Travel advice and happy holidays

It's the holiday season. It seems unreal to be approaching our one year anniversary of New Yorkers and as a married couple. This year has proven challenging, rewarding, peaceful, and exciting. I am still settling into the new job and will now  pass on some helpful travel tips I have learned.

1. Make sure your passport is valid.  Many countries require a passport to be valid 3 months past the dates of intended stay. (Some require 6 months)

1a. Also, although this is a shock to many Americans, there are countries in this world that actually do require you, dear American,  to have a visa before entering. Please refrain from crying when I inform you of this.

2. Make sure you bring your own passport and not your spouse's. I've been surprised at the number of times this has happened.

3. If your bag bulges in odd places and threatens to bust your gut as you place it on the scales, it is more than likely over the weight limit. Take some of that crap out. You won't wear it anyway. At the very least, don't act completely surprised when we say there will be an extra charge.

4. On many flights, even international, you can check in online several hours before the flight. Do so. you'll get a better choice of seats. If you procrastinate and run up to the counter four and a half minutes before the boarding begins, do not complain about the middle seat by the bathroom you'll now occupy.

5. Just as every barista hears "nonfat milk cancels out the whipped cream," every day of their existence as a barista,  airline employees hear, "I won't mind if you want to upgrade me to business class for free." We will try to muster up a smile as if it is an original joke, I promise we will.

So there you have it. Travel tips from my new experience. Enjoy your holidays, throw kindness around with carefree abandonment,  and live a life you'll not regret. Know that we wish you peace from our little corner of this magnificent universe. Whether you like it or not, we are all in this thing together. Namaste.

"Je parle un peu français lentement"

Bonjour all. I thought to give a quick update since I have yet to work out a structured time to write. I am still adjusting to my new schedule; since I tend to wake up early by nature, it's hard for me to force myself to sleep in so I'm not completely dragging at the end of my evening shift.

The new job continues to be quite a bit of fun and I am loving the daily challenge. Not only am I learning a lot of new information about the job itself, I am also forced to learn and use French on a daily basis. This alone has been worth it all. The nature of the job has forced me to simply communicate, and I'll admit, it is not always pretty, but more often than not, I get the job done. (Admittedly, there have been a few times where I find myself completely lost in a conversation and must call for the kindhearted French interns for backup--they always rush in to save the day.) Indeed, I work with a beautiful group of people.

One of the most defiant obstacles on my journey in French is my stubborn perfectionism. Often, even when I studied in Montpellier, the normal flow of conversation would have already moved to the next topic while my brain was still trying to conjugate a sentence correctly before I said it! That makes for good grades on tests, but it sucks in conversation. It has been a tendency that I have found difficult to overcome, but I finally see it happening within this job. I also finally see glimpses of my own personality shining through my, still limited, French. As I am relaxing more with the language, and perhaps my own flaws, I find myself actually communicating instead of thinking through grammar points.

I must also say that the French are lovely people! Many times I am asked if I speak French before the questions fly, and I have started answering "Je parle un peu français lentement." (I speak a little french slowly) They laugh and patiently explain what they are trying to say. They will also kindly correct my pronunciation, and help me find words when hand motions fail us, and I find this extremely helpful. Almost without fail, they end their conversation with some sort of compliment on my French. This is gracious for I know I've slaughtered their beautiful language to bits over the past few weeks. This compliment is probably mixed with a sort of pity--at least the poor soul is trying--but it is, nevertheless, heartfelt and I appreciate their kindness.

I often wonder how on earth I was born with such a love for a language of which I'd had no real exposure. It is like the classical music of language to me and my heart melts when I hear it. Sure, I was born in Paris....Tennessee, and I used to pretend that it was Paris, France, but I find this love for a language wonderfully puzzling. It is just another part of who I am. I laugh when I remember my first day of French class: I was sitting in the back of the room scared to death that I would fail this class miserably, but then I also remember a certain person, now wife, walking into the class that day and taking her seat in the front row. Isn't it funny and marvelous how some things work out? Little did I know how that class would change my life; I am forever grateful.

Peace to you. (and I might add, if you have ever wanted to learn another language, do it, no matter what your age or situation--you'll be glad you did.)