An unhinged summary of my last 2 months

I have a crazy idea, what if I moved to Europe? I came up with this idea at 5AM this morning, which is the 3rd day in a row that I have been waking up at this time, due to the jetlag that I have not been able overcome just quite yet. I don't mind it though, its quiet in the early mornings, just like it is at night, and it affords me the same kind of space and peace to think.

I've just come back from yet another Europe trip, 7 weeks this time, and spent fully backpacking. I would do it again, I never thought how easily I could compact all the belongings I could ever need in the space of 50L. It was a wonderful time, to be expected, as each trip seems to always be better than the last. I started off in Morocco, went through the Sahara desert then made my way up to Spain and into France and the Netherlands. I have so many stories that I cannot keep track of them all. In Morocco, we danced and drummed and stayed up til 3AM with the locals stargazing amidst the desert dunes (a joint may or may not have been passed around, which I respectfully declined, I am strict about my no smoking rule).

In Barcelona, I spent a few hours hiking the beautiful peaks of Montserrat with my hostel roommate. The next night, he stayed with his American friend in a crazy fancy airbnb overlooking Plaça de la Catalunya, one of the best views in Barcelona. He invited us over and we had drinks on the rooftop and then went out for dinner at 11PM, where I got too drunk off sangria (alas this is not the most drunk I will ever be on this trip, more on this later).

In France, I went back to Lyon, the first place I ever visited in Europe 6 years ago. I walked past my old residence building but was struck by a weird feeling as I rounded the corner, a fear perhaps of getting too close and somehow running into the me of 6 years ago and butterfly effect all my memories that followed. Irrational I know, but it was enough for me to not get any closer. In Cassis, I met this lovely Chinese girl studying film in Paris, she was from Chongqing, and sometimes there are people in this life that you meet and immediately get along with, and she was one of them. We met again later in Paris and it was like seeing an old friend, no pleasantries, no forced politeness, as we dove straight back into our last conversation.

Then a week in Nice, where after being lost and confused over the bus schedule, I befriended an American couple from San Diego. We had a lovely day and found ourselves running through the rain in Monaco. I only found out towards the end that the husband was a retired radiation oncologist. I was shocked to find this out as old specialist doctors intimidated me as a student and old habits sometimes die hard. Except he didn't make me nervous at all, in the excitement of finding this out, I shouted "HEY REMY, YOU'RE A DOCTOR???" halfway across the courtyard of the prince of Monaco's palace. We talked a bit about medicine, but mostly about not medicine, and how to preserve that part of life that him and I both shared a deep love for: traveling, good food, good people. I got some useful advice from him, and it was refreshing to see such an accomplished doctor tell me that the whims and follies I chased after were worth something, that medicine wasn't everything, and that I shouldn't feel guilty for not loving it as passionately as I love the the many other things in my life.

Next came Normandy, and the beautiful cliffs of Etretat. Halfway through our hike, we had to stop and turn back when we reached a steep rock that we had to climb down with only a rope that was awkwardly placed. It wasn’t until when we checked out of our airbnb that we learned that this was such a small town that our airbnb host was actually the town’s maintenance man and had installed the ropes, which he knew was inadequate, as many people had broken their arms there. Somehow, he neglected to mention this on our first day.

After Normandy, back to Paris. Oh Paris. My relationship with this city is a deep love affair. I am convinced that the colors there look different, brighter, more vibrant, and I took it upon myself this fourth time around to photograph the moments I noticed it. Alas, despite the many photos, I could not figure out the pattern to it all, it could strike at any moment, day or night, in quiet parks, in busy streets, the beauty of paris is both elusive and ubiquitous, ever so difficult to pin down. And yet it is predictable in some ways, I go to a specific address, sit in specific places by the seine with specific people, and it is guaranteed to be magical. Shakespeare and Co, my favorite bookstore in the world, is one of those places. At the urging of a friendly pianist, I played a song on the piano and sang in front of passing strangers. I don’t play piano, but it was the one song I knew. The next day, another pianist played a beautiful melody to which I woke from a nap. I asked him for the name of the song, he told me it had none, it was improvised. It perfectly summarizes the delicate beauty of this city, every second more beautiful than the previous, but always moving forwards, forever unpredictable, such that each moment is one that you will never be able to recreate again. These moments constantly slip through your fingers simply by virtue of its existence, such that you are forever chasing and missing, looking forward yet turning back. Paris is a special place for me. I haven't quite figured out why. One night, an old friend and I had drinks by the seine and we skipped down the sunset streets with our half finished cans of beers, our fourth one, which was the fourth one too many. But Paris had never been so beautiful, the sky a hazy pink, as we ran past the Notre Dame, floating and tripping over our own feet. It felt as if we could take over the world. This was possibly the most I've ever drank, even more than in Barcelona. So much so that the memory itself becomes a pink haze. I'm not proud of it, but I wouldn't change this memory for the world.

And the final stop, Amsterdam. On the way there, our train had broken down and we were forced to stop at a town called Broda, which was about an hour away from Amsterdam. Thank goodness, I met these two girls from Amsterdam, Eline and Charlotte, who took me under their wing (with their perfect english) and led me through the next bus and two trains we had to take to finally arrive to Amsterdam. On the second last train, we made a new friend, Peter, who studied music and serenaded us with his clarinet. It was such a special little moment, serendipitous if you will, that by the end of the 7 hour journey, I was very very thankful for the unreliability of the Thalys trains. We ended meeting up a few days later in Amsterdam for drinks and afterwards hit up the nearest Febo for delicious fried goodness. I was told this was the way to do it. I also met up with Mathijs, my roommate from Paris last year, who took me on his scooter through Amsterdam. His driving is very... brave. That's all I'll say haha.

I'm getting carried away now! I could write a book of these stories and replay them in my mind over and over. It gets me through the winter. Which is quite frankly deja vu. I've been here before haven't I, living through the present from the fuel of the past, the anticipation of the future? Now that I am back in Canada, it feels like I have been abruptly woken up from a dream, one that I did not appreciate enough of while I was still in it. But yet again I never do, it is how I manage to enjoy myself so much in the moment, as I neglect to think about how this will all be over one day. But this somehow makes me a little sad, I still wish I did realize it in the moment, even if just a little. Instead, in the blink of an eye, I am back again, and nothing has changed. I see the same friends, go to the same shop for bubble tea, I still know how to drive even though I thought I might forget. This is to be expected, but a small part of me is disappointed. I feel so different, and yet nothing has changed at all to reflect that. It was as if none of this had ever even happened.

These trips do change me though, it always does, which scares me a little at times. Because I find myself returning to north america, and for the next few weeks walking on eggshells as not to lose whatever vestigial piece of me I had gained these last few weeks. I do lose it eventually though. It always goes like this, I get busy with work, and suddenly the only priority is to not complete crumble into a ball of stress once Friday rolls along. None of the small slow stuff matters then. I just had my first medicine nightmare for the first time in weeks yesterday where I was anxious over a patient, same old routine. But this time, I haven't even started work yet.

Just took a quick break to talk to a colleague about medicine. It's a love hate relationship. There are many small annoyances and at times big annoyances that gnaw at your sanity. But at the same time. When it works out well, it can be quite satisfying. It's cerebral, its a puzzle, and yet there is a healthy balance of human interaction, and sometimes on a good day, patients are grateful for you and tell this to you out loud. I do love those moments. I had forgotten about that. I think I need to think about this more. I don't know where I stand anymore. This morning, I woke up quite certain that I would move to Europe, at least for a few months. I started by looking up jobs as an au pair, which is really just a fancy way to say live in nanny. I started to fill out the registration form on the website until I reached page three which asked for your highest degree and profession. I typed out MD and physician, then for a few seconds after, studied the way that looked on my screen and decided this was a ridiculous idea and closed the window. I then looked into masters university programs in Paris. I found one, spent a good few hours reading about the requirements and tuition fees, learned everything there was to know about it pretty much. It's not so stupid. I'm 26, there are far stupider things I could do than get a masters in the field I'm specialized in. I told my friend David, he was a lawyer and decided at 27 to go to med school. We are going to meet sometime this week hopefully to talk about it, he supports me in this plan, he says he's looked into studying in France too. He told me I wasn't stupid for it.

In an alternate universe, my dream job is to work for the UN as some sort of health officer. It goes hand in hand with my lifelong goal of learning all 6 UN languages. I speak 3 of the languages decently well, they have come to me with relative ease when I still quite young and malleable in my language skills. I was also afforded the privilege of growing up in a weird mix of cultural milieus, always changing schools, which once felt like a curse. As a child, I hated being the new kid at school, I was quiet around strangers and slow to warm up. But as an adult, it has translated into this comfortable ease and even craving for new people and their stories, and as I discovered when travelling, they seem to want to share them with me too. I perhaps have medicine to thank for that.

This is what I know though: I want to make a difference on a bigger scale. It's odd for me to type that out without feeling like I am falling into stereotyped cliches, but ultimately it is how I feel in the simplest of terms. When I was telling a friend in Paris about this dilemma, he understood it and summarized it as such: you know what your life is going to look like in 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, and that's not what you want. He was right, that is not what I want. Frankly, it terrifies me.

And Paris? Why there? Well. I have my reasons, a list of them really. I just have to sift through them and figure out which one is the real one, because I'd hate to move for the wrong one.

A last thought I want to leave with. Today I drove home 30 minutes from a friend's house, which of note, is the friend geographically closest to me. On my way home, I drove onto a bridge over the freeway, and merged one lane to the right. Before even crossing it, I knew that it was the perfect lane that would allow me to turn right 3 stop lights from now, but not so right that I'd be forced to turn onto the highway. This doesn't make sense I know, but it makes sense to me. Which is precisely what bothered me. I have gotten too comfortable with this city. It's the longest I've been in once place, over 15 years. There is such a thing as knowing something too well. I am no longer charmed by it, or even pleasantly surprised. I am 26. I deserved to be pleasantly surprised still I think.

PS. I also sent an email to Shakespeare and Co today. I read a book once about a guy who was a "tumbleweed" there, which means that in exchange for working a few hours at the bookstore and reading 1 book a day, he gets to live in the best bookstore in Paris (in the world!) for free. This was in the 70s, but its a secret that it still exists to this day. If there are still readers reading this, I ask you to do one selfish thing for me, don't tell anyone until after next spring, so that I can have a small chance of going myself and being a tumbleweed, where I can figure out my jumble of a life. A behemoth of a task, but at least I'd be Paris while doing it. And we all know how I feel about Paris.