Grüß Gott! My two weeks in Deutschland are coming to an end... two weeks full of new experiences, new friends, exposure to a new world. I am living in Ostendorf, a tiny village in Bavaria near the Black Forest. Under 400 people live here, and it was kind of a shock coming here from Paris, a city of 7 million... took some getting used to. I experienced a strange sort of loneliness when I arrived, just because of the strangeness of it... I walked down a cobblestone street lined with red-roofed cottages and rose gardens, and wondered, "Where is the world?" But I have come to love it here. It is like something out of a fairy tale book. Children run barefoot through fields and old, wrinkled Omas spend hours tending their gardens. On a good day, castles can be seen on the distant mountains, their towers piercing through the fog. They are simple, hard-working peasant people who take joy in the most simple things of life.

So... on to new lands. I am embarking at 3am tomorrow on a 15-hour train ride to Bavaria, northern Germany, Belgium, and finally, my destination, Amsterdam. I will spend 4 days in the city of cannabis and canals before once again being a homeless person on the streets of Paris. I like my life.

I think it´s wrong to leave a culture before having experienced it at literally every hour of the day... which I have done in Paris. I can´t say which is my favorite... things are a little fuzzy when I try to find my way back to my bed at 4-6 a.m., but I love the hours right before then. I also like the afternoon/evening... 2 different crowds, both captivating. And of course, night is when the city truly becomes the "City of Lights", a name for which it is so famous... Mornings are a little slow, but a good espresso helps shake off the post-night fog. And it can be quite entertaining to watch the store owners open up their shops. I would probably enjoy the Parisian mornings more if I didn't have to wake after only a couple hours of sleep and run through muddy streets to catch the metro and make it to class on time, rainsoaked and cold...

But sleep is for the dead.

I gave my sister a ¨tour¨ of the Louvre yesterday... it was actually more fascinating to me this visit. I was even slightly more impressed with the Mona... not that I was necesarilly unimpressed last time, but...well, after all the hype, she is maybe not quite as spectacular as one would guess.

Only one more week of classes...it´s gone so fast, crazyness. I will probably stay in Paris for a couple of days after school ends to make some cash (busking) before I move on...and enjoy one more weekend in Paris ;)

Well, I´m off to the Montmartre and then the Seine. Good day for fotos...

Yesterday I went to explore the Butte Montmartre and somehow ended up in the Pigalle area... a different side of Paris, to say the least. The good thing about it was that one of the guys that approached me offered to point me to Montmartre... the bad thing about it was that ¨pointing¨ wasn´t enough and he ended up spending the afternoon with me, proposing in 3 languages, and claiming a permanent spot for his arm around me shoulder.

I´ve decided against the Camino and am touring Germany, France and Benelux instead... I´ll get to see 3 new countries that way.

Bastille Day in the city was amazing... hundreds, seemingly thousands, of people from all over the world gathered on the lawn behind the Tour Eiffel beginning in the early afternoon, and remaining until the early hours of the morning, drinking, dancing, making new friends... The firework display behind the eiffel after dark was awesome. But one of the highlights was definitely the metro ride back, with most of the city trying to cram into the metros..

The world is a strange place sometimes...so huge, and small at the same time, connected and utterly unconnected.. I love my current location though and wish I could stay here... for the sake of my poor language skills, I think I need to.

So; evidently Parisian cops dont like it when travellers jump into the metro pit... I learn something new every day. Sometimes I look around and wonder if I've mistaken my location and am actually in England... It rains all the time, and I'm ready to see sun again. Over the weekend I went to Chartres--it was beautiful, despite the rain.

I went busking for the first time today, setting up with my penny whistle on a street corner under the Tour Eiffel. I think the rain was actually a good thing, as people seemed to feel sorry for me. Anyway, I made 37 euros and was quite pleased.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my 3 weeks after classes end here-- walk the Camino de Santiago (basically, backpack across spain) or backpack through Germany, Amsterdam, France, and Luxembourg with a couple friends...tough decision all the way.

Some sounds are the same in every culture... a laugh, a cry, children playing... But so many sounds are distinctive and unique to each culture, and the language is only one... A Costa Rican loudly advertising his "pinas por un euro" in a Parisian metro presents an odd cohesion of two vastly different

cultures, but it is that way everywhere you look here and somehow they all manage to complement each other.

I had my first french class today, along with tripping over a beggar on the street and learning how to roll a cigarette...

Paris rocks. I am a student at the Cite´ Universitaire de Paris with hundreds of other students from all over the world. I´ve had my life saved by an Arabian man and my soul saved (attempted) by an Australian.

After spending a day and a half in France, flunking a placement exam, and getting repeatedly lost, I am eager to begin studying the language. Not knowing French locks me out of the culture and forces me to keep my mouth shut, which I hate. But I guess that´s why I´m here...

I learned one word today: pomme (it means apple). Oh, and of course, glacier...