Lest we forget

Travelling. It's an amazing thing . Full of extraordinary experiences , things you can't really describe with words. It teaches you so much that you feel you understand it all. You're meeting so many people that you develop compassion for most , see their potential and you feel at home everywhere. You know what to do to spread Peace in the world.

You know it all and you will never forget.

Yet when you settle down, you feel totally and uterly... RETARDED.

Travelling teaches you about LIFE. But LIFE does not mean EVERYDAY DOWN TO EARTH LIFE.

D'oh.

It can lead to jokes like that : Annabelle, 33 years old : French au pair in the UK.

 It's even worse in French. '' Jeune fille au pair'' Jeune fille : young girl, still in the process of growing.

Oh yes , my mum and dad were proud. Yes , I did tell my new family about my age ( after telling them I was 23. They laughed. I did not insist)
Yes, there are still people who are willing to give a chance to oldies in this world . Exceptional people really.

That's how I moved in with a fantastic family of Brits with 3 great boys ( and 3 great guinea pigs) Everything is brilliant.
Then came my darkest hour of shame.
My everyday life skills review.
- I can say that I would enjoy cooking if only cooking could enjoy me.
- I can take advice from a 7 year old on how to make mashed potato
- I can google '' How to iron a shirt'' or '' how long to boil an egg for''
- I can teach kids how to bake ( if I do not participate actively in the baking)
- I can do magic . I make men disapear only by saying those 4 magic words : '' I like you too''

You see your Life flashing before your eyes and you see it on people's faces . The look. '' the where have you been the past 33 years'' sort of look. I faced the Ugly truth : I have Everyday Life skills of a 12 year old.

 You forget why you did not commit to this sort of everyday Life earlier so you don t have to suffer the shame of feeling like a pre teenager at cooking class. You suddenly see that EVERYONE your age seems so grown up. You forget what travelling brought you.
You can't bloody use it now , can you? Wisdom does not feed starving kids . D'oh.

That's what I thought until I baked cookies the other day.
Those cookies were NOT normal cookies from your Jamie Oliver cook book .

They have A STORY. I was lovingly looking at them baking in the oven and I remembered.....

Canterbury , England , 2005

 '' Want some cookies? '' says that guy I just met at the hostel. He's got a weird accent. He must be from America or something '' They're ANZAC cookies mate '' What a weird brand name. Never heard that before. Yeah , they were all right. Cookies are just... cookies.

I look up this weird ANZAC word , just to not look stupid It said :

ANZAC The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was a World War 1 army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was formed in Egypt in 1915 and operated during the Battle of Gallipoli. The corps was disbanded in 1916 following the evacuation of Gallipoli. The corps is best remembered today as the source of the acronym ANZAC which has since become a term, "Anzac", for a person from Australia or New Zealand.

Ok. Whatever.

 Villiers Bretonneux , France March 2009

I'm reading names and ages. Lots of them.

My Australian friend JP is standing next to me . I can't say a word. Neither can he. We were both living in the UK at the time and decided to go on a short trip to Europe ( as they say , like England is NOT Europe ) so I can show him MY country.
I had no idea that, on that day he was also going to show me HIS.
We were standing in the Australian national war memorial cemetery. My eyes caught a name . It said : died at the age of 30 years old. Lest we forget.
This was on the day I turned 30. This was the day I really understood the real meaning of ANZAC.

Uki , New South Wales Australia,  25 April 2011

'' Annabelle, it's 3.30 am , we are taking you to to a boring dawn service memorial. Why are you so excited?'' my Australian hosts ( later called ''Aussie parents'' ) ask me.
'' It's History captain. Exciting for me. I'm from the other side of the world and I can witness THIS !''

Plus I knew that , given the length of Australian History we were not going to sit there listening to boring non sense for hours like in Europe. I was right. 1 hour later I was i drinking the transitional 4.am beer with the older generation of Australians. . They showed me pictures, authentic documents from the War, telling me stories about their friends or themselves at that time. Everyone was there. Ex soldiers, men , women , kids... Everyone.
This was the day I took all their memories travelling with me. I never gave them back.

Brighton , United Kingdom April 2012

I finally took my cookies out of the oven and shared them between ''my'' 3 little Brits telling them the story of ANZAC day and how important it was for Australia, New Zealand and for themselves too.

 I remembered the whole point of travelling when the 7 year old ran to his mum with one of my cookies saying '' Mum , this is a special day for Australia today''

No , I haven't done all that for nothing. THAT sentence IS the whole point. I would swap any everyday Life skills for it. Any time.
My cookies? They were the best I ever had. ( not even burnt) Experience has this special taste that you can't explain with words. You can only taste it for yourself.

Everyday Life skills can be learnt in books with a little patience . Passion can only be passed on from generation to generation , and from country to country.

That is what Life is for.

Lest we forget.

Imagine there 's no countries ( and no religion too)

I ve got the strange ability to adapt to the country I live in.

People would say '' get a personality, dude''
The strange thing is, I am still ME. The girl who chats too much , loses everything, likes voluntary work and think she 's getting paid for it, loves writing and make other people laugh usually by embarrassing herself . I just do it differently according to WHERE I am.

As I said we are all the same but brought up to think we are different.

When you travel you become sensitive to what we call '' the country's vibe'' . aka the thoughts people have about the country they live in. It shapes their identity somehow.

I once heard that our thoughts create our reality ( I still don't understand why I m not rich yet by the way, I always think I am but my bank doesn't. They don't get the '' rich in the inside'' thingy. )

Each country creates a different national energy . That's how you create cliches , put them into people's heads and eventually re create them into people 's everyday lives, which in turn creates '' The country's vibe''

Australia is well known to be chilled out , Asians were brought up to think they were different from ''us'' , The UK is a fast paced nation where achievement seems to be the key to a successful Life. Time to myself? When do I get time to myself? ( and yes, you're proud of it too ) .

The French always complaining ( we haven't managed to get over the revolution) and seen to be arrogant ( why has God invented Parisians???)

So I'm chilled out when I'm in Oz , I feel different and resent the White Tourists when I am in Thailand, I'm an over achiever in the UK. And you understand why I don't want to live in France anymore.
I pick up the national vibe and apply it to my personal Life. Talk about magic power.

The funniest parts are when I'm in'' transition''. My transition usually lasts for 2 days or so. I got so bored in Australia the first couple of days I went back there from the UK I thought the clock had stopped. My first couple of days back to the UK after Australia had had the opposite effect. It was like watching a movie in fast forward mode . Damn , has it been a week already ? Wait I'm not ready , I need to chill , where's the beach ,mate. What? Pebbles? You must be kidding me?

Most young Aussies I know here LOVE Europe. They end up taking up smoking , binge drinking and dating random people from various countries ( all that in just one day). Then? They go Home to settle, marry and look at Europe on Google Earth because they are finally done with fast pace.

But What if we were more than our culture ?

Imagine there's no countries...

Hang on , someone has said that BEFORE. Damn. The best things have already been written. But yet not understood by all ( thank God I still have a job).

Here I am, listening to '' Imagine '' from John Lennon, in Starbucks coffee ( shame on me.But I'm on UK vibe remember?) while drinking a cold 1 pound filter coffee.

Damn, this guy had a point.

I ve plugged back in to the UK vibe without realizing it. Achievement is the key word. I had to write so many hours a day ,meet my targets or I could not chill out in the evening. And guess what? When you 're a writer it does not bloody work. You can overwork any job, but not that one. Ever heard of writers' block ? Yep , that one . That's when you remember that you have to be YOU . D'oh. ( How do you do that? Just be you. WHAT? )

One day of ''forced '' chilling out later < ie going for long boring walks on the beach , doing a whole hour of meditation wondering what the f**** point of counting your breaths is , reading books ( and wish I was the author) , and moaning about everything ( it does hurt my British self to chill out ) > inspiration is BACK. Wow. I AM BACK. Yes, I have to fight to remember I'm more than my country's vibe.

Living in a hostel is the best way to understand that there is no such thing as countries in the end. When we're done laughing about how rigid the Germans are , how apologetic the Brits are , how arrogant the French are and how slow the Swiss are you start digging deeper and see what different individual talents we all have and how we can put them TOGETHER to live a peaceful life.

You've got the guy good at cooking , the one good at communication , the other one who has excellent organisation skills. That one knows about Nature and how to protect it. Everything to create a damn good community. We don't need a guy to rule all these people. We don't even NEED rules actually. If it works for a small community. Imagine for the whole world.

No rules. Have we tried that one before? Oh yeah , in my country. The French revolution, that one . We just forgot the bit where we live in Peace TOGETHER. See how THAT turned out .We ELECTED the next best thing to a king to make decisions for us ( and not with us) . Epic failure. Oh well, we haven't lost it all. Now the world knows at least one french singer who's not dead ( yet) : Carla Bruni. ( and she's Italian)


Loving people for who they really are is way easier ( although you have to try harder). That's how complete strangers invite you for their Easter Friday dinner .You end up telling them stuff about you that would not even tell your own sister ( 5 bottles of wines helped a little though)
That's how you go and watch a little boy play guitar with his band in a pub on a Sunday afternoon and feel so proud of him that you forgot you only met him a week before.


... And no religion too sings John Lennon now

It reminds me of my Easter Sunday.
I went to a catholic church ( in England haha) with an awesome tattooed and pierced Irish dude from New York I met 2 days ago.He's a full on Christian who gave up coffee for Lent ( but not booze or cigarettes, don't be silly) .
Half the people in the church were Polish and the other half hungover ( and probably Polish too) But still, Churches were all full that day... People still believe. But thet forgot what in.

Back home at the hostel we had too google Jesus to know his full story. So he rose from the dead on the Sunday then. Like the rest of us. We just call it hangover over here.
Then Easter got a whole different meaning when the hot male Swedish staff member decided to wear bunny ears.

Religion. we all sort of know it 's rubbish and it leads to wars and that but we ALL know that we could have done better with it. That guy called Jesus did.

Deep inside We know there is someone to believe in ( we all know it's NOT Sarkozy)

We just need to remember that this someone is .... OURSELVES.

It's easy if you try.....

Same same ( but different)

So I'm back in England. Also known as the country of multiculturalism

The country where you hear about 20 different foreign languages spoken around you everyday ( one of them being Cockney English) , the country where you sometimes meet people who call themselves British. I met one or 2 since I got back.

What binds us all together? The weather. Just kidding , I meant British humour ... and our experience.

England feels like Home for me too. But it wasn't always like that. I'm French , remember? I was taught the french and the Brits did not go well together at SCHOOL . Then What happened? I went and lived there for 4 years. And I realized that the Brits are just people like you and me. They just eat bad food but they 're still cheerful.

Also, after living with foreigners in a bakcpackers' hostel for years I finally understood that we all have a very different vision of Life and there is no '' England on a shoestring'' travel guide book guidebook that can replace YOUR experience of it . You can describe Big Ben , Covent Garden ( BORING) but you can't describe Life . You can only share your experience of it, and tell people to go see for themselves.

If you start to take other people experiences for granted, you NEVER go anywhere.

You know how you can guess where a traveller is from? Ask him/ her to describe the country they dislike the most .
It is very likely they will describle their own country ( except the french who will automatically describe the country they're currently in. Even if they love it. Complaining is in our genes. And we love to be the exception)

Have you noticed how we think people smile more when you're on a holiday abroad and when you come back to your Home country , people look miserable and unhappy?
The grass is way greener on the other side...

I had the same feeling when I got back from Australia to England ( and it's not even my country. Confused yet?. No , I would not have coped with France at the time)
I meet that Aussie girl from Tasmania on the plane back. I was ''forced'' to leave Oz and She was willing moving to England ''forever'' .
My first question was simple : WHY?

Because Australia is boring ... mate.

I took the tube with her warning her about thongs , flips flops and marmite while she looking at London suburbian houses with total fascination and a silly grin on her face.. Me? I had my eyes closed , trying to breathe and attempting to picture my favourite beach in Oz in order to avoid a rush hour panic attack.
Her England is my Australia.

I recently met this guy who lives in Cambodia. He's on a 3 week break to visit England.
'' People are not nice here , they're so busy and overworked. they don't give a s***'', '' he says
'' You haven't been to France yet ,have you? They moan all the time, and they have like a dictator at the head of the country and they are all freaking out .'' I answer.
So where are you from then? I finally ask
'' Oh I'm from London. You?'' He replies quite naturally.
'' I'm french ''

SILENCE.

My France is his England.

Some other people moan about the weather in this country, the lack of work opportunities. How much tastier sangria is in Spain , how crap baguettes are here. Did I mention the cheese? I wonder how many sorts of cheddar England has. Probably as many as cheap , crap wines or Earl Grey teas.

Yes , we're all the same. We're all moaning at whatever country because it's easier than facing the fact that our problems are inside of us.We want to feel safe. So we all have a different way to cope ( but we all blame the weather )

For those of you who have ever been to Thailand you might have seen that Tee shirt that (almost) EVERYONE buys on Khao San Road. It says '' Same same'' on the front and '' But different'' on the back. Damn right mate.

That's when we invented globalization ... In an ideal world Starbucks and Mac Donalds were meant to make people feel safe EVERYWHERE .
Then you realize that a bloody Mac fish and chips won't make you feel you feel at home in England and won't help you belong where you are if you are not safe within yourself.
So you don't feel great AND you get fat . D'oh.

So where the F**** do we go to be happy?

Within. No air fare , no jet lag, no change of plans . Respect who you are so you can respect the people you're with, no matter where they are from .

It's not where you are that matters ( it's still preferable to pick a place in the Sun , by the ocean though) , it's your will to embrace a new culture ( and keep your own) that really counts. And we all need to accept that our cultural differences are a gift to us all. They are what makes us keen on exploring, discovering and challenging ourselves.

Same , same but different..

That is exactly what Britain is brilliantly good at . The Brits take new people on board wherever they are from ( holding an EU passport helps, though) and welcome them for who they are without getting too involved either while happily taking the piss out of themselves having cups of teas in front of Coronation Street.

Just be you. Do and express what YOU are passionate about.

Because in the end, we're all the same... And the only way we can make it, is TOGETHER.