On the Bosphorus

"...and freedom, oh freedom. Well that's just some people talking. Your prison is walking through the world all alone." -- Desperado by the Eagles

The warm ocean breeze visits me, pleasantly ruffling my hair, then runs off again. Staring out the window of the ferry sailing on unknown waters and seeing quaint villages glide by, it suddenly occurs to me just how easily I could walk away from everything. Plop, plop, plop into the depths of these waters, I could drop these boulders of emotion, attachment and worries. Then I could float away like a feather, feeling lighter than ever.

What scares me is this unbounded possibility, this freedom which I so sought after. But I, unlike this ship which is carrying me, do not have an anchor, and so I continue to drift, and let these waters carry me away.

Sloths and French... lolwut?

I love how my parents expect me to be completely fluent in French after being in France for only one month... but then again, I guess that's what I hoped for too. I thought I could just march right into France, and by the time I left I would be completely fluent in the language, passing jokes back and forth with the locals in just a couple of months.

Alas, how wrong I was. Learning another language is such a slow, sloth-like process! You push yourself forwards, slugging one arm after the other in full effort, and when you look back, calculating in your head how far you must have moved, you realize you actually haven't moved much at all. By the way, fun fact of the day: sloths do pretty much everything hanging upside down, including: eating, sleeping, having sex (!) and giving birth (!!). I bet you don't want to imagine slow, awkward upside-down sloths having sex. Oops, too bad, I just made ya.

Ohaithar! Didn't see you there, was too busy chillin' upside down.

Right. Moving on.

So I've started learning French, with the aid of several guides: Collins Speak Fluent French, Pimsleur's audio guides, and my total beginner French lessons at school. I even bought a children's book called Le Petit Poucet (Don't ask me what this means... I actually haven't figured it out yet. It could mean either one of the following two: "Tom Thumb" or "The little underdog". o.0 If anyone knows what the title really means, please leave a comment!) at a second hand book-store to supplement my learning.

The owner at the second-hand book store, a friendly looking grandfather, who I swear looked just like the grandfather in Pinnochio (with the silver hair and glasses and all!), gave me a little smile, and asked me, "Oolala, Le Petit Poucet, pour vous?" [Translation: "Oolala... Le Petit Poucet, for you?"] I smiled in return and replied confidently, "Oui."

There you are, Mr. friendly second-hand-bookshop keeper near the palace of Versailles. I've been looking all over for you.

I wish there was a button I could press that would automatically make me fluent in French. But till such a button is invented, I guess I'll have to make do with my broken French and ridiculous body language whilst I study Le Petit Poucet.


Bonne Nuit!

Concepts I finally understand (and appreciate a lot more) now that I'm in Europe

Up until about a month ago, there were some things people did that just didn't make too much sense to me.

• Guys paying for meals on dates 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. No, not at all. It's nice when guys pay for your meals. I guess it's one of the perks of being a girl :P

But coming from Hong Kong/China where you can find a lot of cheap good food anywhere you go (you can get a pretty decent meal for about 45 HKD, which is around €4.1 according to Google) I didn't think it really made that much of a difference whether I paid, the guy paid or we split the bill half-half for meals.

In Paris, though, a cheap-ish meal would cost about €12, and I'm sure a full three course meal at a nice restaurant would cost well over €25 per person. (That's around 275 HKD!!) So the cost of meals in Paris (as well as the general cost of living) came as a bit of a shock for me. That being said, I can now fully appreciate the tradition of guys paying for meals on dates...at least in Europe.

• Sending flowers to girls as gifts

I guess the tradition can be traced back to the good ol' caveman days...
Girl like pretty stuff. Flower pretty. I give flower to girl. Girl happy. D'ohhh.

Not that I dislike flowers - flowers can be nice once in a while - but flowers are highly impractical. They kind of just sit there and look pretty for the few days that they're still fresh, and after a while they just wilt away. I'd much rather receive something that would last.

Just a random florist's near Monmarte

White, yellow, shades of pink, take your pick :)

 But is it just me, or are flowers prettier here? There's something about these little florist shops in the corners of Paris, full of blooming buds bursting with colors. They look beautiful in the sunlight, and just looking at them, I catch myself smiling. They're a lot more appealing than the flower 'carts' we get on the streets in Shanghai, where you get flowers wrapped in plastic (or in colored paper, for a slightly higher price).

• Sunbathing

When I was growing up in Guangzhou (a semi-tropical area), we never had shortage of sunshine. Even in Shanghai and Hong Kong, it's pretty warm and sunny days are not uncommon. In fact, in Asia in general, many girls prefer the look of pale, fair skin (called 美白 meibai in Chinese, literally meaning beautiful-white) and physically dodge the sunlight by getting cover under shades and using umbrellas to create their own shades.

But here in Paris, people just can't seem to get enough of the sun. Even now, with the cold weather, I see the outdoor sitting areas completely full every time I pass by the cafes in Paris. In school, too, during the breaks in between classes, students crowd around in the open space outside the cafeteria and bathe in the sun when it's sunny out.

As for me, I've started appreciating the sun a lot more too, I guess because sun is rarer here (it was gloomy and rainy the entire first two weeks when we first got here) and practically speaking, because it's still winter here and it's warmer to walk in the sunlight. *Insert happy music here - i'm walking on sunshine, woo-hoo* :)

France, quoi??

Why hello there my fellow Hong Kongers, exchange students, random creepers (don't worry, you're welcome here, I don't discriminate) and whoever else may be reading this blog entry... come one, come all!

Why the sudden blog, you may ask? Well. I remember reading somewhere, sometime, at a certain place something along the lines of (yes Mlau that was intentional :P) 'in the end, pictures and words are the only things that last'. Which is so true... especially if you have my memory. So if I don't want my exchange experiences to whiz past me, and don't want to see myself saying "France, quoi??" anytime soon, I better get writing!

 Disclaimer: this blog isn't intended to be a journal/diary, so no, you won't get a detailed rundown of my days or access to my deepest, darkest secrets... we don't want to go there, I don't know if you could handle it ;). But if you want to read about my observations, experiences or thoughts, stick around for a bit and hey, a few comments here and there won't hurt either.

I'll keep you all posted.

Bonne nuit!