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 lily paintings covering the walls of oval-shaped rooms Monet made these works as a gift to France and designed the rooms himself This is an incredibly beautiful reflective space, there is nowhere else like it Centre Pompidou One of the most important museums of modern art in Europe The modern collection is better than the contemporary collection and the rooms are organized into artistic themes rather than time periods or artists, which makes for a very cohesive viewing Musée Nissim de Camondo An 18th-century house decorated painstakingly with 17th-century beaux-arts furniture It’s never crowded and the entire house is perfectly staged so you feel like you’re walking through the house... 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
In the spirit of thanksgiving…
November 26, 2017
Up until a few weeks ago, I was in complete control. I went where I want, I spoke with whom I wanted, and I did it all whenever I wanted to. Pretty much my whole experience of Paris was on my own terms which is to say that I was able to live in almost... Read More
Nudists, friendship formulas, and depression.
November 12, 2017
Whether I’m at home in the 19eme, going from one place to the next, or enjoying a cup (France don’t kid yourself, its a flask) of coffee, I am never alone. This has been one of the main differences that I’ve had to adjust to, living in Paris. Compared to my life in rural... Read More
Some sage scholarly advice on how not to fail Paris.
November 7, 2017
**this is just so long and I didn’t feel like editing it so if you just want said sage advice, I’d scroll all the way down 😉 ** This being the first week of November, we have less than two months left of classes and that also means that we’ve had about two... Read More
Ode to Public Transportation
October 31, 2017
I love public transportation. It is one of the only instances where people from all walks of life are thrown suddenly into and must share the same space for an extended period of time only for that bond to be torn apart with the same inconsequential lightness that it was formed.... Read More
Intro to host family life 101
October 22, 2017
Returning home from our weekend trip to Normandy, I stepped into the dark rain-streaked streets of Belleville. I had been feeling anxious to the thought of re-entering the bustling, cobbled maze of Paris after a refreshing few days taking in the blustery, autumnal countryside of... Read More
