A time to remember

Me and one of the alpinists

Ten years after having been in a Swiss school, I arrived to Paris in September and I am staying for a year. Paris has welcomed me in a very kind way and it has been an opportunity for me to remember my French. I had spent my entire summer in Colombia working in my jewelry (www.valentinafigueroa.com) and I was ready to begin a new chapter.

            I flew directly from Colombia and after 12 hours I was an ocean away. One of the first things that amazed me was how quick immigration was at the airport and how difficult it was to find a calling card to call ANYWHERE. When I got into the taxi I gave the driver the address I had written in one of my million note pads and found out an hour later that I was in the wrong address. I was in another youth hostel and there were students from all places but NYU. With my two giant bags I finally got another taxi that took me to the other address I thought could work and there they were. It certainly was a big relief to find them and a calling card later to call a friend from childhood who lives in Paris.

            The first few days were magical and surprisingly cold for September. I always love the feeling that I get in a place where I am completely lost and discovering a new world. Everything seems new and strange and I tend to find special joy in going into food shops since they can say so much about a culture. One of the things I have loved in France is how they pay so much attention to what they eat. There are thousands of specialized shops for chocolate, spices, cheeses, wines, fruits, etc. It took me a while to buy one of the shopping carts that I now take out in long walks to buy my groceries. I have learned about wines and of course, cheeses.

           In my months in Paris I have had the chance to meet very interesting people. I had the opportunity to travel to Chamonix in the Alps in November with my father’s friend from Colombia, her husband and some of their friends. It was a very interesting trip because all of the people who were there were alpinists or botanists. One of them was in charge of constructing the walking paths in the National Parks in France. We went on walks everyday in the mountains and found very magical places along the way. One of the ladies that I met was the first French woman to climb the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland and was stuck there for a week as a result of a storm that hit the area at the time she was descending. She had also climbed Mount Everest and all of the major peaks in the world. One of the things that amazed me the most about her was the way in which she told these stories. She sounded so humble and so peaceful that anybody there would have thought they could do it too. I certainly did and created a project in my head about how I was going to become an alpinist too. By talking to the people there I learned about their magical experiences and ways of looking at the mountains. The peaks of mountains are like sanctuaries that must be taken care of and when the ones apt to arrive there do so, it is because they have gone through a training of the body and the soul. I think this training is present in all of our lives in different forms and the more we leave behind and learn, the more apt we are to live in a more peaceful and joyful way.