Avant

“There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." -Ernest Hemingway

This is it. One week from today I will be flying over the Atlantic on my way to the City of Light. Even with four years of French instruction I don't feel prepared. But do you ever feel prepared to live your dream? 

Yes it is true I am the cliché, I am the girl whose greatest ambition is to visit Paris. But I don't really care; it is my dream and I finally, for three weeks get to live it. During those three weeks I will be writing in this blog about my adventures and discoveries. Whether they are academic or about the joli café down the rue I will be sharing them here. Jetting off on May 22 for Paris with twenty-four strangers is a very scary and exciting thing. Twenty-four strangers who will hopefully help me make the most out of my trip of a life time. Having never left the country, a stay in France is going to be one of the most eye opening and life changing experiences a person can have. Now like I said I have been linguistically preparing for my Parisian Excursion for four years but in every other aspect I have be preparing my whole life.

I have imaged stepping out of a petit café avec un pain au chocolat on to a cobble stone street and hearing the buzz of French and the clicking of height of fashion heels as I make my way down to a bridge to cross the Seine on my way to some fancy museum. But that is some fantasy. I understand that Paris is going to be a lot different than I am use to living at Morris. However I imagine that they will move at a slower pace, time is just something that stays in their beautiful watches and doesn't really affect them. Paris will be a city that lets a person explore her but never reveals all her secrets. As you might be able to tell I have a fairly romanticized view of Paris, but after all it is the city of love. 

Along with this romanticized view of Paris I dream of Paris being my ultimate teacher. I don’t really know what of, but may be a little bit of everything. She can teach me History extends beyond 1776 and that not all revolutions were as nobly fought. That language can to more than tell of love but be love. And life experiences of getting lost and being okay with it. Teaching me street smarts that the kind and coddling street of Minnesota never could. Paris will inspire me to go for greatness. To be the most open and malleable person I can be. I hope Paris inspire me to create beauty (the tangible and intangible). Paris will feed the restlessness with in me. She will show be that life extends beyond my cushioned one. And inspire greatness to flow from everyday tasks and emotions. I feel like Paris is part of my Ark.

In my French education I have run across a few things produced by the French that I enjoy. Always the reader that I am I have enjoyed reading Le count de monte cristo and Le petit prince, along with the poem Il pleure dans mon coeur. I haven’t listen to much French music however the music I have been assigned to read has been enjoyable. I sleep under a poster of Vincent Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom and Edgar Degas’ Ballet School. These paintings inspired me every day to go for my dream and now they will serve as reminders of where I have been and where I can go again. I love that the French nurtured so many great and different kinds of artist not by codding them but by being open to the beauty that they created in their own forms. Paris inspires the artist and dream within everybody and helps effortlessly produce these great works. I think I love all these things because they did not try and hide how hard the creator had to work, the effort can be seen in each line and stroke but the effort that is displayed is not a hindrance to the work but just a component to the beautiful work that the world gets to enjoy much longer than any earthy creator. And on that lovely note I end my first entry before (avant) I fly off to my dreams. So wish me luck and a bonnes vacances. 
Merci mes amis, 
Bisous- Janice