When you make eye contact with someone in the streets of Paris, you don’t smile. This is one of the first things I noticed while trying to adjust to life in the residential 15th arrondissement. In French, arrondissement refers to a city district as defined by official zoning. This is where I live in Paris- far away from the touristy, action-packed streets of the inner arrondissements, where you can find a museum every other block or so. It’s also far away from trendy, “it” neighborhoods like the Marais and Canal St. Martin, where thrift stores, coffee shops, and gay bars are abundant. In fact, the 15th arrondissement is one of the few with a right-wing mayor, as all arrondissements in Paris have a mayor that reflects the nature of its population.
This neighborhood has been the backdrop for most of my study abroad experiences so far. It’s where I live, go to school, do my shopping and, since it takes so long to get anywhere near the center of the city (at least a 30-minute ride on the metro, maybe more depending on where you’re going), it’s where I live most of my life. It’s a nice neighborhood – the buildings have the same Parisian, designed-and-built-for-the-bourgeoisie vibe about them, and you see a lot of families with little kids. But it’s such a stark contrast from the neighborhoods I have grown to know and love in New York. You don’t get the comfortable familiarity of your local bodega (convenience isn’t much of a priority here), and the only real takeout places that are open at convenient times are bakeries (although I did just find a Lebanese takeout place near my school which I will now cherish forever). The things that I took for granted in New York are now what I’m missing the most.
When I thought about what I wanted this column to look like before I left to study abroad for a semester, I was mostly thinking along the lines of food, nightlife, and culture recommendations. I also thought about maybe throwing in the occasional bit about Paris’ frequent political protests, which range from marches in the street that often turn violent to public transportation strikes that do nothing but inconvenience everyone for weeks at a time. But I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t talk about the struggles, too – especially since the struggles are an overwhelming part of the experience at the beginning.
Instead of going to Parsons Paris, I chose to study through a third-party program, IES Abroad, in hopes of a change in environment. The program I chose fosters students from schools all over the U.S., which appealed to me when I was going through the application process. I thought that getting out of my New School bubble and exposing myself to other types of university cultures could be something I might benefit from. I thought that, if I wanted a “real” study abroad experience, I should go somewhere completely different. But The New School is pretty unique, and after being there for a year and a half, I’m used to that mindset. Now that I’m in this different environment that I wanted to so bad, my head is full of regrets.
I want to be super clear: I love Paris. It’s an amazing city, with an abundance of history and culture. The architecture is beautiful, and the layout, though confusing, is a ton of fun to get to know. Every neighborhood offers something unique, yet valuable. There are moments, when I’m walking around, where my jaw literally drops because I just can’t believe what I’m seeing (these moments often come when I catch glimpses of the Eiffel Tower through narrow alleys). I love speaking French and the culture that comes with the city. I love how giddy and excited French people get at bars and restaurants upon hearing my accent. I love how the French live their lives – sitting down at a cafe for a cup of coffee and people-watching rather than grabbing a cup to go, making separate stops at the bakeries, cheese shops, and fruit/vegetable stands rather than just grabbing everything at once at the grocery store.
But there are a ton of issues that come with a transition like this. Not only do I miss New York, but I miss my life in New York – my friends in particular. The hardest part of a social adjustment is being in a space where you don’t have close friends, or people that you can vent to and be completely yourself around. I am lucky, though, to have a very good friend from home who has lived here for a while now, and she has been a huge source of support for me. I love Paris and I love that I get to know it more and more every day. I know that the loneliness and the struggle is part of the experience; if it weren’t for that, there would be no learning curve. I would come back home more or less the same, having not taken away much of anything other than some improved French. It’s important to be in situations where you don’t feel very secure in yourself, because if you aren’t, you won’t grow.