Submitted by Kayla Dickens on the 2014 fall semester study abroad program in Paris, France…
Well, I find myself writing this from another train, no surprise there though. I’m about running myself dry with all the travel, but it’s just so easy and so inexpensive, so why not? When in Europe, right? On the plus side, I am staying in France for a majority of my time left here, just one day in Germany and two days in Switzerland (but they speak French in Switzerland so that hardly counts).
Surprisingly, my time left here is down to only 31 days, in fact by the end of today only 30. While I am pretty homesick and extremely excited to see my family and friends when I get home, I know I will miss Paris and I will miss speaking French every day. It’s a shame, I can’t find more people to speak French with in the States, I have progressed so much throughout the semester, but I know that my level will plummet right back down to the plateau I was at before I got here once I’m not speaking every day. I keep telling myself I’ll just come back for grad school, I just hope I don’t lose too much before then (although I should be using the language for placements and courses between now and then, so that ought to help).
Anyway, I forgot to write last week about one of the highlights of my fall break (possibly the best moment of the whole week, in fact). I’m not entirely certain how I forgot, but at any rate I was reminded at the airport on the way to Ireland when something similar happened. So here’s the story: my friend and I went together to a nice vegetarian restaurant as a treat before we went on our Halloween ghost tour (a little pricey, but entirely worth it to get good vegetarian food). When the server came to ask us if we had decided, neither of us understood at first so we just looked at each other. He first interpreted that as us not understanding French, and he repeated himself in English, but we still ordered in French (I outright refuse to speak English to anyone who speaks French here, save for the doctor and my language partner, that is not what I came here for). After we ordered in French, he must have reevaluated our initial confusion as just waiting for the other to order first or something along those lines, because he apologized for the English, said he didn’t realize we were French, and asked us where we were from because he didn’t recognize our accents. It was the best moment of this whole trip up to that point, one of my goals was to be mistaken for a tourist from elsewhere in France rather than be immediately seen as an American (they just have such a good eye for it), so my goal was finally met on Halloween. In fact, after we told him that we were from the U.S. he said he was surprised because we had a very French air to our behavior and our accents were so good. So I had a great night that night, needless to say.
Similarly, at the Beauvais Airport going through security there was an officer there to scan our passports again (not sure if that’s normal since I’ve been on a grand total of three flights now). After he scanned the passport, I had to ask him whether or not to take off my scarf and my shoes, and he was asking if I had any jewelry or a belt, and after that interaction in French he asked me where I learned the language, and when I said school in the U.S. and this was my first experience abroad, he said he was surprised and that was typically not the case with many American students and tourists. So not exactly meeting that goal for a second time, but nevertheless having my French complimented by an actual French speaker in public was a pretty nice experience (a real rarity, I tell you, the French are hard to please!).
So there are two highlights of the last few weeks, and two moments that make me worry even more about losing much of the improvement I’ve made this semester, but maybe I’ll just find myself some new French friends in the U.S., we’ll see how that goes.
Otherwise, the rest of the week has gone pretty well since the last time I wrote, it’s been pretty busy. After the last entry, I had two classes Thursday, flew to Ireland Friday and spent the weekend there (beautiful country with wonderful people, I learned a lot of history and could definitely see myself living there), flew back to Paris and went essentially right to class on Monday, had two classes Tuesday (one of which was an exam for the entire three hours, grueling, but I think I did pretty well), and packed up my stuff for the day trip to Strasbourg (which is where the train I’m on at the moment is headed). So it’s been busy, but at the same time not a whole lot has happened–kind of a strange feeling.
I still have lots to do this semester, the work load is definitely a little heavier than it was at first, but we eased into it so much that it doesn’t feel bad. I have four exams left and two projects, which is actually not that much. I just need to be careful that I plan far enough in advance with all the travel I’m still doing. I still have trips to Geneva, Toulouse, Munich, Montpellier, and Aix-en-Provence before we leave, and those are all in the next two and a half weeks so that I make sure to spend time with Paris in the last two weeks between all the exams and projects before I have to leave. So that’s about the rest of the semester in a nutshell, looking forward to it as always, and of course looking forward to coming home just as much as all the stuff in between now and then.
