Or, the reasoning that led me to my next step: living in France as an au pair The last blog post I wrote here was about a weekend I spent in Lyon, France a year before — at the time of writing, I had no idea that I would return to this city in just 8 short months! Life can be funny that way. I graduated from college this summer — a phrase which still feels weird to say. For…
Exploring Lyon There’s this ancient astronomical clock in the Lyon cathedral. It’s gorgeous and amazingly ornate but didn’t work when I saw it in December 2017 because people had destroyed its inner mechanisms a couple times throughout history. Isn’t that wild? I wondered what would make someone wreck the clock, and thought maybe they wanted to freeze time. I could sympathize–– I was leaving Europe in a couple weeks so I wanted to freeze time, too, and keep on traveling….
Day 1 I had a mission: to see the Christian Dior Couturier du Rêve exhibit at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. A couple days after finals ended at Sciences Po I took off. Advance tickets for the exhibit were not available, so I expected the line when I arrived that morning. I just didn’t expect the four-hour wait. At first I thought the line would take about 90 minutes. But as the cold and rainy afternoon progressed, I…
One year ago today was my last full day in France. Thinking about it right now makes me smile, but it also makes me nostalgic and sad, because my four months in Europe were so beautiful. When I close my eyes I can still trace the 27-minute walk from my studio to school: The wide shiny boulevard of Place d’Erlon, the narrow side streets with crumbly stone buildings and bright shutters, the hot sugary scent of baking treats unfurling from…
It might not seem that way from my illustrious travels, but I actually was in school during my time in France. I spent the rest of November and beginning of December studying, which could be difficult considering my my mild distaste of various aspects of Sciences Po University. But by virtue of living in the champagne region, this time was interrupted here and there by glasses of chilled bubbly. Sciences Po threw a James-Bond themed “Sky Ball” at a champagne…
Strasbourg enchanted me when I visited last week. It’s a colorful city filled with flowers, half-timbered medieval buildings, and a soaring Cathédrale Notre Dame that sits on the skyline like a moody, Gothic giant. Its canal flows blue-green in the daylight and shimmers peacefully under street lamps at night. And, perhaps most wonderfully, books spill onto every street from countless book markets and bookstores. I was in heaven. Strasbourg is a French city with Germanic influences (it sits near the…
So I did something crazy: I stayed up all night in Paris for Nuit Blanche, an annual arts festival on the first Saturday of October that goes from 7 pm to 7 am. It was probably one of the happiest nights of my life: wandering through Paris at night looking for art, sipping wine and eating crêpes, discovering the surprises within each exhibit. I felt young and bubbly and excited with the energy of the whole city surrounding me. I…
Last weekend, during the final days of summer, I finally made it to Paris. After a few weeks of cool temperatures, the sunny warmth made the whole city glow! I remember standing on a bridge shortly after arriving and looking out over the Seine, off toward swaying trees and tiered buildings, and feeling a bit of that Paris magic I’ve read so often about. The magic definitely disappeared when I encountered the full brunt of tourist crowds, but for…
I’ve been living in Reims, France for the past month! The economic champagne capital of the world, it’s a charming city 45 minutes-by-train from Paris, set in the rolling green vineyards of Champagne. The spirit of bubbly infuses the city– even the faces of the colorful trams are shaped like champagne flutes! It feels rather glamorous to drink that sparkling golden liquid in the Unesco-World-Heritage-listed region where it was made. And yes: I fully intend on becoming a champagne snob…
I’m studying at Sciences Po University in Reims, France for the fall semester, which is wild because I’ve wanted to live in France ever since I was a little girl. I’ve always been whimsical, and France– with its sweet language, its chocolate and cheese, its charming villages soaked in history and elaborate architecture, its chic cities and amazing art– has always drawn me. I want to speak fluent French; it is a beautiful and melodic language that I love. It…