Touchdown in Paris.
Amsterdam was a very unique and fun experience. It was great getting to explore the city and the culture through working with the university students as well as through the asynchronous activities. Traveling to Paris was an additional unique experience that made me think about the differences between the two locations. One thing I wonder is if by the end of these 2 weeks I will develop a new understanding of the city along with an ability to navigate and traverse comfortably throughout the city. While in Amsterdam we explored the city as a group quite a bit and I wonder if that will continue while in paris. I feel like because this is a larger city more things are available so it may be lighter travel groups.
I want to feel comfortable in my French speaking abilities while in Paris. I want to practice my French to the point where I feel comfortable going about the city on my own. I have been taking french for the better part of my life and I feel like this is a unique opportunity to practice the language. At the moment I have had a couple conversations in french however I often feel very uncertain on what exactly I am saying and my ability to express myself clearly. While here I have been practicing using my french to speak to people and express myself. I feel as though this is an achievable goal for my 2 weeks here.
Outside of the course I’m excited to revisit a lot of the tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. I haven’t been to Paris since I was a child so it is exciting to be back at an age where I can explore more and understand/ retain more from the city. In addition to the tourist spots I’m very excited to possibly explore some of the surrounding areas and countries like Versaille and Belgium.
In my previous blog post I said that I was more of a go with the flow explorer. I plan to explore the city through food. I found a variety of gluten free restaurants and bakeries to eat at and plan to use my path to those locations to explore the city of Paris. I purposely tried to choose locations that are in different areas of Paris to maximize my exploration of the city especially in the more residential areas. In addition, people within our iSEED group are more planners and we have planned events to some of the more touristy spots.
Today I had a crepe that was gluten free with caramel and bananas. And in the process explored more of the 4 arrondissement and got to see lots of interesting buildings and cool architecture.
I look forward to working on this class while in Paris. I feel as though exploring the design process while in a foreign country and surrounded by new ideas will allow us to come up with new ideas and solutions to the various problems we will be presented with. I look forward specifically to going through the prototyping process and developing a prototype that is functional.