Settling into life in Paris

September 16, 2019

by Calista Goldwasser

Bonjour tout la monde! It’s Calista again! This week has been a whirlwind of returning to Paris and making this quintessential city feel more like home!

We returned to Paris on Saturday and moved into our home stays and student dorms called “foyers” that night. For me, I’d been living out of my suitcase for a month and a half so I was so excited to move in with my host family, unpack all of my bags, and stick around for a while. My host mom welcomed me into her home and even took me grocery shopping on Sunday to show me the best spots in the 13th Arrondissement where I now live!

This week commenced the “shopping period” for trying out courses at some of the universities of Paris while also participating in APA’s Language Intensive with the wonderful language specialist, Astrid Schöning. In terms of courses, the courses I’m interested in, with the exception of my voice lessons, are all beginning next week at APA and Université Paris 8 Saint Denis. While many of my friends were out trying classes at Université Paris 10 Nanterre and 7 Diderot, I’ve had some free time to explore Paris a bit on my own in addition to the evenings when the whole group has had tours of the artsy and historical Montmartre and Le Marais neighborhoods of Paris.

Overall, this week has been very affirmative of my competency in French and in navigating a new Metro system on my own, so that’s a win-win in my books! Now I’ll just have to wait and see how my first week of classes goes, but that’s for next week’s blog.

Au revoir,

Calista