bonjour mes amis,
i am here in paris, thriving. i wake up every day and at the same time bright and early to watch the sunrise with a café in hand. jet lag? we don’t know her.
i arrived here three days ago wearing a beret and red lipstick having slept like a summer lamb on the plane. i have had no problems with the language barrier as i was able to speak near-perfect french thanks to practicing mango ten minutes a day a month before i arrived.
i glided my suitcases to my room as my host mom led me to my room overlooking the eiffel tower. after i neatly unpacked my suitcase and folded all of my clothes the marie konmari way, i was feeling a little fatigued, so i strolled to the nearest café where pierre, the most charming partisan, served me a warm and luscious pain au chocolat. at night, i shimmied into my silky pj’s, did my nighttime skin care routine, made a cup of tea, and drifted into a deep slumber. paris: my home.
ha.
yeah, it didn’t go like that. i’m not an easy, breezy, glossy instagram travel bitch. my week 0 (i’m saying that because i have not technically spent a week here yet… classes start on monday) was been a rough one, hon.
the flight here was; surprisingly, better than i anticipated given that i upgraded myself for free to business class because the plane was very empty. i had no one sit next to me and plenty of leg room. sure, i got no sleep, but at least i was able to go pee without somersault over three people.
however, this quickly turned sour. painful memories of silent cab rides because the taxi driver and i did not speak the same language, awkwardly laughing when i didn’t know what someone was saying, and waiting for an hour outside my host mom’s apartment because i told her the wrong time awaited me.
after i threw my bags down, i went to a school-sponsored vivaldi concert because i can’t miss “an opportunity of a lifetime.” i slept through most of it because i was so jet lagged and on the way back to the apartment, i scored a 35 euro fine because i did not understand how the paris metro station worked and some asshole metro ticketer decided to penalize me.
i cried on the way home.
wish my misfortunes ended there, but there were many more ups and downs during the week to come. parisians giving me the cold shoulder because i don’t speak the language very well, sharing crepes with friends in cafes, miscommunications with my host mom, being able to order a ‘pain au chocolat’ in french, considering jumping out of my window to my death, receiving french lessons from a barista, waking up between 2am-4am for no freaking reason then inadvertently sleeping until noon.
i know that many people go through culture shock and it is going to take a while to get adjusted and i am very lucky to have to opportunity to study abroad. but also i want to be honest about my experience. i wanted to fully embrace the city and get married before my time ends so i can get the hell out of america, but my mental and physical health needs to take priority to adjust. as rupaul says, “if you can’t love yourself, how the hell can you love somebody else?”
thanks for reading :)
à bientôt!
-l
(composed 02/19)