This is Lucie.

She’s a real French person.

She’s studying at Sciences Po, and, like all Sciences Po third-years, she spent last year abroad. Luckily, she went to UNC, where we became friends. She’s pretty awesome. Last year she came to my home during Thanksgiving, and she kindly invited me to hers in for the end of our spring break.

It was by far the most French weekend I’ve ever had.

Seriously. I’ve never had so much cheese in three days. Now I understand why the French are so proud of their cheese.

Okay, I kid (not about the amount of cheese, mind). But three days with a French family taught me just as much, if not more, about the French way of living as two months on my own in Paris has.

It started Friday, when I took a train from Paris to Reims. Since my previous experiences in trains were international (or purely American), it was the first time in which everything was only in French. Lucie and her father met me at the station, and we drove to Lucie’s childhood home, which was adorable in an undefinable French way. Her father is learning English, so we spoke in my comfort language; I find, though, that I often learn more about both languages when speaking English with native French speakers, things about pronunciations and connotations and acquisition. You have to be very conscious about English when speaking it to someone who’s learning, but you also get a different perspective of the French language by doing so.

Lucie’s father made us chili for lunch; he claimed to be a poor cook and to have cooked us a not-very-French meal, but he’s obviously ignorant of my own cooking skills, and I thought the meal was wonderful. We then had bread and (my first) Camembert, which made up for any not-very-Frenchness of the chili.

I got a tour of Reims after lunch, which started at a champagne cave.

They do not kid when they say “cave.”

You know, casual.

Reims is in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, so their champagne is real champagne. I learned the three types of grapes used in champagne and how long fermentation can take and other factors of champagne I didn’t know existed. I sampled a glass, but unfortunately growing up Catholic means you grow up sampling gross wine (because all wine is gross when you’re 7) on a weekly basis, and I’ve somehow managed to not outgrow my aversion to the taste of alcohol. I’m sure it was very good champagne if you’re an adult with normal taste buds.

The tour continued throughout the entire weekend, honestly. There’s a lot of history in Reims: the coronation of kings, the Roman conquests, the establishment of Christianity. It’s a beautifully old city. Lucie and I walked around every day, seeing where she, and the city, grew up.

While wandering Saturday we stopped for a snack at a bakery, where I had a religieuse — a chocolate-filled pastry that’s caught my eye at a few bakeries in Paris. We browsed some clothing shops while we were in the area, and, though I had been waiting for warmer weather to buy a dress in Paris (the one article of clothing I knew I would allow myself to buy since I got here, because how can you go to Paris for four months and not find a great dress?), I found one in Reims that was pretty and orange and perfect. I would post a picture, except the cold front is back in France, so here’s a picture of the religieuse instead since it was just as nice.

You know you’re jealous.

Lucie’s brother had turned another year older earlier, so the family had friends over for dinner, a fantastically French dinner that’s a bit like fondue only better — raclette. You have slices of meat and slices of cheese of different varieties and some potatoes, and you have a nifty square iron thing* on which you put a slice of cheese and then stick on a fancy hotplate. You then pour your melted cheese on your meat and/or potatoes and try not to eat too much for the sake of your dignity even though it’s so good. We sang “Joyeux Anniversaire” around a chocolate pie which, again, you have to politely say “Non, merci” to a second slice even though in your head you’re thinking “Can I have the entire thing?” France, you officially win at food. Please don’t make me leave.

It was a lovely evening. I met people who knew some English and people who knew none. One of the first questions I was asked was “Democrat or Republican?” The night was filled with rapid French and loud laughter, and while I didn’t understand everything that was going on, I understood that everyone was so happy to be with each other, and that was enough.

There hasn’t been much culture shock here. Sure, there are differences — we had dinner at 10 p.m., a usual dessert is fruit or yogurt but a mid-afternoon snack is a pastry, one has to maintain eye contact with another while toasting. But the overall style of French living isn’t too different. Maybe it’s a bit richer, what with the food and the wine and no work on Sundays. And maybe it was just that it was such a nice weekend with gorgeous weather and generous and fun people and being in a home instead of a studio. But the types of connections people make with others are the same, and I like that. Lucie and I found it ironic that neither of us wanted to return to Paris Sunday night, as going to a city like Paris is a pretty common hope, dare I say dream, for some. Paris is great. But once you start living there, you tend to favor the sanctuary of a true home. I must thank Lucie and her family a thousand times for welcoming me into theirs and for a true French experience. I will attempt to bring raclette to the States, as well as maybe a dozen pies and some champagne that I’m positive other Americans will enjoy. But the culture isn’t just about the food, and I know I won’t be able to bring back the French language or customs or people (what a plane ride that would be!). I will happily settle, though, for the connections and the experience.

—

* Sometimes my eloquence is stunning.

My family has never been rich. We’ve never been poor by any means, but we’ve lived modestly. My sister and I had very, very good childhoods; I sometimes can’t get over how much we lucked out with our parents. Seriously. Our house was — is — filled with love and care and comfort and fun. It’s in a tiny town where we’re some of the better-off, but it’s next to the city where I went to middle and high school. That city was home to many of my classmates, some of whom, even at the age of 11, had been traveling the world for years. When we traveled, my family went to New Hampshire and Maine to visit my grandparents. Now, don’t get me wrong — I love my grandparents, and I’m not saying that just because they’re reading this (hello, grandparents!). When I was 11, my parents planned a trip for us to go to Munich, where my father spent two years at university. My parents’ families were stationed at military bases in Germany for a few years, so my sister and I grew up hearing stories about life there, and we were eager to catch a glimpse of it in the spring. But the preceding December, my father lost his job for what I maintain to be the most idiotic reason, though that’s beside the point. The point is, the trip was cancelled, and any plans of international travel were put on the back burner, slowly simmering for the distant future while we figured out what our immediate future would serve. I was sure, though, that I would be able to see more of the world than the Eastern seaboard of the States one day, whether or not with my family, when I had grown up.

I suppose it would be accurate to say that I’ve grown up.

As a kid, I always wanted to go to England — more so than Germany, actually, despite the stories. I have no clue why, though. I went to a Shakespeare drama camp when I was 9 (yeah, I was that kid), and even then I just added “See the Globe Theatre” to the pre-existing list of reasons to go. When I was 10 I asked my school librarian how possible it would be to have an English pen-pal, and she wrote to a school in Liverpool asking if something could be arranged (nothing was). Going to England was on the bucket list before I knew what a bucket list was, for some unknown but really stubborn and determined reason that I never outgrew.

And now, after spending the weekend in London, I can finally check it off the list.

I got another stamp on my passport. I saw the Globe Theatre. I saw Big Ben, or I at least heard Big Ben and saw its clock tower. I saw dozens and dozens of lions and unicorns (in statue form, of course), and I saw more statues and swans and expansive lawns in Hyde Park. I saw an exhibit about clocks in the British Museum and an exhibit about identity in the Science Museum and an elephant in the Natural History Museum. I discovered that the British Library must be one of the grandest libraries in the world. I bought a book about Shakespeare that has the price listed in pounds on the back cover and has the phrase “buildings were six storeys high.” I visited the house where Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, and I visited 221b Baker Street. I crossed Abbey Road. I climbed Primrose Hill and strolled through Notting Hill. I walked along the Thames and across the small London Bridge and the much more impressive Tower Bridge and the slinky Millennium Bridge. I ate at a place called Eat, and I ate at a pub, and I ate Cadbury eggs. I almost got hit by a car 5 times and by a double-decker bus once. I was told by a faceless voice with a British accent to mind the gap between the train and the platform while getting off of the Tube.  I took an overground train through the country and rode on the top deck of a double-decker. I toured the studios where the Harry Potter movies, movies that I dislike about books that I love, were filmed. I went through one-and-a-half battery lives of my camera and took more than 900 pictures (you think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.).

And really, I got to see everything I dreamed of seeing, as a kid and as a teenager and, apparently, as grown-up. During my four days there, I just kept thinking, “You did it. You got yourself to London, England.” And this post is a bit sappy, and I do apologize, but it’s been a bit of a sappy weekend. It’s been a weird mix of feeling insanely independent and insanely indebted to my family. This entire semester wouldn’t have been possible logistically without their help, but they’ve also given me the confidence to do these things and the mindset to properly appreciate these opportunities. And I would rather have my childhood at home with my parents and sister than a childhood traveling the world with a family far less wonderful. It was a weekend of being in awe at a city that so embraces its history and culture, a city with old and new politics and architecture and literature. So many gorgeous works and words are rooted in the city. And it was a weekend of feeling incredibly fortunate just to be there.

I didn’t want to leave London yesterday. I wanted to keep exploring, keep chatting with a friend from school doing her study abroad there (hello, Justine!), keep being in London, squeezing years of dreams into more than four days. But I had to get back to Paris. So I boarded my train and as we departed, I thought, “You did it. You went to England. You did everything you wanted to in London. You can die happy now.”

And then I immediately thought “No no no no I take that back; I still have so much to do.”

I’m not done yet, Europe. And London, I hope to be back one day.

I’m going to London tomorrow for the first bit of my “spring break.” It’s called spring break in America, but it’s still too cold here for anything current to be related to spring, so it’s actually mid-term break.

Before I leave and actual spring comes (hopefully) in March, I wanted to post about how to survive Paris in the winter — style and manner-wise, that is. If you’re visiting Paris, I’ve learned you can avoid appearing like an outsider, or at least like a tourist, with the following tips.

• Dress coats. Dress coats, dress coats, dress coats, even with jeans. If not a dress coat then a long down coat, reaching to mid-thigh or to knees, or a pea coat. I wear my regular down jacket, the one that hits my hips, only on the weekends when I don’t care how out of place I look since all the non-natives that have come for the weekend do, too. Otherwise, when I don’t want to stand out for my American citizenship, I wear my blue dress coat that I’ve gotten a good number of compliments on and stopped for directions in (and that I bought two winters ago in N.C. Score).
• Since it’s always freezing, knitted scarves and hats are essential. I don’t mean the cute little scarves they sell in North Carolina in November; I mean thick, long scarves that are wrapped twice, maybe three times around the neck and look like they could suffocate you if you’re not careful.
• Boots are the go-to shoe. Ankle boots are popular, but I get away with my taller ones. Tennis shoes are all right as long as they aren’t too athletic. You’ve got to keep everything classy here, right?
• If you need eyeglasses, you need Ray-Bans. My smaller red glasses feel so shy around the big black frames sported by every other glasses-wearing French person.

• Just like in New York City, just like in DC, if you’re taking an escalator in a metro station, stand on the right or walk on the left. Do not stand on the left. Everyone will hate you.
• Most of the streets in Paris are one-way, and those that aren’t have signs indicating such (instead of the other way around in the States). So when you’re crossing the road, you only need to look one way. However, I find it easy to look the wrong way, so look both ways to be safe and alive.
• If the little red man is telling pedestrians not to cross but no car is coming, cross. If a car is coming about half way down the road, cross anyway. If it’s five seconds away from the crosswalk but you only need four to cross, cross still. If you feel uneasy, follow a group if you can, and walk so they’re between you and the car, a lovely nifty buffer just in case. I would feel bad about doing this, but I mean, they went ahead and crossed, didn’t they?
• Walk a dog. Then you’ll really feel Parisian. If you want to go all the way, walk a dog without a leash. Oh, and don’t bother picking up after your dog; excrement is just as much decorations for the sidewalks as the cigarette butts are.
• Smoke. All the cool kids do it.*
• If you have a kid, he/she should ride a scooter. It’s adorable. Unfortunately for us over the age of 8, we’ve out-grown them in Paris’ eyes. That’s what the motorcycles are for.

• Euro coins are a pain. Avoid using them so you don’t have to reveal to anyone how little sense they make to you, a non-European.
• Bring your own bag to the grocery store or some cents to buy one there.
• Every conversation with a worker in a shop, cafe, or restaurant starts with “Bonjour” (or bonsoir if it’s after 5pm) and ends with “Merci, au revoir.” If you’re feeling particularly nice (or if you’re just in the habit after ending every French class with it for four semesters, like me), you can end with “Bonne journée” to wish someone a good day or “Bonne soirée” to wish someone a good evening.
• When you want to order something, it’s “je voudrais…” (je voodray) or “je prends…” (je prehn).
• If you’re lost, approach someone and say, “Excusez-moi, je cherche INSERT DESTINATION HERE” (Excuzey-moi, je shersh INSERT DESTINATION HERE IN YOUR BEST FRENCH ACCENT). Just say it quickly; if you say ask for someone’s attention too slowly, you’ll sound like those stopping people for money.

• And, most importantly, if you’re not sure what to do, just do what everyone else is doing. If you’re in line at a bakery but don’t know the ordering protocol, look at everything like you’re still deciding until another customer gets behind you. Turn and say “Allez-y” (allehz-ee (go ahead)) and pay attention to what the customer and worker say and do. If you’re unsure of what exact transaction took place, you can still probably follow the customer’s lead and end up okay. If your stop is a regular occurrence, you’ll learn the protocol soon enough. It took me three times at the supermarket to finally hear all the words and realize the cashier was asking if I wanted a grocery bag.

—

*This is sarcasm. Please, don’t smoke.

I didn’t have any expectations for my trip to Amsterdam. I didn’t want to make a massive to-do list and stress about ticking off every point, nor did I want to crack open a door for potential disappointment. I booked the trip with just enough time to confirm the basics of what’s in the city, learn how to say “Do you speak English?” in Dutch, and print off directions to my hostel from the train station. The rest, I figured, I could play by ear — which is a very new concept for me to put into action. I like my minute-to-minute schedules, my precise details. They’re good company to have around.

But, maybe for the sake of adventure, maybe to save myself from some pre-departure stress, I didn’t really want a plan. So I managed to get on the train after some drama, and I found myself in Amsterdam at 9:30 Thursday morning.

You know, just in Amsterdam, Netherlands. After having been in France 3 hours earlier. No big deal.

I had the same surreal feeling to when I had just arrived in Paris. New country, new city, new architecture, new language, new chapter of adventure. It’s a feeling I don’t know how else to describe, but surreal is the epitomizing word. Surreal and exciting.

I knew I would be ironically restless if I just wandered for three days, so the one plan I did have was to buy a 48-hour card that would give me admission to tons of museums and sites as well as passes for public transportation. I would museum-hop Thursday and Friday and see sites not covered by the card between museums or on Saturday. It was easy enough to get the card once I got there, though I did accidentally buy a train ticket while trying to find the metro (Amsterdam Centraal isn’t the easiest station to figure out). 5 euro souvenir, anyone? I later successfully found the metro and quickly determined “Waterlooplein” is the best name for a metro stop (or for anything) and soon enough found my hostel, one just outside the city’s center that I chose because the only negative reviews said it was “boring” or had “not enough drugs,” but its cleanliness and safety ratings were through the roof. After picking my bed in a room of six and putting my backpack in my locker, I had the entire afternoon to explore Amsterdam.

I didn’t look up directions to the places I wanted to visit; the card came with a map, and I picked up another one at the hostel. Once you get lost in Paris dozens of times, you no longer fear getting lost in a city. Instead, you learn how to get un-lost. (Both maps, by the way, are terribly wrinkled and mildly ripped, but they’re mostly still legible.) My parents were worried before I left Paris, as most parents would be when their relatively young daughter ventures off on her own to a city known for its drugs and prostitution for a few days during which she would lack access to means of regular communication (I went old school and left the laptop in Paris, and my French phone refuses to contact anything in America). Honestly, I probably would have been worried, too, if I had taken a trip like this before starting the semester in Paris. But the wonderful thing about life is once you’ve done certain things, you kind of feel like you can do anything. Once you go to Paris for two weeks, you can do anything. Once you go to university, you can do anything. Once you start a four-month stay in Paris, you can really do anything. Amsterdam? I could do it.

So I went back to the city’s center and just walked, trying to (and only sometimes succeeding) navigate the streets intertwined with canals and painted with bicycle lanes. I marveled at the buildings with such a different style than those in America and France. I heard people speak Dutch on the sidewalks and English at the outdoor restaurants. I saw a multitude of storefronts with souvenir wooden clogs and blue and white pottery and plastic tulips.

Guys, I was in Amsterdam.

While I’m horrible at navigation, I’m very good at stumbling upon 1) interesting things and 2) things I wanted to find eventually but not necessarily at that moment. Exhibit A: The Van Gogh museum.

The museum itself is undergoing renovation, but its collection is on display at another museum, Hermitage, until April. After a few hours of wandering half aimlessly, half attempting to find anything, I accidentally found the Hermitage and Van Gogh.

Hands-down, best museum exhibit. If you’re in Amsterdam, go. I’m not a museum- or art-junkie (though going to Amsterdam helped), but the exhibit was so well designed, wonderfully informative, and, of course, home to the most beautiful paintings. I’m particularly fond of all of the blossom works, and I’ve loved the famous blue and white almond blossom piece for ages. I caved, not wanting to spend money besides on food, and bought a postcard of it for a euro, which is now on my apartment’s slanted wall. (I was tempted by the scarf, but it was 200 euros. Nee, dank je.)

I don’t usually like just listing off what I do abroad on the blog except for time-based update posts, but there was so much that I saw there that I can’t really incorporate it all into paragraph-post style. So, here’s a list, including descriptions and sometimes pictures. It’s in chronological order, no less.

The Amsterdam List 

• Hermitage Museum, temporary home of the Van Gogh museum

Favorite museum. Read above.

• Tassenmuseum Hendrikje

• Fotografiemuseum

• The Tulip Museum

It’s basically the cutest museum in the history of museums. It’s tiny, but it teaches you the history behind the discovery of tulips and the creation of Tulip Mania. One gets to see different varieties of tulips and a tulip-harvesting workhouse. It sounds dull, but it’s just so colorful.

• Wootenbootmuseum

• The Diamant Museum

• The Tropenmuseum

• The Artis Royal Zoo

• A tour of the canals

• Lindengracht market

• The Pancake Bakery

• The Anne Frank House

• Bloenmarkt

• The Red Light District

After three days full of new sights and experiences, it was time to board the train back to Paris Saturday evening. It was the first time I’ve taken a trip somewhere and not returned to Chapel Hill or Raleigh. I thought going to Amsterdam and returning to Paris would make Paris feel a bit more like a home, and it kind of did. The familiarity of Paris, the metro, the grocery store where I stopped for dinner, and my apartment certainly felt reinforced. But once I pulled into Gare du Nord, I immediately had the desire to go back to Amsterdam someday. It’s not a big city, not nearly like Paris, but it’s still new and fascinating and different. It was proven to me again that kindness knows no nationality. And I loved exploring at my own pace, seeing what I wanted to and bypassing what I didn’t.

Before I went to Amsterdam, many people asked me if I would be alright on my own. I wrote earlier, being on my own in Paris was starting to get to me, so the clear solution wouldn’t necessarily be to go to another city alone. But I wanted to see that, yes, traveling alone to somewhere completely new could be fun, and it could be safe, and it could be a time to treat oneself.

Amsterdam was fun. It felt safe. I used the three days to just treat myself. I stayed busy during the day, wanting to see as much as possible, so, while I had many instances of “Dad would love this” or “I wish Mary could see this” or “I have to tell Marshall about this,” I never really felt lonely.

I did feel successful, though, as I arrived at my apartment Saturday night, late-night salad in hand and the brief to-do list of “tell family I survived” in mind. I went to Amsterdam. I saw what felt like everything but what I knew wasn’t close to everything. I got the travel and rooming logistics right, and I made it back to Paris in tact with nothing stolen. And I had such a wonderful time.

I Skyped my parents, fulfilling my to-do list, simultaneously tired from the day but buzzed from completing my travels. They told me they were proud of me. This is the cheesiest but truest thing to say, but I was, too.

Hello, lovely readers,

This weekend’s been a bit of a juggling act of doing schoolwork and running errands and meeting people, and I’m afraid blogging will be one ball too many. The Amsterdam post is still coming; I just can’t decide how to compress the trip into a coherent post that’s shorter than a novella. But it’ll be here soon, promise.

I didn’t want to go a week without posting something about the happenings, though, so:

• I’m still alive.
• Paris is still cold.
• I’ve started running again.
• You’ll probably get a post about running and trying to be healthy in Paris soon enough.
• I gave my first in-class presentation, and suddenly it seems like every project and paper and presentation is due very soon.
• I’ve planned the skeleton details of my spring break travels (London, England and Reims, France).
• I finally went to the Musée d’Orsay.

Last weekend, I bought tape.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is without a doubt the most interesting lead I have ever written. And yet this post has another 1,400 words to go.

For this semester, I made a calendar using post-it notes, one post-it for each day an assignment is due. The plan was to hang them on my wall in usual calendar-format so that I could easily see the weeks’ busy and free days. Only the post-it notes I bought are failures and don’t stick to anything. So, I bought tape Friday February first to finally get a massive visual of the next few months. Then, I saw that I had zero assignments  due the week of February eleventh.

I had been getting impatient to plan a trip somewhere outside of Paris. After almost a month abroad, I was beginning to feel somehow unproductive by not getting out of this city nor having any plans more solid than “Hopefully Munich for spring break” and “London sometime.”

So when I saw a weekend wouldn’t be filled with homework, I knew it would be a good time to cross the first trip off the to-do list. By Saturday the second, I had booked my train tickets (there was a sale) and bed in a hostel (there was another sale) for a trip to Amsterdam, leaving Paris Thursday morning and returning Saturday evening. I would spend three days and two nights in a city I knew only a bit about and with a primary language with odd double vowels and paired consonants that conflict in English.

It was kind of spontaneous. At least by my standards it was.

There will be a separate post about the actual trip, since I assume it’ll be lengthy, and since I’m actually writing most of  this post from a collection of bakeries and cafes around Amsterdam (Deborah from the past, here. Hello!). It also turns out that leaving Paris was the logistically hardest part of the trip.

First, there was a bit of a dilemma with getting to the train station. My train was to leave at 6:25 a.m. The earliest metro at the station within reasonable walking distance from my apartment would leave at 5:45. With an estimated metro ride of 35 minutes, that option was cutting it far too close for comfort. I seriously considered leaving my apartment at 4:30 in the morning and walking for an hour to a metro closer to the train station that would leave at 5:30 and get me to the station at 5:50. But that would involve, you know, a small female walking by herself through Paris in the hours of the night-morning carrying a passport and cash and a backpack that labeled her as a traveler to whoever else was on the streets at that hour. If I rescheduled the trip, I would lose 22 euros from the two nights at the hostel I wouldn’t spend. A taxi had the potential to be more expensive than that, but it would save me the disappointment of putting the trip off. I ended up caving, and, as I write this, I realize it wasn’t really as much of an issue as it seemed to be at the time. By Wednesday night, I had my morning taxi reserved, my packing list written, almost everything ready to go.

And then. And then.

I realized the email with my train ticket that I printed Tuesday didn’t actually print.

I could write about this panicked ordeal in great detail, but I fear that would bore you, lovely reader. You really only need to know two things: 1) Eveything in Paris closes early and opens late, at least compared to the States. There would be no printer/copy shop, no library, no school building, that would be open between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Even the metros would stop running shortly after I realized what happened, so if there was miraculously something open, I would have to develop super-speed to get there and back. 2) Everything on the train company’s website — the FAQ section, the booking section, the change-your-reservation section (and the email response to my inquiry that I got a day too late) — pointed me and any literate human being to the conclusion that there was nothing I could do, and hell if the train company cares, I would not being allowed on that train without the ticket I can’t print.

So, pretend you’re me, and imagine the panic. Then magnify it 25 times, because it’s midnight and you were supposed to go to bed an hour ago because you have to wake up in four hours, and because your normal intensity levels of panic are already higher than those of the average individual.

My sister and parents, as usual, deserve medals for calming me down a bit (you’re welcome, Mom, Dad, and Mary, for the 20 years of practice). My mother gave me the best advice (also as usual) to just go to the station anyway, even if I would lose money on a pointless taxi ride, and explain the situation and beg and plead and use my five feet of apparent youth and innocence to convince someone to just let me on the train pleeeaaase.

So I went to bed at 1 a.m. and woke up at 4:15 a.m. and met my taxi at 5 a.m. Paris was dark and quiet. I’ve never seen it as such. In the 20 minute trip to the station, I realized I had missed riding in cars, and I thought, probably because of the fatigue, that even if the Amsterdam trip was a bust I didn’t mind paying for a car ride, my first one in a month.

I got to the station before any workers did. I tried to make a kiosk print my ticket, but kiosks are stubborn and never do what you want them to. So I waited with the rest of the too-early travelers for half an hour until someone from the train company took her seat at the information window. And she spoke English to the people in front of me in line and I spoke in French to her because, it’s 5:50 in the morning, why not?, and she told me all I needed were the file and ticket numbers to show to the ticket collector, which I had written down before going to bed earlier that morning.

Yeah. That’s all.

And I wanted to yell, “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN THIS; ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” but I knew that was the fatigue speaking, and I wasn’t entirely sure which tense I would use to conjugate “to supposed to be” in French, so I thanked her very much and waited for the train.

And the train came and I found Coach 17 and the ticket collector, and this time I did ask to speak in English. She looked at my written numbers with confusion, so I showed her the digital email on my iPod that I had pulled up before leaving the WiFi of my apartment. She scanned the code on my iPod and let me on the train.

That was all.

So, you know, thanks, TGV, for being lovely and inconsistent liars.

And so I took a train to Amsterdam.

And damn, it was exciting.

I was unnaturally unconcerned about going by myself. Once you’ve packed up and gone to a city like Paris, fewer and fewer things seem intimidating. I’ve done a good deal of wandering through Paris alone, so I’ve grown more comfortable in that state. I will admit, though, that for various reasons, many related to the first clause of that last sentence, the prior week or so had been pretty rough. I really wanted to just get away for a bit, to leave Paris after a month and say, “Yes, you’re alone, but you’re going to see the world anyway. You’re going to determine the game plan and see what you want and explore a completely new city. You’re going to do it, and you’re going to do it well.” I don’t want to say I needed the trip, but my word, I wanted it. If I hadn’t been able to make it to the station on time or if I wasn’t allowed on the train, I probably would have curled up in a ball around a 5 euro carton of Haagen Dazs and just zoned out for a while (because that’s the healthy way to deal with things!).

But, as you know, that didn’t have to happen. I found my window seat and nestled in for the three-and-a-half hour journey. It was too dark to see anything outside, so I didn’t feel bad about going in and out of sleep for a bit. Somewhere around the middle of the journey I realized I’d crossed the border into Belgium. It felt a bit surreal. At around 9:00, when the sun was finally up, I saw windmills — also surreal. And at 9:30, I arrived in Amsterdam.

And my three days there were beyond wonderful.

8 January, 2013

Dear self,

Welcome to Paris! I remember the flight was relatively good as far as flights go, minus the final hour when the crying child could not be calmed. Oh well — you were too groggy from your half-sleep to notice.

You’re beginning your first day in the city, and I’m wrapping up the first month. You have quite the month ahead of you. I’m sure I have quite the three months ahead of me, and I still don’t know what to expect from them. It’ll be a good month, self. It’ll be hard. There will be new levels of difficulty in such unfamiliar territory — literally and figuratively. But you can’t go around them, nor over or under. Only way to go is through. And that’s a good thing, and the root of it all, and it’ll be a good month. You’ll need to learn things this month, things you need to remember during the hard times, and things I’ll probably need to remember for the remainder of the semester. And, most likely, afterwards.

The most important person you need to trust is yourself.  You know what is best for you.

People will tell you their expectations for your semester, and these expectations will be very high. You’re starting an experience that is culturally romanticized and idealized. Try not to pay any mind to the goals that don’t make sense for your situation. Do what is good for you. Just have fun.

Take care of yourself, mentally and physically  Don’t overexert yourself. When you’re sick, rest. Stretch your comfort zone, but don’t snap it. Push yourself, but trust your instincts, and don’t kick yourself if you can’t do everything, because you won’t be able to do everything.

People are very kind. Kindness doesn’t know nationalities and bias.

Have no guilt about exceeding the airline’s luggage weight limit. Bringing your own blanket was the smartest decision you ever made — probably after committing to this semester, though.

Things will happen at home, both good and bad. It will be just as hard as you thought it would be, not being there. Remember that the people should still be there when you return, and that’s what’s important.

Sometimes, your mood will follow the weather’s lead. Look forward to the sunny days, and make a point to do something on the rainy ones.

You’re not that good at cooking right now. Don’t worry; you’ll get better.

Talking to people at home will be very good because you’re really quite fond of them and very hard because you’re really quite fond of them.

You’re allowed to have bad days.

Determine which bits of the before to bring with you and which bits to leave back there.

You can’t do everything in one month. You can’t do everything in four. But months are very long, and you can do a lot in one.

Time moves at a different pace here. You probably won’t get used to it.

The French who speak English are self-conscious about doing so. Don’t feel bad about your self-conscious French.

People will pass judgement on you and your feelings. Why they feel the need to do so is unknown, but don’t pay them any mind. Unnatural feelings don’t exist this semester. They might not exist ever.

You can do many, many things. The hardest steps are the first — deciding and starting. After that, it’s like child’s play.

Your hair will hate you and the new water for the first few weeks. Just a head’s up.

The adventure won’t stop in May. Just be sure to use this time to learn how to adventure.

With love,

Deborah

8 February 2013

If you’ve been following the blog, you might remember that my lovely apartment has one rather inconvenient flaw: The refrigerator doesn’t work. And I learned it doesn’t work after signing the lease and moving in.

Aaaand two weeks later, it’s still broken. I’m pretty sure the small cut in the electrical cord I discovered has something to do with it.

Now, this isn’t really that big of a deal. There are many, many worse things that could be the case: Termites, noisy neighbors, mold, broken heater, a floor covered in lava. Heck, I’m lucky enough to have moved into a building with an elevator; no one in their right mind would want to take my luggage up six flights of stairs. So yeah, a broken fridge I can deal with.

I just have to be a bit creative. I have to get better at making things other than sandwiches since there’s no way to keep meats and cheeses. I mean, I’m not terrible at cooking.

The Great Couscous Disaster of 2013

Okay, I’m kind of terrible at cooking.

I can boil water. I can put things in boiling water. Things that are meant to be eaten, that is. I’m usually pretty good at remembering not to stick my hands or cell phone in the water. I am not the best, however, at remaining calm when water boils over and the pot of couscous erupts and flows onto the hotplate, forming a dark sediment of hardening grain.

But I mean, who would, really?

Couscous makes up a relatively large part of my diet these days. Lunches and dinners are usually either canned vegetables mixed into it or pasta or soup and bread. Breakfast is usually dry cereal, bread, or eggs (the French don’t often refrigerate eggs in stores, and — I have tested this* — unrefrigerated eggs are perfectly fine as long as they’re used quickly. Thankfully, the French don’t often sell in bulk, so I’m never trying to use a dozen eggs in three days). Snacks include fruit, granola, and these delightful things that the French grocery stores call breakfast crackers but are actually just cookies. I continue my non-vegetarian life with sandwiches at the school cafeteria.

Now, these foods look really limited, and I’m sure a working fridge would give me far more dietary opportunities. But in a way, a broken fridge forces me to try new things to stave off monotony. I can only get soups that come in individual-sized boxes, so there’s not really room to be picky. Whether or not I can decipher what vegetables are pictured on the boxes (my French vegetable vocabulary isn’t specific enough to just go off the soups’ names), I’m going to try it. I’m really curious about the box that seems to depict potatoes and pine cones.

It also forces me to find ways to like things I really, really don’t like. Example A) Apple sauce. I cannot tell you how much  I detest apple sauce. I always have; I vividly remember an afternoon in elementary school where I was starving through after-school care but refusing to eat the provided snack because it was apple sauce. Apples? Great. Cinnamon apples? Wonderful. Cinnamon apples pureed to the consistency of baby food and flavors intensified? I gag a little just thinking about it.

But, it turns out, on bread, apple sauce makes a fine replacement for jam. Sure, there’s too much in the cup to go on two slices and the rest must therefore be chugged, thrown back like cough medicine so I don’t feel bad about wasting food. But any that’s on bread is totally acceptable.

So, to my fellow broke college students, to my fellow renters playing phone-tag with their apartment agencies, to anyone working with a broken appliance they’re so used to having and realize have taken for granted all these years: Carry on. You can make it work.** With a bit of creativity and a numb gag reflex, anything’s possible.

—

*Let’s just talk about how this is proof that I’ve grown as a person, since I’m naturally inclined (read: always desperate) to follow the advice given at 1:43.

**Oh wait, sorry, that’s Tim Gunn.

Now that the actual spring semester at Sciences Po is two weeks in, I feel I can finally make a judgement call on my classes.

It’ll be a pretty cool semester.

I’m in seven classes, each of which meet once a week for two hours, and the semester is twelve weeks long. I have four media classes, one politics class, one French language class, and one arts class. It can seem a bit overwhelming and unstructured, but:

4 day weekend, guys.

And my earliest class starts at 10:15.

That’s enough to make up for any horrible aspects of the semester, but there don’t seem to be any.

In the journalism program, there are 15 students total, and we take four classes together — three of which are back to back to back Wednesday. Sciences Po has compiled a group of superbly nice and really impressive students and assigned us to friendly and experienced professors. Together, we have the following courses:

• Reporting About French Culture, a seminar with just the 15 of us in which we hit the streets and suburbs of Paris to interview citizens on current issues;
• Media in Transition, where the 15 of us plus a few others discuss (surprise!) the trends of transitioning media;
• Media and Politics, a larger lecture course in which the professor takes blows specifically at the UNC J-school for being American (okay, cool); and
• Basics of Journalism, where we the 15 learn about history and writing styles and everything else that has to do with journalism.

Outside of my journalism classes, I’m taking:

• The Personalization of Politics, which is fascinating;
• Cinema & Art, an elective in French where we watch weird movie clips and discuss maybe camera angles, but I really can’t be sure since the vocabulary is new for both French and non-French students; and
• French Language, where I’ve already been called out on my improper pronunciation of the “r.” What else is new?

I can’t quite tell how my classes will compare to those I’ve had at Chapel Hill. I do already know that my politics classes are far more interesting than the ones I’ve taken, but they’re also more specific than “State Government” and ” American Politics.” There’s definitely more theory and history incorporated into my journalism classes, but I don’t know how deep we’ll be going. It’s nice to be in a French grammar class while I’m here so I can mix learning in the classroom with practicing in the city, and it’s interesting to be in an arts class taught in French. Confusing, at times, but interesting.

And then I’m done with the week by Wednesday evening. I’m working on planning a few trips throughout France and Europe during my long weekends, though nothing’s set in stone. And even if none of the trips work out (not going to let that happen, though), Sciences Po and Paris can surely keep me busy enough.

Probably my favorite thing to do in Paris is to go for a walk. It sounds so simple, and it is. It’s to explore the city naturally and wander, not knowing what will be seen but having the guarantee that it’ll be gorgeous because, come on, it’s Paris.

When I had three hours to kill between a methodology course and lecture about French politics, when the sky was blue* enough to make the below-freezing temperatures feel warm, my obvious decision was to walk along the Seine, not too far away from the school.

Fifteen minutes later, Notre Dame is suddenly in the distance. You know, just chilling, in the distance. I had no clue the exact distance (in addition to navigation, determining distance is also on my list of troubles here).

The moment’s stream of consciousness:

Is that Notre Dame?

That’s totally Notre Dame.

Can I make it to Notre Dame and back in time for the lecture?

More than two hours left.

So, probably?

I’m pretty sure Notre Dame isn’t supposed to be close to the school. Will I have to cross the river? Will I have to cross roads? That always complicates things.

Walk as far as you can, turn back when an hour’s up. Deal?

Deal.

…

I love this city.

I had been to Notre Dame before, when I visited Paris through a high school trip. I must give a shout-out to Mme Popescu and Mlle Feltman for taking fifteen students to Paris and 1) not losing any of them, and 2) showing us many, many places in only three days.  It was my favorite day of the trip despite it being our last: blue skies, warmth, Easter Sunday, and a relaxed eagerness to see what we could but, more importantly, enjoy our time. Notre Dame was magnificent, and, even as a former Catholic, there was something special about being at the cathedral on Easter, among the fellow tourists and the mass-goers.

I’ve been eager to revisit Notre Dame, but, as Google Maps now tells me, it’s 1.3 miles away from the school. I hadn’t planned to visit it after a class.

The thing about Paris is you never have to plan to see something wonderful.

Tourists surrounded the front of the building, taking pictures of the towers or lining up to go inside on this non-holy Thursday. I was immediately reminded of how utterly magnificent this place is. The architecture is gorgeously intricate, and the history is complexly full.

I made my way to the right of the cathedral, where small lawns and a children’s play area run along between the building and the river that keeps the building on an island. No one followed me, and I could tell I was following few. It shouldn’t have surprised me; either despite or because of the politics, religion, culture, and literature (and the Disney) that encompass Notre Dame, it’s now primarily a tourist attraction. People take pictures of the front, line up to go inside, and leave. It’s a bit of a pity, I think, because I could have spent all afternoon circling this place, examining the details of the architecture, the wear of 850 years passing, the spiritual figures conceptualized and immortalized in stone.

There is something immensely humbling about the cathedral. Perhaps it’s the size. Perhaps it’s the age. Perhaps the fact that, even as an attraction, it is still a spiritual place at its roots. It’s humbling, and it’s peaceful.

I made my way around the building, noting the current renovations and decapitated gargoyles and Paris public garden signs and general lack of other people until I finished my circle and was in front of the towers again.

And then, knowing I would have to come back and determining that Notre Dame had become one of my favorite places in the city, I left for the school.

Three minutes later, the Fountain of Saint Michel was immediately to my left.

Again, I’d been there before — again, on that trip in high school. The fountain was our rendez-vous point when we were able to break off into smaller groups to explore the city for an hour or so. It had been another landmark from the trip that I had been hoping to return to. I realized that I was too occupied keeping my eye on Notre Dame while walking that I had completely missed the fountain — and it’s a pretty impressive fountain.

Fountain of Saint Michel, 2009

I wasn’t too different from the tourists at Notre Dame, I supposed, as we were so fixated on one aspect of Paris to notice the rest.

Fountain of Saint Michel, 2013

So I took a detour and rediscovered the Fountain of Saint Michel. The water wasn’t flowing, but the statues and columns were just like they were four years ago. And, just like at Notre Dame, I made a circle around the attraction. As I was behind it, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a hanging collection of copper pots.

Yeah, it’s a bunch of pots hanging outside of a restaurant. And I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk with dozens of people bustling around me, and I’m trying to realize why I think that collection of pots is so damn important.

And I then remember:

I took that picture on the last day of our high school trip, the same day we went to Notre Dame, because it’s such an odd sight to see, copper pots tied together and hanging from an exterior wall. I had the photo on my wall last year in one of my many photo-collection-posters, so I’ve seen those pots nearly every day for an academic year.

When I was deciding to study abroad, I had two options that would allow me to study journalism for transferable credit: Paris or London. I had been leaning towards London for a while, honestly. I had already been to Paris, I thought, but I’ve never gone to London and have always wanted to. But Paris would be a fuller study abroad experience for me, I determined, with the language and the culture I’ve been learning about for years.

Having been to Paris before, I’ve learned, doesn’t make this semester less special, less meaningful or fascinating or scary or incredible. If anything, it makes it more special. I get the surprise of stumbling upon places I’ve seen, places I’ve made memories and that I’ve encoded in my mind as just a visit.

Only now I live in Paris, a city older than my country with a history richer than any person or book can describe. And when I leave in May, this experience will be encoded in my mind as just a semester.

But Paris, I can already tell I’ll want to visit you again.

—

*The pictures in this post were not taken on that sunny Thursday, as I didn’t have my camera with me. Except for those taken in 2009, they were taken on a cloudy Friday a week later, which is why the sky is not blue in any of them.