May 2, 2017

It’s an odd feeling, isn’t it – missing something before it’s left you. Unfortunately, time never slows in the face of nostalgia. Especially not in the warm-ish, glinting haze that is Paris in May. Having been away from the City of Light for about a week and a half... Read More

April 24, 2017

This beautiful weekend saw a couple of things: the resultats of the premier tour of the French presidential elections (!), and an utterly gorgeous weekend in the Loire Valley. The Loire Valley spans 280 kilometres in central France and is referred to as the Garden of France... Read More

April 14, 2017

It’s spring break (vacances de printemps) here in Paris – which means that a lot of APA students are enjoying their time-off with well-earned travel! Having been on the European continent for about three and a half months at this point, with plenty of travel to boot, many of... Read More

April 9, 2017

I met my host-mom Solène (mère d’accueil) over macarons and champagne a few days after I arrived in Paris. Solène’s a nurse, and she has a habit of wearing two pairs of glasses at the same time. I met her husband, Thierry, about an hour later over dinner. Thierry owns a... Read More

March 28, 2017

With just over two months of classes at French university under my belt, I’ve had enough time to note the differences between the French and American school systems. During our orientation, the APA directors explained the differences in full, but practice can often be... Read More

March 19, 2017

When my family and friends found out that I was officially going to be studying abroad in Paris, their first reaction was: We’re coming to visit! Oftentimes, your semester abroad gives the people who love you a perfect excuse to come to Paris (though really, do you need... Read More

March 12, 2017

Paris truly showed off this past weekend. It seemed like the first sunny days in months, though in reality it had only been a few weeks of gray skies and rain, and everybody was out and about enjoying the weather. This weekend served as a big hint of what the spring to come... Read More

March 9, 2017

Once in a while, there’s an aspect of being abroad that mirrors being back at our home universities. Sometimes it’s greasy food at 2am, sometimes it’s oversleeping after working late at night. These days, at the beginning of March, it’s the... Read More

March 2, 2017

The French political science class – French name is “Les Enjeux Politiques de la France” – spent last weekend in Bruxelles, Belgium. We were lucky to visit the actual European Union institutions that we had studied in class with our professor,... Read More

February 27, 2017

PARIS — Paris does a lot of things right. Glimmering Haussmann architecture, satisfying wine, oozing cheese like jewels behind glass counters… and perfectly adequate street cleaning. Sadly, coffee (and the matter of public urination, among other things) doesn’t make the... Read More