When Worlds Collide

What will I fill you in about this week?

Will it be registering for courses? Nah, that was uneventful.

How about talking about my week with only one day of class? Nope, that would just be me telling you how I've gotten lost in the city via bicycle...

What about my overnight trip to Basel, Switzerland where I've learned to love the Swiss? No, I'll let one of the other 6 students recount those events.

I know, how about the time where I went to a CouchSurfing meet-up and ran into Willi one of the Study Abroad coordinators here at the Chateau.

So to start off I'll explain that before I came to France this Fall I had always thrown around the idea of going off and traveling the world, being a nomad if you will. Living on very little, but seeing everything. A few things I've been inspired by are bloggers that I subscribe to (notable mentions: Nomadic Matt ; Twenty-Something Travel ; Follow Me Everywhere), these people have given up the idea of your "typical" lifestyle and done everything they can to work and live and travel abroad. They'll be somewhere for 6 months and then move on to the next location. It's a bold step, one step that I hope I'll be able to do.

Anyways, these blogs have led me to other travel resources and more specifically a website called CouchSurfing. This online community is comprised of people across the world opening their couches for any passerby in their city. I think it's one of the greatest ideas, being able to bring the traveler directly into the community, rather than being lose in the tourism. I have never had the chance to do this, but I've been a part of CS for 2 years now and I decided that once I am in Europe, I'm going to jump right in. And that started with the weekly Wednesday Strasbourg Group meet-up at La Lanterne.

Of course, I didn't arrive solo, had it not have been in a country where I don't know the language very well, then sure! But that was not the case, so I dragged along Alexandre and Rachel where we were annoyingly punctual...(I don't know how these things go! Don't worry, it will not happen again.) We met them and caved, got them to speak english to us, had tart flambee, happy hour beers...and maybe a few shots. And by 22:00 we were happy people, chatting with people from Strasbourg, people passing thru and even people who had just moved here like us. Rachel and I look up from the table and see David, the guy who is starting the bar at the Chateau and Willi! After our few beers, we took a double take, but it was them for sure.

I soon was informed that Willi comes to these meetings every week, and then she also told me "Yeah, I knew you were coming here. I was just going to let you figure it out on your own..." Thanks for that! It's fun to mingle with the natives and run into your coordinators. It makes this whole world that much smaller!