Merci, beaucoup

Grenoble is my personal turning point into adulthood. And by adulthood I don’t mean that I suddenly started being mature, reasonable or responsible, but I certainly became more future-oriented. Isn’t that what being an adult is supposed to be?

Grenoble got me seriously suspicious that outside motherland Patra, there was actually a world. And to say the entire truth even a better one. I even felt constraint to find that the famous Greek saying “At the time we were constructing the Parthenon people in Europe used to climb up the trees to feed themselves with rotten fruits” had something of a slight exaggeration.

Grenoble is not a place to live if you take sea for granted. It is a place that made me feel claustrophobic. Being the capital of French Alpes, it is surrounded by mountains which in their turn are surrounded by other mountains and you go on and on and on …. It makes you want to search for an emergency exit. Although you are sure not to need any type of exit in a place like that.

The mind of the 18 year old scared, lame puppy that myself was at the time, formed the impression that Grenoble, was actually the city of the crippled. So embarrassing to admit such a thing now. But seeing so many wheelchairs on the streets, in the university halls, literally everywhere was not a sight to which I was used, having grown up on the holy grounds of Greece. We back at home are healthy. We all walk standing. What are they doing to you people??? It took me a while, but I finally got it…

And I was yet to discover the pleasure of having a pick-nick with a friend in the near-by park, the killer wind blowing on the bridges over the Isère River, the thrill of meeting people from around the world (my Japanese fellow students had a really hard time to come to believe that we have mountains, and winter with proper rain and snow! My American fellow students were pretty convinced that no such place like Greece existed anywhere in the world and that I was a fraud having invented a country as well as a language), the excitement of living with nuns (what kind of young girl is excited living eight entire months with nuns??), the art of stealing apples in the super markets, the art of stealing whatever in the bookstores, the art of stealing spoons in the cafés, the romance of eyes playing in the launderette while pretending to be reading a book, the ingenuity of living without a fridge, the bitter-sweet feeling of being lonely, and alone.

Grenoble is the place where any parent would like their children to grow.

Though, and here I am asking for your attention :

Grenoble, as happens with the entire country of France, is inhabited by French people. Rude French people. Who throw you to the lions for not pronouncing Merci well. If only I could ever find the courage to scream at one of them “I have read Proust in the original you bastard!”. French people who speak French all the time. What can one expect from a nation that has invented “four times twenty and sixteen” for 96? Snobs, who in their justification, however, have plenty to be snob of.

Maiden posting

A Lila Pause bar of chocolate made me want to travel. It was the prize of a school geography competition of which I was the winner. Fortunately it was large enough for me to share it with my other classmates, not to say that I wanted to hide as much as possible the fact that I was a nerd, vehemently struggling to be the winner.

Drawing down the globe map in something less than 3 minutes and writing down all (and I mean ALL) countries with their respective capitals in less than an hour, is certainly something to be pride of.
Luckily, at that time USSR was one single, unified and powerful country with just only one capital, and not that jungle of train-lettered countries with equally train-lettered capitals probably all ending in -stan.
Not a chance of my winning such a competition, nowadays.

So, these are the first lines of this blogspot of mine. Ever since this general blogspot mania came to surface I wanted to do it. To talk about what being “intrip” means to me. To talk about the handful of trips I have made. And those I am dreaming of making. It is not that I am the Greek equivalent of Megan McCormick, nor the poorer version of Maya Tsokli. No, no far from it. I can’t say that I have been off the beaten track. I have mostly done all that is touristy in a destination. But I would really like to become a traveler. I want to place myself somewhere within a bigger frame. You see, within the borders of the microcosm I live, my ego grows to gigantic dimensions. And traveling makes me feel small. It’s nice to feel small. I think it helps me complain less.

I think I will be writing in English – for the most part at least. A credible explanation for this would be that I have a number of non-Greek friends who I think would like to read me. But it wouldn’t be a true one. I have not that many non-Greek friends, let alone non-Greek friends who would like to read me. A semi-true explanation would be that I am more relaxed in a language that is not mine. Words feel less “binding”. However, a nothing but the truth explanation would be that I am americanizing myself day by day. I don’t say «παίξε-γέλασε» for something that is easy, I say “piece of cake” or even worse «ένα κομμάτι κέικ».
I have also caught myself drinking milk straight from the bottle.
Standing in front of the open fridge.
In the middle of the night.
Feeling sorry that the bottle does not have a comfortable handle.
Like in the USA.
I have never been to the USA.