This is the first post of my diary. In this post, I will explain why I have gotten to where I am now.
My Short Past History
I was born and grew up in Japan until I was 23 years old, when I decided to leave the country for the United States. I was staying there for more than 3 years. After that, I decided to start my next journey, moving to France. I am going to explain why I left my country and decided to go to America and France at some point in this diary. The main purpose of staying in France is that I would like to visit and see Judo in France, and hopefully learn French as well. I haven’t mentioned it, but I started Judo when I was 7 years old, I believe. I don’t remember exactly. Since then, I have been engaged in Judo. I have never been to European countries before, so I thought it sounds cool to go there. Anyway, back to the past story.
America to France
I left PDX, the airport in Oregon in the US, on September 30th after I said goodbye to all the people that I could get to know. Until I got to the airport, I couldn’t believe that it was real to leave the country because I had stayed there long enough to feel very comfortable in the country. I remembered, at some point, I really hoped to be able to stay in the country for the rest of my life. Anyway, after finishing all the processes that I had to go through, I got on the plane. The itinerary was via Seattle, so I needed to have one transit. I have always liked the feeling and seeing outside views when landing off. As I saw the outside of the airplane from Seattle, I said goodbye to the country in my heart. I couldn’t really sleep well on the plane, so it felt like forever, even if the duration was about 10 hours. I arrived at CDG, the airport in Paris, the next day.
Paris
After picking up my baggage, the first thing that I did was to check whether my phone could connect to the Internet. It turned out it couldn’t. The journey started with trouble. At the airport, I could manage to connect my phone to wifi, and I tried to find a way to get to a hotel that I had reserved. I took all the screenshots of the way on my phone so that I could see them offline. I had no idea how to get to the train, so I asked a person for that. I bought a ticket that I can use for an entire day just because it was easy for me. It took me to get to the hotel about 1 hour, I believe, by train and subway. As soon as I went outside, every view and person forced me to feel that I was in one of the European countries. It was definitely different than the view that I got used to in Japan and the US. It was just overwhelming to me. I am going to skip how I felt and what I did in Paris for later.
Paris to Angoulême (Southern City)
I stayed in Paris for just 1 day, and I moved to a southern city called Angoulême. After that, a person I knew picked me up and took me to the judo clubs, and he let me stay in his house for the next couple of days. And then, I moved to a place where every person can reserve through Airbnb. This building has individual rooms and shared spaces. And here I am. I am writing this post in the dining room or living room at 10:30 PM after practicing Judo.
Why Did I Decide to Do a Diary?
Why did I decide to write this diary? There are mainly two reasons. The first one is a book that I recently bought called “Travels in the Land of Hunger” by Domenico Italo Composto-Hart. This book inspired me to share my experience of this journey. The second one is that I have plenty of time staying here because I have practice only in the afternoon. So, I just wanted to do something other than studying French, reading books, and practicing Judo.
I am going to stop here because I think that I could write what I wanted to share in the first post, and I am very sleepy. I hope that this diary will be exciting and interesting for you wherever you are. See you tomorrow.
