bonjour, france

So I survived my first planning/train-booking/hostel finding trip to France and it was the loveliest.

We stayed in Maastricht until Tuesday for a holiday called Carnaval, which is mardi gras/Dia/the fourth of July/Halloween times a million. I'm writing an article for my feature writing class over it so I can elaborate a little more then...Until then, feel free to look through my pictures to see mobs of Dutch people in costumes. Dancing in puddles of beer.

Anyway, we left really early on Tuesday morning and spent the day traveling through the French countryside. Strangely enough, the train ride was one of my favorite parts of the trip because it was the first time I felt like I could really unwind and enjoy the scenery since we got here...I got to journal and read a lot, which is always so so good when I'm trying to process things.

Once we got to Nice, we found our hostel pretty quickly and were pleasantly surprised to find that they had upgraded our 6 person room to 3 private rooms. Ravenous (ahem)...as usual, we quickly unpacked and went out to find large quantities of food. We spent the rest of the evening playing fishbowl with an interesting group of Latin guys whose first languages were not English and threw some rocks in the ocean at midnight. For being so pointless, that kind of thing is strangely therapeutic and invigorating.

The next morning we got to sleep in a little bit and headed to the flower market around 10, where I bought a precious little oil painting from our new friend Martel. Here's to me trying to become artsy while I'm over here. We explored different parts of the market and Old Nice and had a little picnic lunch on the beach. Old Nice was all kinds of perfect--with ice cream colored buildings, painted window shutters, cobble stone streets, and ivy growing on everything, I was in Pinterest heaven. We hiked a little bit on some cliffs right of the beach, where we realized we could see mountains and beach at the same time. Dreaaaamy.

We headed to Paris the next morning at the crack of dawn, just in time for Vaaaaalentine's Day, which was only MOSTLY a coincidence. We hit the ground running after we dropped our backpacks off at the hostel and did a little sightseeing. For dinner, we went to a really sketchy fondue place which provided us with a lot of stories, all of which I will tell you if you ask. We headed to the Eiffel tower in hopes of witnessing a few proposals and ate some chocolate while we watched the little twinkle lights go off. So romantic.

The next day we were literally running around everywhere and didn't have quite enough time at everything we went to..Which just means I'll have to go back sometime. We went to the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Shakespeare and Company bookstore (the bookstore of my dreams, complete with little ladders and nooks filled with books) Saint Chapelle, and the shops on Champs Elysee. Sigh. A full day of wonderful Parisian things.

The next day, we went to the Eiffel tower for a picnic lunch (just for the sake of being cute...we are under the impression that eating bread and cheese is very french) and explored the flea market before heading to the train station. While trying to connect trains, we realized we were running much later than we had anticipated and took off running through the station with our giant backpacks on. After 10 minutes of this and lots of panic, we made it onto the train and had to sit on the floor in the bar area, which wasn't actually terrible. We finally got back late on Saturday night and had all day Sunday to catch up on sleep.

France, you were magical. Well done.

Istanbul

So this is more of a reflective post since I couldn't possibly sum up the last 2 weeks in Turkey and Maastricht. I promise I will lighten up and just tell you what I'm up to next time. But for now, here it is. I warned ya.

So, Istanbul.

Turkey was beautiful in ways I was not expecting. It was layered and gritty, with the old and new mixed right in together. I could see it in the people and in the buildings everywhere we went. With the lights of Taksim square right beside the old 6th century walls in the city, I found Istanbul's history woven right in with the buzz of the crowded city. Driving faster and eating slower than we do, the people presented an interesting dichotomy of their own.

Everything about Istanbul was strikingly vertical. Because it's such a crowded city, even the wealthiest families live in apartments. Everything is stacked high, with parts of old and new buildings all melted together. As we traveled and went sightseeing, I found that I spent most of the time looking up. The city, the mosques and the palaces all drew so much of our attention toward the skies, and their beauty was rich and and nuanced in an unfamiliar kind of way.

I am learning so much about people--both through conversations I've had with friends on the trip and through the different cultures I've gotten a taste of. Here, I am getting the opportunity to start over a little bit. Friends on the trip are starting with the me I am right now, and I am getting to learn about their lives here and at home quickly. It's been incredible to see and experience these things with friends who were strangers only a week ago, and mostly to see the way our paths are crossing in more ways than one. I'm fascinated with the way people work, and getting to see so much more of humanity as I travel has begun to quench that thirst in me. 

The most striking part of travel so far has been the common threads I've found. I think maybe the point of traveling is to find the differences and to appreciate them, but for some reason, I've found a lot of  peace in knowing that children and their parents show affection in all the same ways on the other side of the world. That coffee and dessert sound good no matter where you are, and most of all, that smiles are universal  Our hearts were created with all the same capacities, which is such a testament to the God we serve. 

With the culture and language being so far from ours, Istanbul was challenging in ways I don't think we'll encounter for rest of our trip, but it was the perfect start to an adventure like this. As a group, we had lots of time to bond as we scavenged for restaurants and braved the bazaars in groups of at least 4. I consumed lots of baklava, apple tea and kebabs over the course of the week and got very close to buying some genie pants. I decided our first week felt a lot like freshman year would have if we all got to do it over again. It's been great to begin feeling a sense of community when I'm so far from home.

Now that we're finally settled in Maastricht, Turkey feels a million miles away. Getting to unpack and explore the city has brought a little calm to such a crazy week and a half. Oh and school started this week...

More to come on Maastricht. I luv it hereeee.