a new perspective

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hello pretty ones of my life.

i hope you are all feeling beautful and happy today. i am feeling quite lovely, have been sleeping lots and filling myself with amazing cheeses, breads and .65c euro vin from the local supermache.. as a have said previously, i am staying in an apartment with a kiwi mate in a french area called Anglet, which is just outside Biarritz, a spot apparently world renowned for its amazing surf. This area is stunning, i have a view onto the ocean, a 1 minute walk down to the shore, and if i glance off to my left from the balcony, i can just make out the coastline of spain. all in all, life is quite lovely. it is a constant game of charades in order to communicate with the locals, which is always interesting, my walks down to the local bakery to buy baguettes are always a welcome challenge. basically i do a whole lot of pointing and smiling. this seems sufficient for nnow but i am looking forward to getting a better grasp of the language so i can communicate with people better.

the woman who owns this apartment, sophie, is incredibly lovely and french. she loves chocolate, clothes, cheese, sex, and we have lovely talks in our respective languages, each understanding only a little of what the other is saying but having fun with the interaction all the same. she has a 8 year old son, yanni, who is incredibly happy all the time and totally open to this australian random who is staying in his house. i found it so funny, when i first met him, to get a kiss on each cheek. he was so comfortable with it, it hink that cultural diffence is amazing.. i could never go up and kiss a australian child on the cheek, it would be so odd for them. it is these differences in culture which are so foreign and exciting for me. sophie is attempting to teach yanni english, so ill sit down with them sometimes and learn her lin reverse, yanni learning the english and me learning the french.
it makes me think about our school system at home, and how seemingly inefficient it really is at times. we are brought up quite ignorant as far as language goes i am starting to think. i was taught french for a few years in primary school but it was never stressed as really important to learn a different language or even too much about any other cultures. whereas here they are taught english from a young age, and countless people are fluent in three or more different languages.

cliches are fequent around here, i am still amused by seeing french women smoking cigarettes and carrying a baguette, and men wearing berets sitting by the ocean with a paper. simple pleasures like this make it so interesting to be in a foreign culture. i have plans to travel to amsterdam in the next week or so with jonny, which should be interesting to say the least, and i would love to do morocco before i leave as well. the time for my departure is fast approaching, time travels so fast when youre not at home in your comfort zone,,.

this journey is shaping up to be quite stunning, never comfortable. i dont know what i came overseas to find, but i think im finding something within myself that i have never discovered before. i still havent truly realised what that is yet, but i feel something brewing within me, like some form of higher personal awareness, and i dont think things will be the same when i return home. how could they be, after this? i am starting to become aware of my different personality traits, things i am loving this open opprtunity to transform. being by myself i think has forced changes, personality shifts, and emotional weaknesses to become vivid in my mind. there is no escaping thoughts and feeling when you have no distraction from your own way of being. its an eye opener, and its an exciting thing to realise about yourself. the other day i just had to sit down and write all these things about myself, my priorities and reasons for being here, and the possibilities created there were incredibly inspiring.

im sorry this is turning into a kind of journal of thoughts, rather than actual experiences, but i think my internal journey over here is becoming way more important than the things i am doing, seeing, the obvious touristy experience.

total big love to you all, i hope everyone is happy and healthy.

sàlut xx

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