By the time I post this, it will be less than 72 hours
before my plane to Paris takes off from Dulles, which makes this my last
pre-Paris post!
The past few weeks have gone by very quickly. After wrapping
up my summer job in DC, I came back to my mom’s house for my final two weeks in
the US. I talked a lot before I got home of my plans to “frantically study
French” during the bulk of this time, but that hasn’t happened beyond my
continuing to read Harry Potter in French periodically. (I am encouraged by how
much I understand, though I wonder how much of that stems from my previous
familiarity with the material...) There hasn’t been much else to do in terms of
getting ready: some final shopping, an array of appointments, and catching up
with family friends. Leaving the country like this is a great opportunity to
see a lot of people in a short period of time – I think I’ve been more socially
active in the last four weeks than in the rest of the summer combined! I’m so
grateful to have such a supportive network of family and friends here, and I’m
glad to know that many of you reading this will be there for me as I work
through the challenges of adapting to Parisian life and school!
I’ve expected to start feeling progressively more anxious
about the move as my remaining days have dwindled, but that hasn’t been the
case. I haven’t started feeling additional excitement, either. Both of these
are good things, and I think it’s an indication that I’m trying to maintain
balanced expectations of how the next couple of months are going to go. Paris
is obviously synonymous with awesome, on numerous levels – and I’m thrilled
about all of them – but there’s no question that it’s going to be a tough
adjustment. This will not be my first time taking classes in another language
or another country, but taking Private European Economic Law is going to be a
radically different experience from the History of Art in Andalucía! I am
hoping that since that course might be pretty foreign to me even in English
that my language skills will not be as much of a problem as they could be.
(That was the case with the art history course in Spain – we learned a bunch of
art vocabulary for which I still have no English equivalent in my head.)
Next week I’m hoping to just take care of the necessities:
Paris cell phone number, bank account, and metro card. Note for anyone out
there who’s thinking of extended travel or study like this: if you’re an
AT&T customer, they won’t unlock your iPhone (to allow for use of a foreign
SIM card) unless your plan is finished! This means that I will go on what I’m
sure will be an interesting adventure in search of someone on the streets of
Paris who can unlock my phone for me.
Time to go pack – à bientôt!
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