Rachel in Paris: Greece

In case it wasn't clear what I've been doing this summer other than traipsing around the Riviera and London, I've actually been working on my thesis, a translation of a book called Paris: Quinze promenades sociologiques (English: Paris: Fifteen Sociological Walks). The second reason I chose this master's program (the first being, well, Paris) was that, like most master's programs abroad, it was only one year in duration—two semesters of classes and one summer session where you write your 25,000-word-minimum thesis. Knowing what I know now, I am so glad that I went this route for grad school, because I don’t know if I had it in me to have done two years back at home. School has always come pretty naturally to me and I’ve always done pretty well when I’ve tried really hard, and okay when I haven’t.

But grad school is different.

I had to work the hardest I’ve ever worked. There was no sliding by or cutting corners. The readings were chock-full of complex ideas by writers and translators who I’d never heard of but that my classmates seemed to have almost known on a personal level. I was the one who showed up to class, barely having been able to get through a dense, forty-page article on what it means to be a native informant in cultural translation, having extracted the most minute kernels of meaning out of it, and then spending the rest of the class period trying to keep my deer-in-the-headlights look under control because I actually didn't understand any of it. Nothing was easy. I don’t think there was ever a single moment of complete clarity where I confidently showed up to a class thinking I had the field of cultural theory figured out in any sort of way. I was constantly thinking to myself, why in the world did I choose this incredibly expensive year of torture over teaching English part-time?

Almost the entire time, I would keep prefacing that I was new and very green to translation. But, underdog as I was, I am so glad that I did it. I proved to myself that I could get through a year among some truly brilliant classmates and professors who are entirely more passionate about translation than I ever care to be. I’ve always felt completely average in everything that I do and grad school confirmed that to me—but hey, I was able to roll with the best of them. It’s okay and, frankly, almost a relief to not be the absolute best at something. It reminds me of when I got to Augsburg, intending to be a music major and realizing I was no longer the best pianist of the bunch like I had been at home and that I was actually pretty terrible at music theory. If I had to go back and choose a master’s program, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would choose something different, but it is what it is. There was something very humbling and refreshing about learning a new art form (and translation really is an art form that Google Translate will never be able to replicate) from scratch and sitting back and just learning from other people who are dedicating their lives to transferring the experiences of one culture and language into another. It’s a rigorous field that is both underappreciated and taken for granted.

Matt came to visit me for a little over a week in the beginning of August after his London program ended and then my friend Megan who I’ve been friends with since our freshman year at Augsburg was in Paris for a month-long program before heading off to Bologna, Italy for the year. Saying goodbye to the two of them—Matt goes to school in Indiana and Megan will be in Italy until next summer—was hard. I don’t like saying goodbye and I don’t like being left in Paris, my favorite place in the world, without anyone to share in it with me anymore.

The latter half of August, I devoted myself to getting serious about my thesis and there were days where I wouldn’t leave my tiny chambre de bonne at all. I started with the goal of only translating about three chapters of the book, and the more time that has passed, the more I've added to it. While we were allotted just the summer to complete our theses, no one in the history of the program has ever finished by September. Even though I participated in commencement, I don’t officially graduate until I’ve turned in my thesis, so I hope to submit and defend it via Skype by December so I can graduate this semester.

On top of translating from sunrise to sunset, I moved from my room with a view. I moved myself and my seventy-three bags of hell eight minutes away on foot to the rue Saint-Jacques in a studio twice the size of my former room. Let me just say that you can’t really complain about moving until you’ve singlehandedly carried a fifty-pound suitcase among other luggage down the world’s steepest spiral staircase. It gives me a whole new respect for the donkeys in Santorini that I once refused to ride up the 500 steps of the caldera. I feel you, donkeys. I feel you.

So now it’s two weeks left in Paris to close up shop—cancel my phone plan and bank account, figure out what in the hell I’m going to do with all of my stuff and say goodbye once again to this city I’m so in love with. But somehow, someday, I'll be back. I promise.

Love,

Rachel

“If you’re 22, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel—as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

- Anthony Bourdain

* * *

ISTANBUL

California knows how to party. 2Pac is louder than the fifteen other voices in the shuttle as the headlights light up one of those universal green road signs: "İstanbul" with a white arrow. In the city of L.A. Mounds of apartment buildings crop up in the blackness around us. Where are we? The driver next to me drives with one arm, the other clutching his phone that he shouts into, pausing every so often to assure me that my backpack that keeps shifting over the emergency break "is okay." He makes no attempt to alter his driving as we shoot through an automatic toll. In the city of Compton. Neon corporation signs like Toyota light the way as the city grows denser. Minarets spear the sky. We keep it rockin'. What's better than the first glimpses of a new country? We keep it rockin'.

I'd never been so far away from home before I went to Istanbul the last week of February. The past few weeks since then have been so congested with midterms and the onset of unseasonably good weather in Paris that I've put off writing about it until now. For the last spring break of my life, I traveled with my friend Rebecca and her two friends from Notre Dame who are teaching English in France, Allison and Kelsey. Uncharacteristically, I let the others organize most of the trip. The night before we left, I packed and watched a few videos in a last-ditch effort to learn at least one word in Turkish. I hadn't been to a non-Francophone, non-Anglophone country in almost two years, so I wanted to make an effort rather than assume that the whole world speaks English (When people say that, I want to scream). But damn, Turkish is a lot harder for an English speaker than French. Overall, I can only recognize 'thank you' when it's written down, but I can't tell you how it's spelled or how it's pronounced. I can also recognize rakı and nargile, but that's only from experience, not from any conscious effort.

Feelings of that great French word dépaysement ran high, the feeling of complete disorientation in a foreign environment. I’d never been in a country where I physically and culturally stick out so much and there’s really no way in hell that I can be mistaken for a local. I couldn’t decipher any of the language written on signs or maps, had not a clue about the layout of the city, didn’t know what Turkish people ate or drank or did with their time, didn’t know how to get plastic tokens for the tram, didn’t know anything about Istanbul. I only knew about Islam, kebabs, the Bosphorus and Liam Neeson being a sixty-year-old badass in Taken 2. The city just never occurred to me. It’s probably the most humbling experience to be among thirteen million people you know nothing about and who don't know much about you either. This is one of the reasons I want the career that I do in study abroad; encouraging young Americans to have experiences out of their tight isolated bubbles can only be the start to overturn how we’re perceived (And I’ve certainly heard some not-so-positive words in my time abroad). We are woefully underprepared for the future and most of the world, believe it or not, is not a replica of the United States.

At our hostel in the Sultanahmet neighborhood—the tourist epicenter surrounding the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia—I met a pilot from Ohio named Austin who’d been traveling through Africa for weeks. He was so grateful to be back in a Western country again. This struck me because I’d never been somewhere so completely different from anywhere I’d been in “the West.” What is “the West” anyway? Can it be defined with borders? What makes a place “Western” or “non-Western”? I thought about that a lot during those four days in that city where East meets West and I don't have any answers.

On our first full day, Sunday, we took a long boat tour to the tiny fishing village of Anadolu Kavağı—the very first time I’d ever been in Asia! We chose a fresh sea bass and had it cooked for us for lunch and then climbed up to the Yoros kalesi, a castle in ruins with a panoramic view of Istanbul on one side and the Black Sea on the other.

On Monday and Tuesday, we went into the New Mosque, the Spice Bazaar, the Topkapi Palace, the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar, where I remembered what a pleasure it is to barter. It rained. It was cold. I had wishfully packed things like a swimsuit, sunscreen and a light jacket—half-thinking that Google Images is real-time photography of the current weather—instead of a warm coat and sweaters. None of the tourist sites were heated as far as I could tell, so I channeled my brave inner Minnesotan and sucked it up.

The highlight of our time in Turkey was when we were fortunate to see Istanbul with a local, Atıl, the brother of a friend in Paris. Over two days, he brought us to his university, Taksim Square, coffee shops, tea gardens, rooftop bars, most of which were in non-tourist areas far from the city center, while introducing us to rakı, ayran, chai tea, Turkish coffee, salep and nargile. It was so much fun to have an authentic experience in this city I knew nothing about. I’ve never had so much tea in my entire life.

Inside the Hagia Sophia, I said I never wanted to leave Istanbul. While I was almost certainly under the influence of just having held a cat in my lap, I was only partially kidding. The city was full of delicious food, reasonable prices (Hear that, Paris?), incredible culture and the nicest people I’ve met in Europe. I’ll be back.

Lunch in Anadolu Kavağı

Black Sea

Yoros kalesi

Basilica Cistern

Hagia Sophia

The Grand Bazaar

Hagia Sophia

My first tea in years.

CRETE

It always starts off with a car here. Greece is the only foreign country I've driven in and I love it. With less than two minutes of paperwork, instructions and a seventy-euro fee (last time no one even asked for a valid driver's license), we sped away from the airport in Heraklion along cliffs in our tiny red Toyota, elated to have a touch of American freedom usually stunted by the practicality of the Paris métro (Not that I've ever wanted to sit behind the wheel in Paris. Ever.). Orange sellers in shacks dotted the highway along the north coast en route to the Venetian port city of Rethymnon and I thought, what if I quit grad school and sold oranges on a Greek island? I'm still holding that as an option.

Our hostel was in the Old Town of Rethymnon and not accessible at all by car. The only worker was a little day-drunk and had holes in his pants, but hey, no judgment. We didn't stay in our hostel really at all other than to sleep and use the outdoor showers, which was a little unsettling knowing Holes-In-His-Pants was floating around somewhere. We ran to the port to catch the one Cretan sunset we'd see on this trip and had dinner along the water with "a dessert on the house" which was fruit and ouzo, neither of which are dessert in my vocabulary, but are always welcomed. And we saw stars- in the sky. I can't remember the last time I saw those.

The next day, I drove us west to Georgioupolis to go horseback riding. The "road" up to the ranch was more of what I'd imagine the ground to look like after a giant avalanche goes by. Water from puddles washed up over the hood and it's a miracle that I didn't lose any teeth on the steering wheel. A Belgian named Kristi greeted us enthusiastically outside the stable and within a few minutes we were on horses. The last time I rode a horse, I think I was three and it was a pony. But it didn't matter. I got so used to it that I can only describe as like driving a car that has opinions. We rode down the mountain through a river, olive groves, mulberry trees, lemon trees, a marina and the little town of Georgioupolis. It was so peaceful to feel the sun on my face, the scent of olives in the air, and have no technology in my hands. I may live in a big city, but I think my heart is in these sorts of quiet places.

Fortress of Rethymnon

Georgioupolis

Rethymnon

ATHENS

There are few things that I hate more than alarms. The intercom on the ferry jolted us up only a few hours after I'd fallen asleep and the sky was still black. I have no idea what time it was. Normally, if I have no engagements for the day, I'll sleep until the afternoon, so this was just unpleasant. We threw our shit together and took the train into Athens to the touristy Plaka neighborhood. Thankfully the others weren't so anti-morning and were able to navigate. I, on the other hand, napped the first chance I got.

At the Acropolis, I was denied my customary EU student discount, even though I showed the ~~bitch~~ woman working my EU student visa. She wanted to see my student ID. What is more official than a sticker stamped by the French government in my passport issued by the American government? Apparently the plastic card with a worn-off picture of me that I left in Paris. Every other place in Europe has accepted my visa. I'm the type to just eat a raw steak even if I ordered it well-done, so it was surprising even to me when I started raising my voice at the employees and saying things I shouldn't have. But she shouldn't have denied me.

I'll never forget the first time that I saw the Eiffel Tower and wondered why it was brown and not black like I'd pictured. Something is always a little off when you see famous sites in person for the first time. Standing beside the Parthenon, it looked exactly how I'd pictured it but then again, not at all. Was it bigger? Smaller? Older? Newer? I still don't think what I saw has registered in me.

We went to the new Acropolis Museum nearby and tagged along behind a tour group with bodyguards who we presumed were EU delegates in town. Overwhelmed by statues and dates and facts and pottery, we left in a state of straight-up delirium. We drank coffee and shopped and ate dinner for the rest of the evening in the company of traditional Greek music. Or something like that. I was tired.

Rebecca and I were the last two to stay on until Saturday and we had the day to explore, just the two of us. So we drank and ate and drank and shopped and climbed Mount Lycabettus and talked and laughed and drank. It was a ~~perfect~~ good ending to our week of travel.