Bonsoir! It’s Sunday evening here in Paris, and I’m finally taking some time to sit down and stream-of-consciousness out some little sentences that will eventually get strung together into a coherent blog post. But first, some scene-setting: it’s cold, gray, been sprinkling all day, and I feel mildly sick. But I also had one of the best crêpes of my liiiife today (buckwheat galettes, potatoes, duck breast, and sauce au poivre) and I still feel great. Somewhere in that scene lies the magic of being excited about the novelty of where you’re living and what you’re doing every single day.
One of my favorite pictures from my recent adventures – the ramparts at Provins, a small town near Paris with a large medieval heritage.
If there’s anything I need to talk about first, it’s the time – it’s been over an entire month that I’ve been here. Ridiculous. On one hand, that feels long. I feel comfortable travelling in the city, I’ve been touristy enough that every day doesn’t feel like a magical adventure, and most importantly, ¼ of my program is already over (yikes!). On the other hand, it’s rather short – I still have a list of dozens upon dozens of restaurants that I’ve seen and noted but not visited, I still have a long list of nearby places in Ile-de-France to visit, and I still have almost 90% of my big academic assignments left to complete.
That said, it’s been an amazing month. The past week and a half have started to help everything really settle in – I feel comfortable with my friends, excited to leave the house, and could probably (stilly only probably) make my way back home from anywhere in central Paris without using my phone. I’ve picked my topics and groups for all of my large class projects, and have already started delving into the readings (it seems that French undergrad education assignments are much more often “find some books about this or that yourself and read them all”, but more on that later…). I’ve successfully given 2 (two!) strangers directions to the nearest metro station.
The past month has SOARED by at about 250 mph (although, to be European, that’s 402 kmh). There’s so much left to do, and so many small daily happenings that I woulda-shoulda-but-haven’t written about. Hopefully I’ll be able to use this upcoming month of October to blog even more. Fingers crossed…!
PS., yes, the featured image is taken from Snapchat, but it’s the best picture I could find of the view from my chambre de bonne (a small maid’s chamber above the more regularly-sized Parisian apartments).