Sequential Planning

(Note: mobile phone pic.)

I've now moved more into critical path planning. Scandinavia (July): check. Eastern Europe (August): not check, but not critical path.

France (September-November): double check. I enrolled in my language classes, and locked down a place to live for September. Unfortunately, the latter is a residence hotel, not a private apartment. But, Montpellier, along with many other French cities, hosts the Rugby World Cup every weekend in September, and the pickins were slim. So, I chose to confirm someplace, to create a little breathing room in which to find something with a bit more character for October and November.

The school, Accent Francais, continues to be very responsive, which I find encouraging. My second biggest fear is that the school will turn out to be a joke. My biggest fear is that I won't like Montpellier, or that it won't like me (I can always make a fuss and change schools, but a new city would require a few days planning).

I relish the feelings of heading to a new place, sight unseen. Although it can be nerve-wracking, I find the psychological journey from concept, to pre-conception, to first impression, to familiarity and finally to recollection to be fascinating.

I remember it best with Florence, although I can follow the spectrum of impressions with every new change I've made. The sight of the Duomo's multicolored marble rising up next to our bus as we stepped off is etched in my brain. Then the slow, exciting process of discovering more and more of the city, street by street.

New finds become familiar friends, and the process continues, until one day you realize that the first impression, and even more so, the pre-conception, have faded, replaced by an ever-increasingly coherent and realistic (and sometimes, ultimately boring) view of where you really are. (There are a lot of parallels here with aging in general, but I'm focusing specifically on geographic impressions right now.)

Riding and walking around Berlin these last few weeks, I've been toying with the idea of a neighborhood's "center of gravity" and how it can shift as your understanding of the local [insert geo/topo/demo/etc.]-graphy expands.

For example, there's little question that the center of gravity for Friedrichshain is Simon-Dach-Strasse, when it comes to nightlife. That puts me on the west edge. But, as I rode around to the north of Karl-Marx-Allee the other day, I found a couple of seriously-bustling "brunch corners", three large parks I never knew about, and a whole shopping complex. Which warped the boundaries I had previously assumed, and tilted things a bit.

After that tour, I would have said I live on the southwest edge, instead. But then, the next day, I discovered a canal that runs southwest of here with a lot of nice apartments and restaurants...so maybe I'm more in the center.

Then again, on a broader scale, Mitte is now the center, with Charlottenburg still carrying some weight to tip it to the west. Which puts me pretty far east, in the bigger picture.

(By the way, it's not that I haven't been paying attention for the last two years. Berlin is seriously, monumentally, abnormally BIG for a European city. Nine times the area of Paris, for example. There are a lot of nooks and even more crannies.)

That's my point, I guess. The process of orienting yourself...understanding where you really are, in relation to everything else, can be infinitely rewarding, surprising and sometimes unsettling.

Before you accuse me of only liking the anticipation of where I'm going -- rather than the reality of where I am -- please note my diligence in exploring Berlin. I have "done" every street in a 20 block radius (I checked) and most of the tourist areas in greater Berlin. That familiarity is part of the "leveling out" process too. Three months may not be enough to do Montpellier justice. Two years certainly hasn't been enough for Berlin. To anyone reading this, come. You will like it.

It's now in my top three: New York, London, Berlin. (Sorry, Firenze. But you'll always be a "special friend".) I saw a note on a blog recently that said Germans don't really think about Berlin, except to feel a bit sorry for those that live here. My first thought was: "When was the last time you saw a t-shirt that said 'Paris, London, New York, FRANKFURT'???" Amsterdam, Rome, Florence and Tokyo can replace one of the above, but unless you're part of a school trip, the German city is going to be Berlin.

Berlin has something special...not "bling", not beauty, definitely not bustle. Just a feeling of being comfortable with what it is. A big, pretty hip, pretty cosmopolitan joint stuck way too far up and to the right to play in the sandbox in the middle of the playground, but confident enough about itself to wait for the cooler kids to find their way over to the edge.

Which leads me back to Montpellier. On a macro level, I already have my pre-conceptions...I've seen pictures, and know that the Place de la Comedie is the epicenter. Or so I think. :)

On a micro level, within the city bounds, I know my hotel will be in the modern district, tangent to the old town. I know the school is close to the Place de la Comedie. I don't know how I will get from one to the other, what will be near me (internet says stores and markets, which is handy). The beach should be 15-20 minutes, but what kind of beach, how to get there, etc.

And then, what about Toulouse, Barcelona, the rest of the coast?

I guess the good news is: three months in Montpellier is a timeframe set only by myself.

So, satellite view for those playing along at home:



The green dot is my hotel.