L'Auberge Espagnole

today i watched the movie "L'Auberge Espagnole" (The Spanish Apartment). it instantly became one of my favorites. i remember seeing this movie in HBO but only caught the last half of it and wasn't able to get the title. i happened to see the dvd of this in the pirated-video store that we always go to in shanghai.

it's a story of a french guy in his mid-20's that, like myself, is unsure of what he wants to do with his life. to be able to get accepted to the job in the european union that he's eyeing (more like what his parents want for him), he needs to learn spanish. and what better way to learn a language than to go it's country of origin. so xavier went to barcelona, spain to study economics more and learn spanish.

there, he lived in an apartment with six other students from all over europe. there was an italian, german, danish, english, belgian and a spanish. it was an eclectic mix of personalities, sensitivities, languages and cultures that ensue an interestingly colorful school year. everybody has his own quirks and issues but at the end of the day, they're friends. not just the let's-have-a-drink-and-party kind of friends, but REAL friends. but as they say, some good things never last. after a year, school in barcelona was over and xavier went back to paris. back home and back to his old life, only to realize that things are not the same anymore. he's a different person now, older but still unsure.

there is this line in the movie that i totally can relate to. xavier said during the first time he walked the streets of barcelona:

"When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense. Everythings unknown, a virgin... After you've lived here, walked these streets, you'll know them inside out. You'll know these people. Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times... it'll belong to you because you've lived there. That was about to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet."

the first time i came here in zhangjiagang, everything was foreign. aside from the fact that i cannot speak mandarin, the setting here is at variance as in manila. nothing seemed familiar until i saw a shell gas station with chinese writings (i just recognized the shell logo). then i thought, it's not so bad here. hahahaha.

like xavier, being in a foreign country, away from your family, your loved ones and your friends is hard. it's even tougher than you think. but sometimes it helps to get away from everything that is familiar to you, your comfort zone to figure things out. to get to know yourself better, find out what you want and to discover the roads that you never thought you can travel on.