Parisian Immersion

Paris has been an entirely new and wonderful experience for me. Although I have visited the city before, I was traveling with my family then and relied on my parents’ navigation and communication skills. So when I first met my host, Chantal, who speaks minimal English, I became very nervous for the language barrier I would encounter all over Paris. Fortunately, I’m living with Bettina, who has a stellar French accent and charades is one of my family’s favorite games, so elaborate gestures have been mildly successful in my communicating. The years I spent studying Spanish have proved helpful because many of the roots of French words are shared with Spanish words. I use my Spanish background every few hours to decode the many menus of the many cafés that we have visited, (I have found favorites in ‘framboise’ flavored gelato and sweets such as macarons and éclairs). Even without all of this my anxiety about communication faded away very soon after my arrival because everyone has been so kind.


However, I do not see myself twenty pounds heavier at the end of this trip because we do more than our fair share of walking. Today we walked up to the top of Notre Dame, which is 317 steps, and then we took the Métro to Sacré Coeur and walked up to the top of dome, which is 300 steps. Despite Notre Dame’s fame, I was more enamored with Sacré Coeur’s architecture, mosaics, and grandeur. Ali and I spent much of our time in Sacré Coeur marveling over such a perfectly put together building, which was constructed in a time of much less technology.

It ís incredible how much we have fit in from the time we arrived. We have visited the Centre Pompidou where we saw the Matisse and Gerhard Richter exhibits, and the Musée D’Orsay, where we saw works from Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gough, Sisley and more. But some of the more memorable things we have seen and done have been outside of the museums. We walked around during the Fête de la Musique, which was a memorable experience because the streets of Paris were filled with many eccentric people but not that much or that good of music. The very first day, when Sophie, Joanna, Bettina and I were walking along the Seine, we stopped and participated in a free dance lesson. It is small things like this that have made this trip unique. I certainly look forward to beginning my work in the Curie Institute, but for now, I’m enjoying being a tourist.

- Megan Everett