a girl in Paris

18th June 2010

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The end of my first week.

Things are getting way easier as the days go on. The prospect of getting lost doesn’t make me as anxious anymore, I’m trying to practice my French a bit more, I’m understanding more of it, and I’m meeting new people.

The fellow interns, French and foreign, are extremely friendly to me. Yesterday, one of them (an American girl, Katy) saw me trying to figure out which train to get on, and showed me a faster one. We joined a few of her friends, all interns, and had a chat. I haven’t been particularly talkative because I’m not familiar with French pop culture and happenings, so I don’t have much to add, but I can follow their conversations and do small talk. It makes me happy to meet new people at work that I can have lunch with, because I’ve been lunching with the people in my group and they’re older than me so we don’t have much in common.

And speaking of lunch… The food at our cafeteria (called SELF) is ridiculously cheap— but I eat for free because I’m a stageaire. It seems the French are very hell-bent on doing three course meals instead of just doing an entrée and calling it a day like Americans do, so I get to pig out and nobody judges. The amount of food I can eat is so insane, I skip breakfast and just tide over to lunch. The desserts are pretty amazing (I had crème brulée today) and they make unbelievably good frites. I had steak frites for lunch, with a chouxfleur (cauliflower) salad, and the crème brulée and fresh strawberries for dessert. The food everywhere seems to be ultra fresh and not genetically engineered, since the strawberries looked tiny and normal, as opposed to the huge, flavorless ones we get in the States.

It still doesn’t feel like I’m in Paris, though. I haven’t seen the Eiffel tower because the combination of jet lag and long work days leaves me too exhausted to trek out there, but I’m probably going tomorrow. My days so far have been spent running errands and buying essentials, and then sleeping a little bit. I don’t think I’ll go out tonight, since my room is a mess and I should clean, and I have a few things to do. I feel weird not going out on a Friday, but I need to rest.

I’m going to see the city tomorrow, though. I’ll try to post photos of something this weekend!