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The Globe Junkie
Money is the answer to all your questions my dear. Wait but wasn’t I the one who asked? Can I be my dear to myself? Who gives a fuck? This is my story and I will be as open and blunt and vulnerable and vulgar as I please, thank you very much!
Uh… anyways what was I saying? Yeah, a little-known fact is that France is not the cheapest country and so to go I needed a job. The only thing was I had no experience, having just previously spent most of my waking hours trudging through school and occasionally doing part-time work for a family friend who was a painter. I know this part is tedious but school tells me I need to provide exposition for my exhibition in order to hinder my inhibitions (see I made rhymes to make it interesting!)
So, I got a job as a dishwasher at a newly opened Japanese ramen shop. Nine months there, maybe ten. I didn’t get paid to count. Nice job though, with simple work. One guy died after three hours of working and came back to life, and one guy got hit by a car and came back to work 5 minutes later nonchalantly flexing on the rest of us mere mortals. Then there was the guy who bragged to me that he was affectionately referred to by his peers as ‘Shits’. Why? For being the shittiest person at Berkeley High! I dropped a pot on my foot one day. “Shit!” I cried.
‘You talkin to me?’ He said, thereafter revealing this magnificent nickname to me.
The point is that work was work. It was cool for the most part but washing dishes was not too inspiring to me personally. I was there on opening day though so I felt a bit of attachment to the place and my coworkers who were so kind to me, even the one who walked up and asked me if we could have nonconsensual relations together. Sounds like a good time to get back to the main topic. It was hard, come April, to give my two weeks’ notice but I had made a plan and I intended to follow it. I dreamt of France. I was to go there, become fluent and possibly find a school there. As things generally do, my plans changed.
part 0
First, I learned about the three-month cap to the amount of time an American like me could stay in the Schengen Area. This hatched in me the wilder idea to do a full circle of the Mediterranean, starting in France, going down into Morocco and North Africa, and returning via Turkey and the Balkans. If only my bank account could keep up with my ambition; the story of my life and so many others’ lives. Spoiler Alert: this trip is just Europe. At that point in April, I just scheduled France, Italy, and perhaps Germany, where I have family.
It’s hard to describe the nerves after my last day at work. Here I was having gone from high school to my first job and now to traveling halfway across the globe all alone. To an extent, I was excited, of course. The chance for adventure was tremendous and nothing felt more compelling. But on the other hand, who the fuck was I to do this by myself? What skills did I possess that could serve me? What did I do to deserve this when others never get to leave their country? Then I figured there’s no such thing as ‘deserve’, only ‘want’.
I wanted to stay, or at least part of me did. That fear will always be there but you need to multiply it by ten for the first trip. My family assured me all would be okay. I would be fine. We returned to my restaurant on the last night before I was to leave and I was treated like a returning king. They even gave us backstage passes to the stars of the future, those dishwashers who were tasked with filling my enormous, incomparable shoes. Hehehe.
France
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/849913760947030746/sent/?invite_code=5a69f86380c74a45bd8e0532d4e76c7a&sender=849913898336306860&sfo=1Nevertheless, I guess I answered the whys of going to France. And if I didn’t, just read this anyways! Whaddo you want from me? Now it’s time I get to the what. Bear with me just a bit more and we’ll get to the bratwurst and kartoffelbrei. My dad was the driving force when it came to giving advice about this trip. He’s from Germany and had visited France several times before so he understood Europe, in general, more than the rest of us. He introduced me to different programs I could use in order to travel and become immersed in the culture while also saving money. Those were his biggest concerns, while my young mind stayed focused on the excitement and endless adventures.
Of all the programs I saw, two would be pivotal for this trip; WWOOF and Couchsurfing. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It was a program where you could reach out to a farm abroad and stay with them, helping out with whatever tasks were needed in return for lodging, food, immersion, and very rarely pay. But, that was okay. It was never about the money, just the experience. Secondly, there was Couchsurfing which was less about working and more about meetings and cultural exchange. On Couchsurfing, one meets or stays at the homes of others free of charge, with the possible benefit of a new foreign friend, a free tour, or at least just a place to stay. With both of these, the variables were immense so it’s hard to totally declare one to be this or that.
For my money though, Couchsurfing actually intimidated me more. The idea of staying with complete strangers seemed like a formal request to be murdered. So, I chose WWOOF and arranged to go to the Island of Corsica for three weeks on a farm before going to France proper via a ferry to Nice. Then, I’d move into Italy and circle north through Germany and then back into France. That was the plan for April 17th, 2018.
my first solo trip: part 0
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