The plastic that changes your life
Added 2015-12-14 17:35:13 +0000 UTC(Cross-posted and lightly edited from two Instagram posts, here and here)
A lifetime ago I was issued my International Student Identity card so I could spend my semester abroad "studying" (by which I mean nursing a broken heart, drawing, and falling in love) in Aix-en-Provence, France. I didn't even remember I had ever had this until I found it squirreled away in a scrapbook just now. One little piece of plastic that is responsible for nearly everything that is good in my life now, ten years and two months after it was issued to me. I write this laying on the floor in my Portland house that I bought with my British husband whom I met during my semester in France, which is a country I couldn't have lived in for over half a year if not for this silly little card I got in 2005. Thanks for literally everything, little holographic piece of plastic.
Aix library card and my student SNCF rail card, with the best ID photo ever taken of me. Matt and I had a guidebook listing every city and town in France that had a branch of this youth hostel we had a membership to. One of us would fan through the pages until the other would shout STOP and then whatever page we had landed on, that's the hostel location we'd go to next. Some places we only spent the night, others we stayed in for days. Once we arrived too late and the hostel had closed for the night, so we slept on a park bench, huddled together and sharing vodka, trying so hard to stay warm. Jesus Christ, I'd never do anything like that today. Like, not even one bit. But that's who we were then and that's how we fell in love and I'm so, so, so grateful I got to experience all of it.
Comments
Awwwwww, the Carte 12-25! I grew up in France and spent most of my university years there, and I remember this rail card with great fondness. *sheds tears*
Clairikine
2015-12-15 10:47:03 +0000 UTCAw, thank you for sharing that with me :)
Erika Moen
2015-12-15 00:32:11 +0000 UTCI remember the student rail card I had for the two years of graduate school in Scotland. It took me all over the British Isles, and even had some discounts to the continent. I remember the hostels, too, in places like Crewkerne, Aviemore, and even in Amsterdam. It's a wonderful way to broaden one's perspectives and get exposed to life outside the confines of the United States.
James Armstrong
2015-12-14 18:05:58 +0000 UTC
