By Elisa Novick
Thanks to all of you for your good wishes and prayers for the Thriving Planet World Tour. My time in Europe has been quite an experience, ranging from an arduous beginning to the sublime in many moments.
I’ll give you a little travelogue. Today, I will talk about Paris and our first workshop in the Forest of Fontainebleau. (As I write this from Amsterdam, preparing for our workshop tomorrow at The Rose and Vondelpark, much has happened and my schedule has been transforming itself. We’ll be in Brussels, on Saturday, May 11, for what may be our last workshop in Europe. If you’d like to join us, please write me for more information.)
I arrived in Paris exhausted from lack of sleep and dragging heavy luggage up stairs and over cobblestones for hours, trying to find my way in a country whose language I can barely speak or understand.
On the bus from the airport, I was already in a bit of culture shock at seeing garbage-laden shantytowns and when I finally landed in a somewhat vulnerable state, from being immediately and frequently accosted by Roma (gypsy), possibly an inhabitant of one of those towns, trying to scam me out of money. (Watch out when someone hands you a gold ring she or he presumably found at your feet, or a petition to sign. I noticed that none of them had any connection to their souls, which was rather creepy.)
Yet my first sight of the beautiful limestone buildings of Paris, with their long double windows and intricate wrought iron, was already enchanting me.
The next few days were a combination of walking endless miles on calves that no longer wanted to function, seeing the most beautiful architecture and art, and learning about a new culture, then arriving back at my little cave apartment sick, wrecked and broken.