Paris Semester Abroad

Hello family and friends! Hope you've all survived this week. Here's what I've been up to:

At the start of the semester, I decided to enroll in a program that our exchange organization was offering in partnership with the Sorbonne, aptly named "tandem". The premise is that you meet with a French student from the Sorbonne and spent 50% of your time with them speaking in French, and the other 50% in English. The goal is for both parties to better their speaking skills in their second language. I was matched with a girl called Madeleine. A quick stalk of her social media revealed that she likes food, jazz, and art. She seemed very cool and friendly, but her texts in English were suspiciously perfect and free from grammatical errors. (more on this later.)

We planned to meet at a café near the Sorbonne. I was very, very nervous. Sitting at the bus stop, I anxiously wrote down the sentences I planned to use into a notes document, double checking any words I was even slightly unsure of against google translate to avoid making a fool of myself. They were things like:
"my dad learned French in high school, and I want to understand the jokes he makes at my expense".
"I live in Maine. It's close to Canada and it's freezing."
"My dog and cat don't like each other. Often it's like a war in the house."
"I have two siblings. One studies architecture, the other nursing."
"Are there actually rats in Paris? I've never seen one."
"My French is not very good, you might have to help me a lot. Your English is probably better than my French. I hope not to disappoint you."

I silently repeated the sentences to myself on the bus. An elderly group of French people next to me noticed the bus was taking a detour to avoid construction, testily remarking "il y a toujours de travaux en tous les endroits de Paris!". This I had no problem understanding. Complaining is a popular French pastime and one of the many commonalities shared by Parisians and New Yorkers.

I arrived at the café, and pretended to look busy until a cute girl with glasses, a stylish vintage handbag, and a bob approached. "act cool act cool", I told myself. I very quickly noticed her English was flawless, no trace of an accent. She could have passed for an American. After ordering, we found ourselves a table in the corner and proceeded to talk for the next 3 hours.

To say that Madeleine is fascinating is an understatement. She is without a doubt one of the coolest people I have ever met in my life, let alone in Paris. To give you some background, Madeleine has an American mother and a French father. Her mother is the a high ranking administrator in a major French catholic NGO that does aid work all around the world. Before the age of 8, she lived in India, Sri Lanka, and the DRC. Her little brother was once invited to the birthday party of the president of Congo's daughter, a lavish affair that included popcorn machines, bouncy houses, and the president flying in on a helicopter and passing out bills to everyone. Her father is an engineer. Madeleine herself studies linguistics at the Sorbonne, and wants to join the peace corp and teach English in Sri Lanka when she graduates. She's funny and finds Americans and French people equally odd, as I do. Even she herself finds the French sometimes cold and standoffish, while are Americans are bubbly and kind, if a bit ignorant at times.

I was extremely floored by how much we had in common. It turns out on her American side, she has an uncle in PORTLAND MAINE. What??? Apparently she spent last summer there doing an internship, while also working at Hannafords in produce doing the cut fruit. Can you guess who also worked at Hannafords last summer in produce doing cut fruit? Yours truly. I never thought I would find a person in Paris who knows the exact temperature range hannafords requires for sliced strawberries. To back up her claims, she showed me a sticker of the state of Maine on the back of her phone case. Needless to say it was impossible for us not to become friends after that.

We talked for so long that the manager announced the salon would be closing in ten minutes. Unwilling to part ways so soon, Madeleine and I took a walk to the St. Sulpice church, a large and beautiful structure. The last time she was there, she told me, was for her cousins first communion. Like me, Madeleine is from a secular family, and we both giggled as she recounted that someone had asked her "doesn't this remind you of your baptism?"

We stopped at an Indian jewelry store and pointed out all the rings we would buy if we were rich. We stopped at anything, really, that took our fancy. Bakeries, shoe stores, jewelers, CBD oil vendors, you name it. It was the best type of walk. Pretty soon we'd walked so far that we reached the Seine, and Madeleine showed me all of the picturesque houseboats, postcard vendors, and wooden sailboats. Her family likes to sail. So does mine. We walked across a bridge, taking in the dark water of the Seine and magnificent stone facade of the Louvre that lined the right bank.

This was the first night that I'd ever seen the Louvre, glass pyramid and all. Haters say that the pyramid is ugly, but I found it absolutely spectacular, especially at night. Juxtaposed with opulent, carved Lutetian limestone architecture left over from Louis XIV's reign, you can't help but marvel at it. And Madeleine was the most perfect person to see it with. As someone who's lived in Paris since age 8, there's always a brasserie nearby that she's been to (and has opinions on), or a funny story behind something innocuous, like a crosswalk or a chestnut vendor. (these are so funny by the way, usually they use a very rickety and unsafe looking contraption consisting of a large metal plate and a rusting propane tank, often installed in a repurposed shopping cart. The smoke is extremely acrid and makes you cough.). But her stories make Paris seem so much less like a utopia for wealthy tourists looking to live their bourgeoise fantasies, and much more like a place where real people live. A place that a small person like me could one day feel comfortable and at-home in, too.

Thank you for everything, Madeleine. On se verra bientôt. Bisous :)Read more