Bonjour de Paris!
It’s hard to find time while I’m here to write a blog and each time I try, I end up getting too overwhelmed thinking about everything I’ve seen and have yet to see, and how to begin, and besides, I’d rather be out exploring and spending time with my classmates in this incredible city than sitting on my computer, but it’s Sunday and for once, I have a few minutes to myself to do as I like and I say that it time to write my first real blog! Not that the internet ever works in our hotel.
I’ve only been here for five days and I really can’t believe all the things I’ve seen and experienced. The medieval part of the Louvre. The Musée du Moyen-age (museum of the middle ages) on La Rue de Cluny. La Sorbonne. L’École des beaux-arts de Paris. Saint-Chappelle. Several other beautiful and churches in our neighborhood (more about that later!) European bars. The Metro. An excursion by train to visit the cathedral of Chartres and receive a lecture-tour there led by Malcolm Miller himself, the premier scholar of Chartres in the world (I can’t even describe how amazing that was, and I didn’t even know that the guy was Malcolm Miller until after the tour. This morning, mass at Notre-Dame de Paris.
That doesn’t even come close to a comprehensive description of what I’ve done, but I hope it’s enough.
A lot of the sites we’ve visited (in small groups as we please) are very close to where we live: the Latin quarter. This section of Paris got its name because it was the site of the first universities in Paris, and the language of study at the time was Latin). It’s still a center of learning – our hotel, L’hotel Claude-Bernard is located on the Rue des écoles and you can walk just a little west and find the Rue de la Sorbonne, where one can find – yep, you guessed it, La Sorbonnne, probably the most celebrated center of learning in France! Also, we’re just a few blocks south of the Seine and on the other side is Notre-Dame de Paris.
And just to brag a little bit, because I have a French student visa, I get free admission to most museums (like the Louvre) that ordinarily you would pay a sizable sum of money to go to. Even an international student I.D. card doesn’t always get you in for free, we’ve found.
I love this neighborhood. It’s picturesque (although, really, it’s Paris. Everywhere you go is beautiful.) it’s lively during the day and just a few blocks away, there’s an area for good nightlife – restaurants, crêperies, bars, cafés, greek food, whatever you want, really, and importantly, it’s not always too expensive, although we quickly realized that the cost of living, at least day to day here is much higher than in the United States, but then again, that’s probably because of a key cultural difference. In America, we spend money on things to put in our houses and entertain us at home, and in Paris one goes out and spends money on actually living – eating, drinking, spending time with family and friends! It’s just what you do. Il faut.
If my writing on this blog is a little clumsy, I apologize. It’s hard to type and think in English. We’re speaking French for the majority of the time, and slipping into English isn’t as easy as you might expect. After a day of speaking french all the time, one ends up speaking a weird mix of the two - the other night several of us went out and we ended up meeting two boys from Holland who only spoke a little French but could converse in English, but for me it was almost impossible to maintain a conversation without unconsciously slipping into French. The boys didn’t understand me most of the time, but I don’t think anyone minded.
It’s a relief to learn that I can function here. I make mistakes all the time, particularly when trying to buy something, and I know it’s painfully obvious that I’m an American, but people here are surprisingly patient, for the most part, and helpful – and they do respond to me in french, at least most of the time, and I can understand. Sometimes if I have to ask for clarification, they quickly resort to English, and that’s frustrating, but it’s not as bad as people had warned me – that no one would speak French with me at all. Granted, the interactions are almost always brief transactions, but I think that people here are much more willing to respect the fact that you are trying to communicate with them in their language and behave as they do (which is more than I can say for the other american students who are also staying in our hotel). Also, I guess that at least some of the time, when I walk by myself, I blend in – some french woman asked me for directions the other night, and of course I didn’t know, but It must mean I’m at least dressing reasonably well – although having seen the french girls, I think I have a long way to go before I can even come close to achieving their style. I didn’t bring enough scarves – just two, and not the ones I should have brought - and if you know me, that doesn’t make any sense. What was I thinking? Luckily, they’re pretty easy to find around here.
I’m also learning the metro system, and I absolutely love it – you can go anywhere, and if you make a mistake you can just backtrack. And the possibilities are endless - what a change from Northfield, Minnesota, where there’s no where to go.
I think I’m in the right place.
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