Changing Altitude

Some changes quietly build with grounded footing from moment to moment. A familiar horizon, softly with a slow tip.

The change I’m on promises no such gentleness - it started abruptly with a plane, two cars, three trains, and a foreign language I don’t understand. Sharp turbulence with lightning. At least I have my seatbelt fastened.

I am determined to take a look at life from a higher altitude - or different altitudes, literally and figuratively. Thanks for joining me.

I marveled on the flight at Google Translate’s ability to do its thing using the microphone button. Which also worked with the train station announcements! While the whole day was terrifying, my small win: My “Merci” is apparently so perfectly pronounced that people are replying to me in French with a smile, pause to watch my face, and “English?”

Why are they not asking “Chinese?”

Care of AirFrance. ||| Very thoughtful but missing the “play” button for how each phrase sounds.

There is a GINORMOUS GARE train station in CDG! So many people to watch. The double decker TGV trains are easy to navigate, even for an upper deck seat and with my favorite things on my back and getting dragged. ||| I have too many favorite things and (woop) there is Chinese on the signs. And no English.

Very small train station with a Starbucks. The women’s bathroom had a metal open rim toilet with no seat ew. So a squat toilet but not like the Chinese ones. ||| 90 min layover spent wondering why these circles aren’t six feet apart. Or did they predated pandemic. Or maybe they didn’t “pandemic” the same way.

The French countryside from a train window. ||| What I thought was a major storm in the distance was a nuclear power plant billowing. Two-thirds of France’s electricity is from nuclear power, with 56 operable nuclear reactors online, one under construction, and six new nuclear reactors planned by 2050.