Fleeting Ethnicity
It's a funny thing how that works out—where I'm most inclined to write when not much (eg school) is going on, but I'm not at all inclined when I have tons of things going on.

Anyway, I'm having a rockin' summer. I know I was complaining earlier, but it was just too much, too soon. I was coming off the hardest semester ever (now dubbed The Semester of Sudden Hair Loss), and I wasn't feeling unwound yet. But so far, I've had trips to Florida, Taiwan, and Japan. And then I went back to Chestertown for two sessions of TAing. And now I'm sitting on a plane bound for Paris. Awesome.

Something that I've noticed as weird is how I perceive ethnicity on international flights. Getting on my flight to Japan, I felt like we were all Americans. Then, as we deplaned, I suddenly considered them all to be Japanese. For certain flights, I'll judge their ethnicity to be that of the destination before we've even left the gate. Case in point, coming back tot he US from Japan: I got a sense of being "home" as soon as I stepped on the plane. But that could also have something to do with the fact that I was incredibly homesick.

Now, on this plane, I am surrounded by Frenchmen. And I'm still in Newark. It just happens. The terminal was already feeling pretty European, as a Manchester flight was leaving from a nearby gate. But context clues, like spoken French, magazines, and sudden BO, all add up. And I'm sure a small part of the ethnic assignment is from the fact I'm totally stoked to go to Paris.

Last week, when I got home from Chestertown, I had a strong urge to travel, and with Michelle in Paris, it seemed like the perfect time to go continental. I used mileage for my plane ticket, and I'll be staying with Michelle most of the time. My goal is for the entire trip (11 days) to not run more than $500. If I carry I'll try to include airport taxes and my guidebook in that total.

Man, the head flight attendant, who is making the bilingual announcements is a total loser. Okay, maybe he has a fluent command of the French language, but the accent is terrible. Like 8th grade terrible. How did he get this job?

I just packed my backpack, which I last used in 2000. It doesn't fit as nicely as I remember. And strictly speaking, I could have used traditional luggage. I'll be "backpacking" from the airport to a hostel, then to Michelle's, then back to a hostel and the airport. But there's something romantic about claiming that one is "backpacking." I think packing lightly might be like closing one's eyes while singing. You deprive some aspect of your senses to enhance others. By depriving oneself of certain luxuries, like clean laundry, one might enjoy a stronger sense of being entrenched in the destination. You don't have clothing to cloak yourself with. Bah, you know what I mean. But you probably don't. Anyway, this is going to be awesome.
- posted by roger @ 10:10 PM