Remember me?

So WHOA it has been a while since the last time I wrote in this guy. Isn’t that odd? I can hardly believe it. So much has happened since Christmas. I’m sorry that I let this one go, but it isn’t because I don’t love you. It’s jut because I’m lazy. Can’t say it any other way.

So, in the time that I was gone, I took a ten day trip to Rome and Venice with Abraham, which was practically perfect in every way. Cold and wet in Rome, lots of fountains, historically significant monuments, the origin of Western civilization, the center or Western religion… quite the city. And Venice: perfectly clear blue skies, incredible sights, lots of birds, beautiful water, gondolas, pizza, Dali artwork. Pretty goddamn fantastic. We were stranded there for a few extra days, as fate would have it, and that was fine. I think Venice is my favorite city in the entire world. I fell in love with it, though I could never live there. It is, in all honesty, a few islands of tourist traps. But the tiny streets and the maps and no-car atmosphere is just about as good as the world gets, I think. At least, the world I’ve seen.

And then, back in Rennes to turn seventeen (exclamation points) and work on my French. I can’t think of any particular anecdotes, but we read King Lear and L’Etranger, talked a lot about the European Union and the entrance of Turkey, enjoyed a few days of both snow and hail, and ate incredible amounts of chocolate and cheese. Joy.

And half-way through the month of February, school lets itself go, and most of my class heads off the Paris for the week, to putz around museums and partake in the general merriment of the city of lights. I, however, went the Alps with my host family, to ski. Now. That. Was. Interesting. I’d only ever been skiing twice in my life, before this week: once for two days at Peak and Peak in New York with school in seventh grade (who remembers the fake British accents and crazy scary story night?), and then in freshman year for a week with the wonderful Adelstein family at Montremblant in Canada. And while I am fairly agile and have always thoroughly enjoyed the act of skiing, let’s not kid ourselves and say that I was any good at it. I managed the parallel skiing and the virage thing, but if no one was looking, I’d just pie-wedge my way through the steep parts. Cuz skiing is scary, man! But so let’s first discuss the difference in slope difficulty between Peak ‘n Peak and Les Arcs, our station in the French Alps. I’d say that the highest hill at Peak ‘n Peak is, what, 800 meters? The highest slope at Les Arcs is 3,214 meters. That is a full 3 kilometers above sea level. Now, remember, from a height like that, you can see for miles in every direction, and your fingers tingle and your muscles clench because it is just so beautiful. One of the days, the clouds had settles at about 600 meters, so there was a cottony blanket over all of creation, and all one could see were the mountains rising out of the endlessness. It was like being on the other side of heaven. The snow sparkled as it fell, when it fell. Just absolutely astounding. But, of course, the slopes from that height are all reds and blacks, and my family, who skies for a week every winter and has for at least the past decade, knows no fear. They’re incredible, really, their ease on skies is basically unparalleled in life. But for the poor American reject, such a thing is not so simple. Again with the pie wedging down slopes, and taking years each time The family was slightly frustrated with me (and when I say frustrated, I mean frustrated), but I made improvements, and could handle just about any slope by the end of the week. So there’s that. But no one can ever say that the French lack intensity. All you need to do is hit the slopes with a few thousand of them, and you’ll see. There isn’t a bad skier in this country. Even the five year olds are rockin the black, mogul-y slopes. It’s really a cult.

And then, the next week, this past week, I was in London with my friend Evie. Now, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say in order to reveal this week for the truly life-altering trip that it was, but there’s just something magic about being with a very good friend alone in a European city for a week. We saw the museums and went to plays (Macbeth done by the Royal Shakespeare Company. That part was played by Ian McKellen back in the day. And Dame Judy Dench! Hands down the best thing I have ever seen. And The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) which was hysterical. I highly recommend it) and wandered the open air market at Notting Hill and felt like we were a real part of history. Honestly, that is the most significant thing I can say about Europe. You’re always in a place where someone important did something important. You’re always touching eons of writing and war and politics and trade. Evie is a big history buff, and took European History AP last year (got a 5, by the way), so she was always spouting the names of dead white men and what they had done in the very places we were walking or sitting or eating or peeing. I fed birds in the park where Duke Harry the Grizzled declared war on the Albanians. WOO HOO. And speaking of Albanians, touring Europe means you meet more people of more nationalities than you are capable of comprehending. Albanians and Swedes and Poles and Spaniards and Italians and Yugoslavs and Macedonians and Dutch and Argentineans and Germans and New Zealanders and Scots, each one with a funny little story or very bizarre quirk. I won’t bore you with the endless details, but our hostel was what I like to call a human zoo. Of all kinds, I suppose.

And now I’m back in Rennes, counting down the weeks (it’s seven, by the way) to the next vacation, and then the few after that until I come home. Things have again hit s rough patch with the host family, but it’s alright. Evie and I have become a lot closer, and we’re sort of in the same situation, so all in all, we understand one another. Everything works out. It’s spring! There’s sun! It’s still freezing here, but when I biked to school this morning, it was light out. I could hardly believe it. Things are looking up.

So, I’ll leave you with the poem that my dear friend Gwen sent to me, which I think you all might enjoy, and basically sums up how I think of this year, and the glorious summer I foresee, and am eagerly anticipating.

I miss you so very much, and you have all my love.

Until Next Time,

Now, when the waters are pressing mightily
on the walls of the dams,
now, when the white storks, returning,
are transformed in the middle of the firmament
into fleets of jet planes,
we will feel again how strong are the ribs
and how vigorous is the warm air in the lungs
and how much daring is needed to love on the exposed plain,
when the great dangers are arched above,
and how much love is required
to fill all the empty vessels
and the watches that stopped telling time,
and how much breath,
a whirlwind of breath,
to sing the small song of spring.
-- Yehuda Amichai (translated from Hebrew by Leon Wiseltier)

Countdown to RETURN: 93 days (exclamationpoints)