By Allix Wright

Guest Writer

I am no stranger to living abroad: I was born in the Netherlands and lived in Belgium and London for several years. Nevertheless, the closer the time came to leaving for Paris, the more nervous I became. Having to live with a French family for five months, register for classes at the Sorbonne, and take classes with other “real” French students? The prospect was terrifying. 

But once I arrived all my anxiety immediately disappeared. I have now been here a month and I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed.

Fortunately, I have a wonderful and caring host family, whose only flaw is that their warmth makes me miss my own family. I truly enjoy my classes, which, despite all being in French, are some of the best classes I’ve ever taken. With each passing day, the Parisians’ rapid-fire mumbling becomes more decipherable and I feel less inhibited in my attempts to make conversation.  


Of course living in a different country comes with some adjusting. For the most part, when the French aren’t taking advantage of their great bus and metro systems, they walk. Everywhere. After my first few days here, I felt downright geriatric.

However, I realized there were some advantages to these daily calisthenics, such as enjoying lots (and lots) of crêpes, French fries, and cheese with little guilt. But it’s difficult to put on weight when there is no such thing as a Big Gulp or a Big Mac or a Big-anything. Quality trumps quantity and dinners here are about good food and good conversation. That means that dinners (which start relatively late, often around 8:30) can last for hours.

To go along with this notion of leisurely dining, waiters at restaurants don’t bring your check at the end of the meal; you must ask for it yourself. They want their patrons to take their time and enjoy themselves. While it is frustrating for those instances in which you are truly in a rush, it is a great change of pace to which I’ve enjoyed growing accustomed.


As one can imagine, there is a plethora of things to do in Paris that impede the “study” part of “study abroad.” A great deal has happened in the short time I’ve been here. I’ve gone to the movies with my host sister (side note: here "The Hangover" is aptly named "Very Bad Trip"), I’ve visited the Palace of Versailles, and I’ve been inside Marie Antoinette’s prison cell. I’ve watched the Eiffel Tower light up the sky from the Trocadéro, and one night, I even got a nosebleed in a random pub on Rue Mouffetard (a delightful story that includes a young Frenchman stuffing toilet paper up my nose like a makeshift tampon).


But in addition to all of that, I am here, lest I forget, to improve my French. And as I learned at dinner the other night, it is, at times, a delicate task. When trying to explain to my host family that I didn’t play sports at school, I mis-conjugated the verb “to play” and said a verb that my host dad let me know in so many words translated to the verb “to play…with myself.”

Through my host family’s giggles and my utter humiliation, I realized my mistake was a perfect example of why I went abroad: to challenge myself. If that also means to laugh at myself, c’est la vie.

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