I have always been a very vivid dreamer. I can't imagine how many times growing up when my mom would wake me up that I would say, "I had the (insert adjective here) dream last night!" For the last couple of days I have been having some amazing dreams here.
There is one dream that stands out the most to me. In describing it, it won't make any sense, but I need to try anyway. I am somewhere near a lake. It seems like it is the dock of the houseboat we rented for one of our family reunions a few years ago. Except instead of being a boat, it is the FVC. Somehow the surrounding area has changed to the faculty lawn at UCSB. I see my coworkers from this summer walking with vacationers away from the beach. The sun is out, but it setting. Brilliant purples and oranges and yellows paint the sky the color of a cowboy cliché (yes, I stole that from John Mayer). Then we are at the beach. I have never felt more comfortable and at peace than I did in my dream. I looked around and I knew where I was, who I was with, and what was going to happen.
Then I woke up.
I feel like living in this city there are times when everything seems to be familiar, walking by buildings I've seen for the last four weeks, knowing I am almost home. Then there are other times when I walk down roads I know I've been down before, but everything seems different, like it has changed since this morning. I know it is just my mind playing a trick on me.
As for the apartment, Alyia and I went and signed the contract yesterday. However, like everything else in this country, nothing has gone quite like it was supposed to. Because we weren't sure of how much we needed for the payments and all of that, we hadn't wired any money to France yet. It takes about two or three days for a wire transfer to come through. The contract doesn't become a binding legal document until they receive all of the money. So I can't say that I have an apartment yet.
To compound the issue, Alyia is heading to London tomorrow and coming back next Wednesday. In the mean time, I don't have anywhere to live... I think I am going to have to find a hostel/hotel close to school I can shack up in until she gets back and we can officially move into our apartment.
And my presentations are coming up. They make me sick to my stomach. Today I tried a french hot-dog (baguette with cheese and hot-dog in it) and could only get through about half of it. It may have been the fact they put mustard in it though. Why anyone would voluntarily eat that stuff is beyond me...
It is embarrassing though. Close to my house there is Rue Moufftard which has all these cool shops and boutiques not to mention crepe stands. I have been to four different ones there. And by this point, every one of the guys who works there knows my order. It is always either a crepe with ham and cheese or a panini with tomato, mozzarella and ham. And that Ben and Jerry's I wrote about a while ago? Yeah, they know me there too. I have always taken comfort in food and since I couldn't really eat my hot-dog today at lunch, I treated myself to two scoops of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (my host family has NEVER tried that! I am going to surprise them with a pint on friday).
So aside from not having a place to live next week, three presentations in the next two weeks in French and at times feeling to nauseous (btw, I, for the life of me, cannot spell nauseous without spell check) to eat, everything else here is going fine. I really like Thursdays. Thursday is the day when I have my English classes. My French defense policy class is great because I've already done my presentation so I have nothing to worry about. My Social History of the US in the 20th Century class is soooooo easy. We literally talked about what Jim Crow laws are for about twenty-five minutes last week. Thursdays are definitely good days.
Maybe I'll take a nap and dream again.
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