In The City of the Petit and Dead

Welcome to Strasbourg everybody where everything is tiny and the streets are deserted. You can lay in the middle of the street for hours and not even come close to being run over. Here sits the Council of Europe--this is an international hub. There should be tons of people running around from important meeting to important meeting, and tourists galore. I don't think I've seen 10 people total since I've been here. For the locals this is normal since it's vacation time in France and everyone is in the country but for a New Yorker it is just weird. The quiet is killing me! The lack of people outside is making me crazy!!
But in all serious folks, I'm rather enjoying this tranquil setting before a month of hot, loud, crazy India. I haven't slept so well and seen such vivid dreams in a long time. Getting out of the craziness called NYC has been good for me. So why did I schlep to Strasbourg on my way to Delhi? That’s easy—Sveta. Sveta and I go way back, 17 years to be exact, to Ekaterinburg, Russia where we worked together for CARE and the American Councils. Besides counting humanitarian aid at warehouses, we traveled all over the Urals and Western Siberia recruiting high school students for a US-government exchange program (the same type of program I’m working on now with Afghan kids). Anyway, she’s decided to be a single mom and is having a baby in less than a month. I decided to make a stopover and help her get ready for the big event. She’s just moved into a new apartment and needed help fixing up the baby’s room, moving furniture around, putting stuff in storage, etc. I even stocked her freezer with homecooked meals to enjoy when she’s too tired to cook. The least I can do for my pregnant friend. I’ve been hoping that she’d give birth to “Motya” while I was here but as the sun rises on this Monday and my bus back to Frankfurt is in just a few hours, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Sveta doesn’t want it to happen, she’s not ready. But you never know when a kid is going to make its grand entrance into the world. When the cake is done, it’ll pop out of the oven I always say.
Back to Strasbourg. It’s a quaint little town. Little is the city and little is the way people live. Their lives are regimented routines and they seem to like it that way. It’s as if you stirred up their little routines, they’d freak out entirely and think the world was coming to an end. Practical, regimented, on the straight and narrow are words I’d use to describe life here. In other words: B-O-R-I-N-G! Quite the opposite of the US where things are lived larger. Well who am I to judge? Not judging, just making an observation. Anyway, my favorite observation here has been the nun who sits in the garden of the old folks’ home and knits in the afternoon. I watch her from the window, probably her time to relax and unwind away from her routine. It must be nice to take joy in such simple pleasures.
The sun rises on this quiet city. Singing birds are the only thing I hear from the city. Tomorrow is Bastille Day so many took advantage of a long weekend to spend time outside the city. I will spend my Bastille Day arriving in Delhi and, after 5 times arriving in Delhi, finally leave the airport and catch a glimpse of the loud, colourful, massive, hot, exciting, noisy country that is India. What a switch from Strasbourg, I hope I can handle it!