As an avid food lover, this week has one of the best weeks of my life.
Eating a Baguette because they are SO GOOD
I quickly learned that although baguettes are delicious, I can’t live off bread alone 🙁 That being said, it has been very fun to explore different types of French cuisine. I have been learning a lot about French culture by people watching and have been pleasantly surprised by how patient and kind people are. Although I may get looks every now and then for not being able to speak French, no one has denied us service or refused to help.
The timing of our trip here has also been amazing. This week was fashion week, Pride, and La Fete De La Musique! During one of our first nights in Paris, Eva and I got an unwavering craving for gelato. Daniela recommended a place called Amorino so we walked over to the Ile de la Cite location. We then realized that we were close to the Notre Dame and wanted to keep exploring. As we walked by the Notre Dame, we then heard loud music from a nearby bridge near the Louvre. We of course then had to investigate as well. As we got closer, there were bright blue lights dancing along the bridge and the water. A crowd of people also stood by the bridge as police officers guarded the entrances. We soon heard that the singer was none other than Jay-Z!!! After looking it up online, we realized that the event was Pharrell’s debut fashion show for Louis Vuitton, and Jay-Z sang to close it.
View of the Louis Vuitton Show
La Fete De La Musique was another highlight. There was music everywhere on the streets to celebrate World Music Day. We stopped to hear DJs along the river and also danced with a group of people near a live band.
Another spookier highlight from this week was visiting the catacombs. It was very interesting the learn the history of the tunnels and also read about why a portion of them were filled with bones. I learned that people’s remains were moved to the catacombs after graveyards were overfilled due to an enormous number of deaths from the black death. There are around 6 million skeletons where we went which is an absurd number to wrap my head around. Even after seeing the skeletons, it was still hard to understand how many people were down there.
Heart of Bones from the Catacombs
In addition to adventuring around the city, we also got our teams for our design challenge! I am on team cheese as we embark on a mission to create a cheese cutter for a client with limited mobility in one hand. Today we went around the city looking for prototyping materials. It was fun looking through different stores and adapting when we couldn’t find something we needed or found something interesting that we didn’t know we needed. We also had a team bonding experience getting the best falafel ever for lunch at L’as du Fallafel.
I have appreciated all of our organized activities taste testing different cheeses, meats, and breads. It is easy to see how popular charcuterie boards are in Paris while walking around the city. I believe that if our project were to go forward, we would help stroke patients and other people with limited hand mobility feel more included in the culture of the city. By providing a resource to people who could usually not participate in making their own boards, we are giving them agency that they would not normally have.
Throughout this process I think our group has worked well communicating with each other. I think I am especially good at taking a step back so we don’t overcomplicate our solution or miss something that may cause future issues. I want to work on talking with locals to ask for help. When we went supply shopping, I wasn’t the person who asked where things were, but I want to step outside of my comfort zone and jump in a bit more. I am scared sometimes that I will offend people if I can’t pronounce something correctly, but I have learned this week that being polite, and attempting is appreciated more than anything even if you can’t speak French.
I also got to see my aunt and uncle this week which was a major highlight! They happened to be in Paris at the same time, so we went out for a fun dinner together.
Similar to Amsterdam, I would advise people visiting Paris next year to fully embrace the city. Don’t shy away from the people or the food. It is ok to learn and make mistakes as long as you go into situations with empathy and curiosity.