As I finish my first week in Paris, I am exhausted but definitely proud. I navigated the metro, spoke mostly French, and have already made friends I know I will keep. Day one was really rough, though. I had slept about one hour on the plane, and I was starving by the time I got off. There was a baby sitting next to me and it cried almost the entire time. When we finally landed, I had to find my way around Charles de Gaulle airport, which is HUGE. After lugging my suitcases around for about twenty minutes, I finally found the right terminal. I found my abroad program and the faculty got us taxis. The driver was really chatty and wanted to speak to us in French which was great. It made me feel a little better.
Once I arrived at my host family’s house, I was immediately aware that I was going to be speaking all French all the time. I am not sure what I expected, but I thought maybe they would help me with words when I needed it. I was very wrong! When I don’t know how to say something, I have to keep trying to find ways to ask about it in French. My hosts don’t know a lot of English, so I am on my own. So after being frazzled because we were conversing only in French, I proceeded to knock paintings off of the wall. A great start! Once we got my things to my room, Frederic gave me a tour of the house. There are three other foreigners staying in the house, a Japanese student, a Chinese student, and an older British man who the family has hosted before. They have a large house with a little garden and everything.
Orientation started that day, so I had almost no time to nap. Though, I was very confused and ended up getting to orientation TWO HOURS early. I was also very stressed about finding my way home on the metro, though luckily I found a friend, Sophia, who lives fairly close to me. We ended up going home on the same line, though I still have to take the metro alone the rest of the way. The program took us out to eat and we all got to chat and get to know each other. Ends up a couple people even knew what Kenyon was! By the time I got home was tired and a bit overwhelmed, so I went straight to bed.
The next couple of days was more orientation and exploring the city. Thursday Sophia and I, along with two other girls, went to the Eiffel Tower and just hung out. It was really pretty. Friday I went to the Tuileries Gardens with Sophia. We went on a ferris wheel on which we could see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Sacre Coeur. It was pretty crazy! We also went into the largest and most extra Abercrombie and Fitch that has ever existed. It was like we were entering a palace.
The picture above is of me and Annalise at the Eiffel Tower. The picture below is the view from the top of the ferris wheel.
Saturday was a mixture of relaxing after going out on Friday night and exploring the neighborhood around Sophia’s house. I spent the night at my friend Annalise’s and we got brunch at this cute little cafe. It was open in the front so we got a nice breeze while we ate. They also made us fresh squeeze orange juice! Sophia and I got dinner at a little cafe later on, but it started to pour so we went home pretty soon after. Today it was nice outside and Sophia and I got some amazing crepes from a little creperie. We also went and checked out Le Centre Pompidou. We are thinking we will study in the library after class every day.
Above is Annalise and they awesome brunch we got!
All in all it has been an incredible week, although I have some concerns about my commute. It is almost an hour to get to my classes, so I am working on figuring out the best way to handle that. I am very excited to see how my first class goes tomorrow!
Paris 