My Life in Paris without Expectations

I am now shortly coming up on two moths time here in Paris and needless to say, my life has exuberating, would be the best word to describe my new life here in France. I remember a few months back during the preliminary and application process when I was filling out countless forms and documents just thinking about what my life would look like in a couple months time, so to now be here living it is a little crazy, to say the least. I always pondered what my life would look and be like once I was here in Paris; it’s a bit odd because I can’t really claim that it has exceeded my expectations because I didn’t know what to expect going into this. What I can say, however, is that everyday I am left with this feeling of fulfillment, as if I am on the path that I need to be and at the end of each day I can’t help but think what my life will look come May (the end of my time here) and the kinds of experiences and memories that I will have lived through during my time here. It’s certainly a strange sensation and I find it a bit difficult to describe, so my apologies if you get lost in my attempt at explaining my internal monologue. One experience I have had that I can talk about though is meeting new people at my French university. I go to a pretty small school and I actually happen to be the only American student there, as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. Just this past week, I have begun to talk to quite a few French students; one thing I find funny is that they all knew my name and they each said that they were able to remember it due to the fact that they associate it with me being the only American there, and I just thought that was pretty amusing. I’ve found that none of the French students that I’ve talked to have ever been to the U.S before and they’ve all been asking me about what the U.S is like and some differences that I’ve noticed about the U.S and Europe. I’ve really enjoyed being able to talk to more French students, as I’ve found that it is quite a different dynamic as opposed to when I talk with other American students or other international students here; we always end up having nice and interesting conversations about our respective countries and their societies. All in all, I am loving my time here in Paris and just to finish off, I will explain the photo of myself that I uploaded here to this post: last week, I was at a park near the Eiffel Tower with a few fellow American students, as out program’s office is across the River Seine from the Tower, so we were all hanging out at a park nearby after our meetings at the office. There, we met a Greek student who noticed us speaking English, and as he also spoke English, we were all socializing and happy to meet a fellow international student here in Paris. Long story short, he has a hobby of photography and he ended up taking this photo of me while I was laughing at a joke that we had said and I just really liked how it turned out, so here it is on this post!

Also, the other picture is of the French flag atop a government building near the Champs-Elysee; I went there with a couple friends a few days ago to visit some shops there, as that avenue is littered with shops, and I ended up buying a nice bottle of cologne, as well as taking this photo!