Rules Don’t Exist and How to Cut a Grapefruit
October 8, 2018
A little over a month here in Paris and the idea of “schedule” is still baffling to me. I like to think that I’m fairly organized, however, after almost missing a class, not thinking about what I’m going to eat for lunch on any given day of the week, not being able to cut my grapefruit correctly in the morning as my host family watches on, and continuously searching for a café that can serve as a solid study spot, I’m feeling like the scrambled part of scrambled eggs (I think I’ll continue to go for some obvious similes today). SIDENOTE: You know the “right hand rule?” Where if you are walking down the street, you always move to your right when people are moving in the opposite direction (I suppose in the UK it would be the left-hand side…)? So, assuming that this “rule” is kind of universal in cities, I’ve been surprised to find that the French definitely don’t follow it. Let’s just say there are been some near-collisions and then some actual... Read More
Two French Women and an Elevator
October 1, 2018
While tying my shoes in the hallway of the apartment, I was distracted by a sudden burst of chatter coming from outside the door. Thinking that, maybe, my host mom had returned and was speaking on the phone, I waited for the door to open so that I might say hello/goodbye and be... Read More
Paris: a city for a romantic, or a romanticizer?
September 26, 2018
It had gotten to the point of the evening where I had become engulfed in the exhaustion of the travel day, the newness of the city, and the chaos of the language-shift. We had been walking walking walking, and dinner was still a few hours away (because the French eat dinner at... Read More
Dispatches from Dakar #2
June 21, 2018
Writing in Wolof by Boubacar Boris Diop, Concert at Almadies with Ma & Cie featuring Kemit, A homage to Sembene Ousmane with a viewing of his film Xala, Meet Professor Carina Yervasi and the Feast of the Korite for Dispatch from Dakar... Read More
Dispatches from Dakar
June 7, 2018
News of our inaugural launch of APA Dakar 2018 Welcome to the APA office hosted at the Superior Institute of Management (ISM). We have been welcomed by ISM with generosity and support. Sophie Corbeau directs this first edition of the program with the support of Cecilia and... Read More
Clara’s Guide to Paris
April 26, 2018
Today while I was procrastinating starting one of my five (five!!!!!!!) papers due next week, I decided to instead start writing a guide to the city of Paris. And now I share this list with you, cos I love you. Things to see: Museums Musée de l’Orangerie Giant Monet water... Read More
Picnic
April 10, 2018
When I think of Paris, one of the first images that comes to mind is a picnic along the Seine. As the city turns to Springtime, that dream finally came true. Last Friday, some friends and I took a baguette, some chèvre, and a tomato to the banks of the Seine. We sat on a... Read More
Curtain Call
March 13, 2018
Every week, APA takes us to see a “spectacle.” The spectacles are one of my favorite things about being in Paris with APA — if it weren’t all organized for me, I doubt I would take the time (or money) to go to a show every week. Paris has one of the greatest... Read More
Czech-ing out the rest of Europe
March 4, 2018
One of my favourite things about my semester in Paris so far has been the time I’ve spent away from the city. One of my biggest reasons for choosing to study abroad in Europe was for the opportunity to travel. Since European countries tend to be fairly small (and because of... Read More
Managing Expectations
February 16, 2018
One of the biggest tropes of preparing to study abroad is having incredibly lofty expectations about your time in another country. I had romantic visions of myself riding a bike with a baguette in the basket and picnicking in a different country every weekend. Me as I imagined... Read More
Une manque de comprehension, or how I ended up with a very short haircut
January 28, 2018
One of the things that made me the most nervous about study abroad was finding trusted professionals like my favourite doctor, dental hygienist, and hair dresser. After one fateful haircut that my mom and I like to call the “Christmas Tree,” I have reason to be... Read More
Saint Malo and Mont Saint-Michel
January 22, 2018
This weekend we went on our first APA weekend trip and visited the walled city of Saint Malo and the old abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. It was rainy and gray for most of the trip, but that didn’t stop us from having a blast! (A blast of wind, get it?) Students accidentally... Read More
Welcome
January 16, 2018
Dear reader, My name is Clara and I’m a junior at Yale majoring in American Studies. I decided to spend this semester in Paris because study abroad has always seemed like such an incredible opportunity to me—the ability to spin a globe and put your finger down anywhere... Read More
To french or not to french…
December 10, 2017
Just as a warning, I’ve spent the last week furiously studying for the 5 billion exams I have next week, so I apologize if this blog post has turned into a heady, intellectually abstract monster…I feel the same way right about now 😉 When I was living in Houston,... Read More
The invisible guide to understanding french body language ch.1
December 3, 2017
I slid onto the metro 13 at Université Saint-Denis. As always, it quickly became packed with people and as the train signaled its warning with a buzz, a handful more arrived, frantically pushing their way into the crowded car. Leaning against the back window, I... Read More
