my sense of direction

When I decided that I was going to post every week, I decided I was going to if I felt like I had something to say or not, just so that I would stay in the pattern and it would force me to be creative occasionally. Maybe. Yeah, nothing creative is really going to happen hear. Sorry kids!

Instead, you get to read the staff essay that I wrote for the travel magazine Stowaway that I am currently working with. It didn't get picked...and it uhh might not be very good, but I already wrote it, so it might as well be shared somewhere, right? I'll include pictures to make it more entertaining and link to a French sounding song for you to listen to, since the essay takes place in Paris after all. I will also own up to the fact that some slight details of the story were altered for the purposes of the magazine. 

      I've grown up traveling, so at times I might be overly confident in my ability to get around in a foreign country. But, I never realized until I was in a foreign county, by myself, and without cell phone use how heavily I rely on my GPS to get me where I need to go. This problem became very obvious to me during a semester a couple of years ago that I spent studying in Pairs. Getting lost seemed like a pretty much daily occasion for the first month (and honestly probably for the entire 3 months that I spent in Europe). On my first day in the city, my study abroad director took the group on a little tour, showing us where our classes would be, which metro station to get off for the building, where we would be going to church on Sundays, and how to get to some of the major sites in the city.

     The directions seemed simple enough. I paid close attention to where we were and how to navigate the streets to our classroom building just a few blocks away from the Pompidou Center, a modern art museum in Paris. Come Monday morning, I got all ready for my first day of classes in a foreign country, hoped on the train into the city, got off at the proper stop, and promptly found myself very lost and very without any clue as to where I should be going.

     Luckily, my French is good enough that I was able to ask for directions. Unluckily, the building my classes were in were on a small street unknown to everyone I asked. Rather than making it to class that Monday morning, I wandered the city aimlessly having no idea where I was going. Most people get frustrated by being lost, but me? I loved it. I may have been missing my first class, and I was slightly worried about what my director would think of this, but I was exploring this perfect city in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I had made it directly to my destination.

     I was discovering little side streets, beautiful buildings, and sites I may have missed had I known where I was going or had my face been glued to my phone to direct me. I was chastised slightly for my missed class, but on one of my first days I had encountered Paris in a way that mesmerized me. For the rest of my study abroad, I was never afraid to get lost. I let myself wander, discovered new districts, and ignored any sense of direction that I may have, because this is how I discovered Paris. My Paris. The rainy side streets and the sunny pathways. I fell more and more in love with the city every time I got lost and wandered somewhere new. Getting lost may have failed many times to get me where I wanted to go, but every time it got me exactly where I needed to be.

peace. love. and getting lost.