Back in the US of A

I'm back and it's nice. Who knew Tennessee would be so green?

Too many things have happened for me to write, but many good things have passed and some neutral ones. I can't remember if there have been bad things, but I take that as a good sign.

Germany

Munich is beautiful and we're having a great time mostly going to parks and walking around. We're staying with friends in a sunny apartment and the mood is chill.

Today we're driving 4 hours through the black forest, by Switzerland, and into Freiburg, Germany for a little holiday, again, staying with friends. Apparently it's called the 'Green City' because it is the only city in Germany run by the Green party, everyone rides bikes, and is just small, quaint and in the woods.

I climbed to the top of a hill yesterday and saw the Alps from a distance --looked like Rocky. :)

Germany has toilets with shit-shelfs, by the way. Something interesting.

peace,
s

Paris

Eiffel Tower
Notre Dame
Sacre Coeur
Moulin Rouge
Chateaux de Versailles

Today, the Louvre.

Tourist? Yes.
Culture shock coming out of the Middle of Nowhere, Indian Ocean? Yes.
Awesome? Yes.

Leaving for Munich on the night train Monday - tomorrow - very soon - so excited.

pictures impossible

I went to two waterfalls today.

The first one was called Cascade du Chien (Dog Waterfall :) and since there wasn’t a trail down to the base we just took pictures from the road. Gorgeous. Then we drove up the mountain some more to see an overlook that provided a beautiful panoramic view of the east side of the island. The ocean was a blue ribbon under distant white puffies. Everything looked small and clean, like most things do from far away.

The second waterfall, Cascade de la Mer, was a 30 minute walk through sugar cane fields and tropical forest that made me think of dinosaurs. When we got there we ate lunch on the rocks and stripped down to our swimsuits. There was a waterfall in the distance that I watched from the edge of the river flowing from it, watching how heavy the water looked as it plummeted into the basin. After lunch we had the plan to get in and swim out into the basin and around a rock wall to see the sister waterfall that you couldn't see unless you swam: which means no cameras. But when I put my feet in, I nearly decided to bail. It was so cold, it was like ice water. It rained yesterday and the day before, so there was a lot of it, moving fast, and freezing. But everyone plunged in, swimming like robots from cold muscles. I was left there, knee deep and undecided. I started to feel left behind, which gave me the final push into the water. Stepping on a slick rock and losing my balance didn’t hurt either.

I’m not sure if it was an abundance of endorphins or adrenaline cascading through my veins from the cold , but I found myself laughing from joy at how absolutely beautiful, absolutely striking this place was. The rocks, the walls, the moss, the height of the falls, the thunder of water meeting water; everything was huge, precise, and with color.

It was awesome.

Excerpt from an email:

I went on a hike to a waterfall, Cascade de Chaudron yesterday. It’s actually closed to the public because it’s dangerous but everyone that knows about it still hikes it. When we were thirty minutes away from the falls it started raining. The rain soon turned into a torrential downpour and I was really glad I had eyebrows. Even WITH eyebrows there was so much rain flowing into my eyes; I was constantly wiping them while trying not to fall off the narrow path into the dwarfing ravine. Even though it was raining, the place was absolutely lush and beautiful I couldn’t help but enjoy myself.

We got to the last leg of the hike where you have to walk along a narrow foot bridge to some rock stairs and down to the basin and we heard a huge crash in the trees. I immediately thought, “What the hell,” while spinning on my heels just in time to see a boulder the size of a car door crash down the side of the mountain on the other side of the falls. It rolled and bounced like it weighed nothing right into the basin making the water explode like a bomb. All of us stood there speechless for a moment and then the two boys that were going first turned around and Luke said, we’ve got to get out of here. We all started to go back the way we came and my mind was in definite survival mode, staying close to the rock wall, keeping my ears open, aware of all noises, moving quickly, but still being aware of my footing. It was kind of nuts thinking about how random everything is, because I could be dead, just like that. We like to think it’s not “just like that,” but it really is. Kind of cool.

Leaves you, supposedly, in a place where you can’t be pissed off at the world for someone dying. It’s just random. I thought about that on the way back to town on the bus. And it felt really strange getting off the bus downtown, completely drenched, after rushing and rushing and fearing and thinking. Stepping onto a dry street where it hadn’t rained and no one was thinking about death. Everyone was just walking, eating, talking, while I walked in hiking boots, my toes squishing water out onto the pavement leaving footprint footprint footprint wondering what it’s all worth.

Apparently it doesn’t take all that much to get me thinking about the big picture. A boulder in the woods should do the trick, or a spider as big as my hand 2 inches from my head. That freaking spider today, before the rock fell, scared me more than the potential landslide to tell you the truth. I’m usually pretty good about spiders, but this one I didn’t get to see: Luke walked through a spider web, so I stepped back to not get tangled in it myself. When Taiki and Luke turned they both pointed behind me and yelled simultaneously while Luke grabbed my arm and pushed me down. Haha-- writing that makes it seems crazy, but they scared the living daylights out of me. I squatted and put my hands over my head-- I didn’t know what the heck was going on. It was such a rush of adrenaline I was literally about to cry from my “flight” response. Whoo-wee.

But everything is A-okay and I'm alive and well. It's raining again today. I'm not sure why --it's kind of strange for it to rain like this. But for the remaining 3 weeks I'm here I'm going to hike and beach and relax.

I live in a disney movie.

I was a magician's assistant for two different events on Saturday. It was so fun. Now I know secrets of magic and escape artistry. Yes, I was handcuffed; my ankles were shackled; I was put in a locked bag and I escaped. It was pretty bad-a.


After the first magic bit, which was for an outdoor adventure race. We got to just play. Romuald, my magician friend who is currently in Circus School, asked if I could ride a bike. I was like, psssh yeah, and when I got on and started riding he said "WOW!" haha. I wonder if "teaching your kid how to ride a bike" is not that big a deal here. Either way, he got on another bike and we rode away from the water fall our station was under. We weaved down the path through the sugar cane field, the sun blazing. Then I started to peddle faster to pass him, laughing. Then he passed me, and I couldn't pass him again. When we turned around I changed gears and went for it, shouting and laughing between the tall stalks of green, I shot past him. The sky was big and blue and it felt like summertime, for sure.


We made it back to the waterfall, Cascade de Niagara, and took a canoe. It was a two man canoe, so we both carried it to the water at the base of the falls and hopped in. The water was cool and felt so good on my feet. I was a pirate all day and bare-foot in the hot dirt. After shoving off, I realized Romuald was definitely the brawn in the boat and sometimes it felt like we were flying. There was bamboo 20 ft high and vines with yellow flowers all over the shore. Some places were wide and it was like a river; others were tight and quick and we had to use our oars to keep from hitting the shore, which we inevitably did. I had to lay down in the boat to not be hit in the face with roots. All I did was laugh and try to not eat dirt. We came upon a bridge that had a hole only big enough for the boat. We yelled directions, "gauche gauche! non, droit! DROIT!" And then our canoe was lined up perfectly and we pulled our oars in and laid down and slid through the little tunnel. It was awesome.

We thought we had gone too far, and Romuald said if we got to the ocean, we'd be in trouble. Instead of freaking out we talked about how Pocahontas was much more graceful than us at canoeing, and of course we then broke out into song. "Just around the river bend" and "Colors of the Wind" in simultaneous French and English while we drifted closer to the sea.

An excerpt from an email I wrote

I went surfing today, and as your quick-witted brain can tell you: I'm alive. I live and I breathe and I've surfed. I stood up, albeit half-assed, once. It's rather difficult and I'm not sure who thought to put the new girl on the shit board, but they did and it wasn't waxed and there wasn't a grip in the back, so I was sliding all over the place. Paddling is tiring. Getting thrashed by waves is tiring. But I persevered and got a wave and rode it until the sea pushed me off. (See? not my fault. It PUSHed me.)

After I ate a bangin' sandwich and hitched-hiked back, I only had time enough to jump in the shower and run off to class. (Mental picture of me in soapy, soaking-wet clothes running through campus with my backpack and wide-eyed? Good.) I got my test back and I got a 16.5 in my grammar course! Hell yeah! A 20 is 100% and since it's impossible to get a 20, 16.5 is bad-A. Well, A-. Anyway, I was happy and hot and tired, so I took a nap.