#256

2.13.22

4:37p

Sometimes when the travel gets hard and lonely I remind myself how novel my situation is. In Montpellier, waiting for Marie to be done with school, so I go hang with her and her French friends, I went to a park to get some exercise. There were some teenagers sitting on the public ping pong tables, smoking cigarettes. An Arab man laughing with his friend over a video call. Children were playing on the playground.

At first I was a little scared people would watch me, but who the fuck actually cares about their opinions? So I took my shoes and socks off and started jumping rope. Here I was in Montpellier, the south of France, jumping rope with golf pants and the only t shirt I brought. Where am I?

Moments like this remind me, I will probably never come to this park ever again and jump rope under the guise of random Frenchies. So appreciate it. Stop caring about what other people think of you.

Moments like these aren’t as fun as clubbing in Madrid with your new hostel friends or as shitty as sleeping in a hostel hallway because you don’t wanna pay. But they’re special nonetheless. Because I’m in Europe, like the privileged American I am, jumping rope in a small ass European park in the middle of the city.

Kiubon