Some early thoughts

I wrote this entry a few nights ago and saved it on my laptop and am just now able to post it.

So basically I love Paris. I will start with last night (Monday?). I don’t think I’ve ever met so many friends at once on the same day. Mostly everyone in our program (and the people who are in ISA at the Sorbonne, another university) is really great and we all have a lot in common. I’ll sound a bit corny and say it’s like we all share a common love of French which somehow lends itself to having other things in common. There are several students from Ohio, a few from Georgia, and others from places such as San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, New Jersey (TCNJ), and Oklaholma! We haven’t spoke much French among ourselves yet and I feel a bit obnoxious walking around and speaking English loudly (something they told us NOT to do), but I guess it’s comforting or something. A lot of the people speak other languages fluently (Hindi, Mandarin, Spanish, etc.) which makes me jealous that I don’t have a great secret language that I speak at home, but whatev. I’m American and I can’t help it. Anyway, basically we ended up having a grand jolly night drinking wine under the Eiffel Tower. It “sparkles” on the hour for about 10 minutes at a time. You have no idea how massive it is until you are standing near it. I can’t believe we live so close to such an intense “landmark.” Yesterday was really helpful and reassuring for me as I lost most of my anxiousness/sadness and was able to be myself and laugh (which is a lot to handle for normal people, but most of the people here “get” me, or at least for now).

I’m salty that I don’t have wireless internet in my apartment, since I feel like I need to not have to take a bus for 15 minutes to the ISA office just to check e-mail, finances (ha), update this, etc. A few wireless networks are detected at the apartment but they are all secured. Louise isn’t home right now but I’m going to try and figure out how to ask her if one of the networks is hers (in French). Speaking of figuring out how to say things in French, yesterday I made a funny mistake. Since Louise knew I wasn’t feeling well on Sunday, when I came home last night (2:30 am, a record for me!—too bad it’s just the jet lag) she asked me “ca va” (literally- it goes?) and I responded “oui, ca va meilleur” meaning to say “ca va mieux” which means it goes better, but really said “it goes the best!” which Anna and I laughed about for a while.

Today we had academic orientation at the ISA office then they took us to do a tour of our school, l’Institut Catholique de Paris. It’s so beautiful. I took pictures which I shall post. The layout is so confusing though, I’m sure I’ll have an awkward time getting around at first. After that we all (everyone in the program walking down busy streets together following one of the program directors, Sylvie, it was obnox.) got sandwiches at this café and we ate them while we walked to find the bookstore, bank, etc. Only a few of us were opening French bank accounts (of course I was one of them) so Gabriel (very nice French man who, with his wife Annamaria, run the Paris program) took us to the bank and we were led downstairs in the basement to fill out contracts and stuff. After that everyone was kind of tired so myself and 2 other girls went to a café and had some coffee (I chose café noisette, hazelnut coffee) which was rather strong yet small in size (also kind of expensive: 3,10 Euro) We then met up with another girl at the St. Michel fountain (which apparently is a popular meeting place for Parisians) and stood on a bridge on the Seine and chatted/took photos. Everything is so beautiful here, it’s insane. I want to bring everyone I know here so they can enjoy it with me. I still miss everyone a lot and hope to get my internet situation up and running so I can correspond more freely (the phone rates suck).

Before I end this, I’d like to share a few things I’ve noticed about Paris in the last 2-3 days:
-I think the reason they say Paris is the city of romance or whatever is because there are constantly couples around making out on the streets, in the metro, wherever. Unfortuately, the city is not romantic for me because my love is not here.
-Many Parisians do, in fact, walk around the streets with a baguette in hand, usually not even in a bag. I always get nervous that they’re going to drop it on the street but they never do. Also, it’s socially acceptable to sashay around eating a baguette, sandwich, croissant, whatever.
-French children are the cutest ever. All of the little girls dress like Madeline and the boys wear cute little outfits.
-Even the dogs look French (they are all very small as well).
-The washing machine in my apartment is in the kitchen under the sink (kind of like a dishwasher) and will probably fit like 2 things of mine (and there is no dryer, interesting situation for underwear?) This is normal for France.
-Almost all French people speak English pretty well even though they say they are bad at it.