by accident

Pondok Bambu,

I try to remember when was the idea to go abroad was born in my head for the first time..

When I was in university which is located outside my city I had to take two transports public and train (5 days in a week for 5 years).  And of course I took the same route to go back home. Usually I waited for trains with my friends or a friend or just by myself if I was unlucky. This ‘waiting session’ was amazingly boring because we were never sure about the exact time when trains arrive. So, we usually entertained ourselves by talking about this and that.

It began just like another ordinary day and ordinary chitchat like other days when a friend of mine, Lily, said to me that a girl in my department just departed for Paris to study. Without any purpose I asked Lily about how much she spent to study in Paris. She replied me with numbers that I found as a ‘friendly’ fee to spend. Yeah, at that moment the idea of making French sojourn was interesting BUT the main appeal was doing a summer course in France and PASSING ALL MY FRENCH LANGUAGE CLASSES !! Hemmmm.. I don’t even know until now why I chose French major.

Anyhooo.. retournons à nos moutons a . k . a . let's get back to the point. I felt curious about those French course thingies and started to google them for knowing further (yeah, curiosity killed the cat -_-). I found the fee wasn’t that cheap like Lily said but it was comprehensible after all.. The day after I went to Campus France (a part of French Embassy that gives infos about school/universities in France. First thing I had to do was some researches of universities or institutions that offer a course during summer holiday on internet.  Okay, those in Paris were absolutely out of my league !! I scrolled my mouse more southern.. and voilà ! I saw Toulouse and I decided to do my course in that “ville rose”.  

After all struggling moments and efforts that I’ve made I arrived “intactly” -body and soul- in France, in Toulouse, in July 2008.

That was the first moment in my life when I felt like I was breathing fresh air for the first time.. I felt like that day was the day of my birth, the day when I knew one of my passions in life, something I really love to do.. t r a v e l l i n g

     "To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted." 

~ Bill Bryson