Spring Has (Almost) Sprung

We have officially reached two months in Paris, and now I can say that this is the longest I have ever been away from home. Over the summer, I was only away for two months, but here, I have two more months until I come home.

I think it's time for a little update! I'm so incredibly busy here that I never find the time to write blog posts or upload pictures, but I'm doing my best.

At the end of February, I finished my classes and hopped on a plane to Barcelona and Lisbon by myself (for the most part- I had friends meet up with me for some time in both cities, but I spent a lot of time alone). It was the first time in my life that I was on vacation alone, and I have mixed feelings about it. I love being with people. I NEED to be with people. Being alone with my thoughts for that long was... it was really something special. But, at the same time, it gave me a chance to reflect on my previous five weeks in France and to see how much I'd grown in that time. I also got to do whatever I wanted without having to compromise with anyone, which- if you grew up with siblings, you'll know- is a luxury.

I absolutely loved Barcelona: the architecture is gorgeous, the food was so good, and I saw the sun every single day, unlike in dreary Paris. That being said, I was surprised by how much I missed being home in Paris, even with the cold weather and expensive coffee. I adore Gaudi, so the majority of the places I visited were about him. I went to his masterpieces Casa Batllo and La Pedrera (which sadly aren't renting out any rooms), which had been dreams of mine since I first came to Barcelona on a cruise a few summers ago. I took the bus tours around the city, even though it's really expensive and really touristy, and found so many more cool things that I wanted to do but just didn't have time for. With my friends, I went to the Sagrada Familia for the second time, and it was even more beautiful than I remembered. We saw a sunset in Parc Guell, which now might be one of my favorite places in the world, and a tapas dinner that left me speechless after a walk by the Arc de Triompf and the Gothic Quarter. It was so lovely to spend time with people from home that I hadn't seen in a while (there are other Goucher students on my program). It reminded me that life exists outside of this weird Parisian dream. We ended our trip in Barcelona by visiting the markets, where I saw many dead animals and was so disturbed that I thought I would never eat again. And then I flew to Lisbon, and this is where things started to get interesting.

I could get by on my very basic Spanish when I was in Barcelona, and I assumed that Portuguese would just be "very fancy Spanish that maybe has some ties to French." I was so, so tragically wrong. Thankfully, I made it on the bus to my hostel, but I was extremely thrown by my naive expectations. And that's when it hit me that I really was alone in a country where I don't speak the language, and I finally understood why everyone thought I was so 'brave' for doing this on my own. Truth be told, as long as you have Google Translate on your phone and a map, you don't need much else. I wasn't so worried that something bad would happen to me but uneasier about how different everything was. I don't really think I've been to a country where I don't know any of the language (except Italy, but I had practiced my basic Italian phrases prior to arriving, and I never went alone), and Lisbon just seemed really different from all the other places I had visited. In short, it was a very humbling experience.

Libson was also very beautiful, but I think I was exhausted from Barcelona and overwhelmed by the fact that I don't speak any Portuguese, so I don't think I really enjoyed it to its fullest. I got a lot of sleep- like, an incredible amount- and spent a night catching up on all the SNL I'd missed because it's blocked in France. I learned that you need time to recuperate while traveling because it really does take a lot out of you. I did explore the city, though. I took the trolley up to the castle of S. Jorge, which was really stunning, and I spent a lot of time lying out in the sun. Oh, the sun. How I long for you to come back to Paris. Sometimes it comes out between rain showers, and when it does, it's lovely. I understand why people love spring in Paris. (See? I love Paris so much that even when I'm talking about another city, I'm really talking about Paris.)

I started my internship when I arrived home. I am now officially an archives intern at the Mémorial de la Shoah, and it's very different from what I thought (in a good way). I get to work with testimonies and personal papers from WWII, and I learn something every day from reading testimonies and looking over documents like fake IDs and letters. And I've finally partially mastered the AZERTY keyboard! Trust me, the first week was a real struggle. Maybe sometimes frustrated tears. The keyboards are really similar but just different enough that my muscle memory no longer works. And when I return home and type on my laptop, it's a typing disaster. I have to get used to it, though, because I'm starting to work on my dissertation, and that will take A LOT of typing...

Coming back to Paris after all my traveling was a reassuring feeling. I truly felt like I was coming home, and I'd been missing the city a lot while I was away. I felt like coming home solidified my feelings of comfort here. Since coming back and starting my internship, it seems like this city is no longer foreign and that I see myself as a part of the community of people here (but at the edge, very far from the center, barely even in the circle of people). I'm almost in limbo between being a tourist and a resident.

I did something last week (more than once, actually) that made me feel very much like a local: I went to the movies! The reason this event is so out-of-the-ordinary is because of the language; I went to see "Call Me By Your Name," which is a film that takes place in English, Italian, and French. There were French subtitles for the Italian and English parts, and no subtitles for the French parts. Overall, I think I managed pretty well, but there were definitely some parts where the French audience members laughed and I didn't becaue I was still processing what was being said. But what a unique experience!

There is still so much to learn here, so much more to explore, and I feel like I'll never have enough time to get it all done. I come from a small city, one where you can see all of it in a day. I'm trying to make every day stand out from the last so that I don't fall into the cycle of work/sleep/repeat (mostly what I do at school), but it can be quite exhausting. I think my main problem is that I'm so stubborn about leaving my arrondissement- why would I venture anywhere other than the Marais, which is so close to so many landmarks, has such good food and shopping, and is insanely beautiful? I am spoiled to no end.

I see myself growing and learning and changing here. In a way, it's frightening to see yourself as such a different person. I catch a glimpse of myself in the Metro windows and see someone different from the college student in America, and that's scary. It's scary to see yourself mature and change in such a short period of time. I also see myself losing my English, which is a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, I get frustrated when my brain refuses to switch between languages, but on the other hand, my French is really improving! I feel much more comfortable now than I did two months ago, and while I'm far from perfect, I feel at ease in this language, and I've become less afraid of making mistakes.

It breaks my heart that I’ve made it past the halfway mark in my time abroad, but, just as the flowers are budding and the sun is peeking through the clouds, I feel another chapter starting rather than ending. Something is beginning to bloom.

#march #paris #spring