +0000

The French intern and I are the first to get to work, now that he decided to start arriving 30 minutes earlier. It's nice because it gives us time to chat before the others arrive. And so this morning, our discussion centered on the French way of saying "I love you." The French use “Je t'aime" for both I love you and I like you. My argument, that had gotten us to the conversation of Je t’aime in the first place, had been that the French have, in comparison, quite a smaller range of vocabulary.

Which is when our boss walked in. Exactly at the point that the French intern said "I love you." Which, taken out of context, clearly explains the look we received as our boss strode through the office.

________________________

Madame's been out of town this week, spending three weeks of vacation time in between her countryside home in France and a rented home in Spain. I've had the apartment to myself-- neither a pro nor con. Although, I'll admit, I like the freedom of being able to walk from the bathroom (on one end of the apartment) to the sink (on the other side of the apartment) in my underwear, if I so please.

I’m only paying rent this week, rather than the additional costs for my weekly four, home cooked meals. The plan had been to fill my last week with friends, and so it had worked out that I wouldn’t be eating dinner in.

Monday rolled around and, as I left work, it was the only day I had planned. It's Thursday now, and everyday's been filled with a friend to spend the evening with. As will continue for tonight—as I enjoy my last dinner with Joh—and tomorrow, where I'll cap off my six months with Shabbat at Chabad.

Really, quite fitting.

_______________________

It's 9.50 euros to access the Montparnasse Tower viewing point-- my Monday night plans with Julia and her friend. Parisians despise the building-- a jarring scar in the otherwise skyscraper clear horizon. But it's the view that makes the tower worth it; 360 degrees of all of Paris, the Eiffel Tower included.

I went for kosher sushi in St. Germain, the following Tuesday, with Judith (a French friend I had met at a party a friend, Deborah, had invited me to my first weekend during the summer)-- ending the evening with drinks at a chic restaurant/ bar in Odeon.

Judith had told me of a Jewish soiree Wednesday evening, and, come Wednesday, Eric and Audrey had too texted me to texted me an invited. But I hesitated to accept given:

a) the entrance fee cost 10 euros. And that’s just under my week budget. (So I compensated by buying a bag of pasta. And for the meager price of 1.48 euros, that bag provided dinner for Wednesday, in addition to lunch Thursday and Friday and leftovers for 5:30 am breakfast this Saturday.)

b) Jews are cliquey-- and when speaking another language, it’s harder to break through.

But the French let their guard down if you’ve got a hand to ease into their tight knit group. Eric introduced me to a range of individuals, and within 30 minutes we had both branched off-- him with his friends, me making new ones. I spoke with a girl named Arula for quite some time-- a girl about a few feet shorter than me, who moved in closer every time she wanted to talk. Judith found us, beelining her way over to say hello. She was accompanied by her friend, Ilan, a 22- year old law student who, as another man I met later that evening claimed, beared an uncanny resemblance to Richard Gere. Which I had scoffed at, turning to look at Ilan-- until I stopped. Because the man was right—Ilan had Richard Gere’s eyes.

And then Ilan asked me how much I had drunk.

The evening continued, surrounded by such a spectacular range of prospective, Jewish husbands (of course when I only have two nights left)-- all apparently enamored with my, what they all like to tell me, Canadian laced French accent. Several expressed interest in my life back in the states-- half responding that they had already visited D.C, the majority of whom had loved the district. Of course I invited them all back to visit, offering my shared, one bedroom apartment as available lodging.

Eric and Audrey drove me home, later that night. They're my first, real Parisian friends-- having met the two back in May during Chabad, Shabbat dinner. I had bumped into Audrey, the following Sunday. She had been on her way to meet Eric for coffee, inviting me to join. It was then at the party Deborah had invited me to, a few weeks later, that I bumped back into Eric, spending the evening chatting-- him leaving me with a rundown of Jewish events I could join him for. And it was from there that it all spiraled and my summer social life had begun.

_______________________

Eric drove us through Place de la Concorde, the grounds just opposite the Jardin des Tuileries-- the Louvre’s palace gardens. It was a full moon last night, the moon’s vibrant white light highlighting the clouds around.

My SuperShuttle driver, the day I had landed in Paris, had taken a detour to drive through Place de la Concorde. But then, all I could muster was a little more than merci, given my French vocabulary only barely extended past the basics.

That had been six months. Six months ago, when I had arrived, hopeful of improving my French, of immersing myself in the European life I had grown up without. I had no idea what was in store, six months ago; How my semester would affect my summer—if there would be a summer—how my experience who influence my future. Paris had been foreign. The experience, new. And what it all would hold, unknown.

Six months ago, Paris was the beginning.

I recall so vividly my frustration of possessing complete French comprehension but little ability to articulate. That too was six months ago. The French intern told me this morning, that I’m a lot easier to understand now-- and I feel it; in context, I speak without thinking. I rarely stumble if I can’t think of a word. I don’t worry about speaking to strangers and words I’ve never learned, somehow come to me. I think I’ve got the 17 years of my mother speaking to me in French, to thank for that.

I’m proud of having reached my goal of returning home speaking French. I am proud of where these six months have taken me-- grateful for all that has shaped each step along the way.

A friend had asked me what of the experience would I bring back. It was over Skype, and at the time, I had fumbled, trying to explain how different the two lives are-- how I don’t know how Paris me translates to D.C. me. But the real answer was that I wasn't sure what parts of me had changed, although I recognized that in the time I’ve been abroad, there must be some level that has.

Life abroad has taught me the meaning of possibilities: the possibility of adapting and the ability to achieve. I recognize the process of adjustment-- aware of the wavering periods of comfort and the eventual passing of doubts once all settles down.

I come back with a refreshed notion that the world is ours to choose from; My dream remains to pursue a career as a feature writer, yet the future is an open book and my years post grad don't necessarily need to lock me into work in the states.

I’ve reinforced my belief in the strength of connections in leading us all to where we’re supposed to be. I understand the importance in the constant changes within our lives-- and I want to believe that all that’s meant to be won’t fade, rather follow.

I understand more than ever, how nothing-- the good, the bad-- lasts forever. I’m conscious of the importance of appreciating the moment rather than wishing to extend the moment into the future.

And so in response to the question my friend posed-- what will I bring home-- the answer is simply, me.

When taken out of the context of the familiar, forced to rebuild in the surroundings of the foreign, you apply the parts of yourself that are you. The parts of me I’m aware of both here and at "home," are the parts that are real-- to me. The hopes and dreams, the worries and doubts. My time abroad—as does every experience I embark on—leaves me with a greater grasp of the core beliefs I use to structure the manner I view, live and experience my life.

It’s a constant process of self- discovery, life is. It’s why it’s important to keep moving forward, to not get stuck in the familiar of the comfort. We learn a little more about ourselves each time we set out onto something new—the challenges that test our character, the experiences that strengthen our beliefs.

I had been nervous for the summer, nervous of staying in the city without my friends from the semester-- nervous that I’d be staying alone, rather than on a structured program. But my plan to find a summer job had worked out, and my goal of befriending the stranger had happened. It sorted itself out, as it should, because I believe that’s how life works. What feels right, what’s meant to be, will somehow always fall into place.

I don't where this will take me, but I do know Paris isn’t one I’m letting go of. I have foundations laid into my life here, one I’m confident I could pick up should I ever find my way back. And, as I made Eric and Audrey promise as Eric turned into the side road that leads to my apartment building, they better both still be here once I return.

So the good thing is, I’ll hopefully have dinner plans the day I come back.

Whenever that will be.

Taking a leaf out of Eat, Pray, Love. The word: Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Emma Beck) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 22:41:00 +0000

My mother had emailed me Sunday evening to say her childhood best friend, Raphael, would be in town. Would I like to meet her?

I had met Raphael’s parents back in March, during the few days my parents had come to visit. It had been incredible for me to see Raphael's parents glaze back into the memories of my mother as a child. Our parents have a life before we become theirs—and I find it thrilling to discover a part of who my parents were before they had each other-- before they created our family.

And so I met with Raphael, her son, Theodore, and her parents for drinks at Le Select, a café just next to Rue Vavin. We sat and talked for an hour and a half.

Odeile, Raphael’s mother, turned to me, near the end of our time together. There’s a fierceness to her gaze, emphasized by the dark liner that shapes her eyes. She peered over her rimless glasses, her burgundy hair gleaming as the sun poured through the area around the outdoor seating.

“What will you take away from your life in Paris?” she asked—a deepness to her stare as she looked me straight on, complete attention for the answer I’d provide.

It had been a question I had thought of a few days prior, on my walk home from work. And, as I often do, had jotted down my thoughts onto the notepand on my phone. My answer, as a result, was immediate.

“The moment,” I responded “Life in the moment.”

Because that’s what Paris—this life, these people—that’s the word that describes this existence. It’s the appreciation of now, a desire to maximize the present wtihout too much plan for what lies ahead. They take the days off when they want (if possible); they spend their evenings after work in the company of others-- hours at a cafe over drinks (orange juice and coca cola among the favorite choice-- typically one of the more expensive drinks on offer), continuing for a late dinner before ending the evening with a final drink. They use their hour for lunch to go somewhere, be it to read a book in a park or go for lunch in a cafe. The weather too adheres to life in the moment-- changing from gloomy to gorgeous in a matter of minutes.

Odeile nodded her head, slowly-- as if taking in my answer-- asking how Paris compared to London, to the states. “Which is better?” she wanted to know.

The answer rolled off my tongue; “None,” I said, confident in my response. “There isn’t a better.

It’s one world, with thousands of ways to live our lives-- and for me, it's what makes travel so appealing-- living abroad, so thrilling. It’s the differences that captivate.

It’s not better here, nor there. Just different.”

She leaned back, taking a sip from her glass of orange juice—satisfied with my response.