Thursday, August 01, 2013

POSTERITY ::: My old blog description from 2007

Allons-y as I pack my St. Louis bags and head for Lyon, FRANCE to teach and be taught in the classroom of life! Did I mention I'm a Hugenot? There may be drama, there may be culture shock, but most importantly, there will be dancing - so I'm good.

No one in Europe wears cowboy boots.

I spent the last day marching around Paris. (are you checking my instagrams?? Eventually I'll figure out a way to get all my europe stuff to go to all my platforms -- ok enough techspeak, you're in europe lori! Talk about architecture and culture already!) I must've walked 10 miles all over - louvre, pont neuf, tuleries, sacre coeur, belleville, and an old church, also Notre Dame), but hey, I'm sortof uniquely qualified for that. I love a long walk through a town. Taking it to the streets makes me feel like I'm a person who lives in town and I'm just like, trying to get somewhere.  I could walk 20 miles and not really notice. I climbed up to the Sacre Coeur, too. Yeah, I'm bragging. I have leg fitness, I'm proud.

In other news, there's a lot of macho culture here in Paris. Lots of dudes want to tell me how beautiful I am and generally it makes me feel skeeved out. It's not like Maurice Chevalier dancing around a lightpost kinda stuff. Calm it down dudes, it's annoying! And with that, I will stop complaining. I like how provocative my shoes are though. They may as well be space boots. Some teenagers mustered up the english skills to ask me if I was a cowboy, and i relished the opportunity to sass right back at them, "No, are you?" - of course now I can think of a million other funnier things to say to these dudes, but I did ok, and in french!

I am loving all the french people crowded outside drinking a beer and having intense conversations - in cafes and on canals - it is a pastime that I really vibed with when I lived here, and I miss opportunities for that in my everyday american life - partly b/c i don't try hard enough, partly because I dont' really like being that deep all the time and partly because there are like 90% more places to drink a beer and look intellectual but actually be talking about like, cheese or shampoo or something in France. Ambiance is key.

I can't wait to go back to Lyon and get a Biere au Peche - just sharing that with you. I'm so happy to be returning to Lyon and to my fav family, the Calderos. They are angels. We're going to sing ray charles all night and talk about Quentin Tarantino. OMG i can't wait. It's like they were sent to me from heaven, I can't even.

I don't know if many of you who know me have witnessed it, but I am crazy good at speaking french. It's almost like the time away from speaking it has made me better? Maybe I just don't care now that I'm an older lady and I'm less judgmental of myself, & I just wanna talk. I JUST WANNA TALK! I have also noticed how much I have forgotten how to speak italian and spanish. I never forget french, i guess I take it for granted that i'm 900% better at chatting in french because of some fortuitous timing and some abroad trips early in my foreign language development moments.

So, my walk through paris yesterday was lovely, my hostel has wifi so I can work and take skype calls and generally have my own mini coworking space and I can stay in touch with my clients, i just wrote a lot of postcards, I found the perfect shoulder bag for travelling and I'm reading the Happiness Project and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas! (liking them both...they're kindof complimentary).

European cities are so pleasantly accomodating to tourism, it really really really is inspiring me to keep up the prep to launch bestcityever.tumblr.com - I could be the Rick Steves of AMERICA! The prospect of even trying fills me with bubbles of hope for the future. PS Rick Steves is awesome. Just don't bother with any other european travel dude. He has such a lighthearted attitude. He is my guru.

I catch the train for Geneva in a few hours, where I'll spend the night with my college pal Katie (yay, friends!) and we're getting picked up by my college friend Chann and we're driving to a wedding! THE wedding. The reason I got my ticket and am taking this ride. I'm already getting sentimental about this wedding, I wish I'd brought waterproof mascara! It's gonna be a weeper.