Coming into Paris, I wondered how similar it would be to Amsterdam. I really liked how small Amsterdam was and how well I got to know the city, which I don’t know if I’ll do in Paris as it is much bigger. I also wonder if talking to people around the city will be similar, as the first interaction we had was very funny. At our first dinner all together, the waitress was very judgmental of our food choices and had very interesting opinions on everything we did. If we do interviews or go out and talk to people as much as we did in Amsterdam, it will be really interesting. I think I’m still excited to just explore the city and walk around not as a tourist, but just to explore.
I am most excited to see and understand how the city works. It was really cool to attempt to understand Amsterdam as a city. I learned about the layout of the city, and I could draw a pretty good map of it after two weeks there. We also learned that bikes do not wait for people, which initially caused some close calls. I hope that in my time here in Paris, I will understand a bit more about the layout of the city, rules about roads and such, some history of the city, and much more. For example, I hope we eventually learn how the metro system works, as yesterday, when we attempted to come into the city on the metro from the train station, none of us could figure out how to get tickets. The gates to the metro we needed ended up just being open, so we just walked in and hoped for the best. The signs aren’t too hard to understand once you get inside, so we made it to the hostel safely. Hopefully we will figure this out later on as we explore. I think I plan to explore more and learn about the city by just walking around. I will still go see specific things that I haven’t seen before, but I think I’ll spend more time just meandering and seeing the city.
A feeling I hope to have while I’m in Paris is just to be comfortable with where I am. I think this relates back to all I’ve said about learning how this city works. I haven’t lived or traveled abroad alone before besides Amsterdam, and so far it seems that these are two very different cities. I hope that eventually, I will feel comfortable and safe walking around here on my own. Its a really nice feeling to have, especially when this would typically be a very uncomfortable thing for me. I’d like to make lots of happy memories here, but one big one is probably just experiencing new things with the other students. I had a lot of fun in Amsterdam just doing things as a group, like walking around singing songs and getting big group dinners. I hope that we get some more fun memories like that here!