Une Petite #TBT

Three Years Ago Today.....I was lucky enough to find myself embarking on a classic collegiate adventure: a semester abroad in Paris, France. I've long been a francophile, dabbled in the language in high school and been obsessed with the Baz Luhrman film Moulin Rouge. Then, my fascination with America Modernist literature (think Hemingway, Fitzgerald, TS Eliot - in other words, Midnight in Paris) blossomed during a sophomore year English class, so Paris was a natural choice for the requisite fall semester away. While it would be impossible to recollect an entire semester - where I went to school, lived with a french family, explored several other European cities, and immersed myself in the Parisian environment over four months - in a single blog post, I wanted to collect and capture the feeling of those first few days in a foreign city. It's very different than visiting somewhere for just a weekend, which is my typical m.o. these days, where I plan ahead of time the best possible use of time and mix of activities to get to know a place or check off famous landmark boxes in just 48 short hours.

Arriving in Paris was different, of course, because I had to think of the city as home. I was a visitor, yes, but I hoped by the end of my stay I wouldn't be called a tourist; rather, I was there to learn and live and settle in to the fabric and mold of the urban environment. From taking the metro to school and all over the city, to making new friends from all over the world in my classes at Sciences Po université, to feeling comfortable living in the home of a family I didn't know and conversing in mixed French and English at the dinner table and at the boulangerie, this was no ordinary "vacation."

I decided to look back on a few photos from my first few days in Paris (ok, so my Timehop and Facebook's "On This Day" feature reminded me). It's a mix: some famous landmarks, of course, but these sightings and photo opportunities were happened upon arbitrarily as I visited my friends in apartments around the city and took the city bus with my host siblings to my new school for the first time.

Of course Paris is a beautiful, historic, romantic, and yes, touristic city. Many people fall in love with the city and its persona, whether there for 4 days, 4 months, or 4 years. But Paris will always be special to me, for sparking and strengthening my literary interests and academic arc, for becoming a comfortable jumping-off spot for more whirlwind European adventures, and most of all for being the place where I learned to be independent, jump at new opportunities, and appreciate the every day challenges and stresses of a beautiful, wining life. 

One of the many places to call home