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By bevvy2212

Since my roommate left me for the weekend to go travel with her mom, I was feeling quite lonely all by myself in Paris. Hard to imagine, right? Paris is great and everything, but sometimes it gets a little bit routine-ish. I think I’ve gotten quite lazy recently as the hype of being in Paris finally dissipated. Sure, it’s cool to visit Musée D’Orsay or the Louvre on a casual afternoon but they get old eventually. So on Friday night, I was on the phone with a friend and he suggested that we should go to Le Havre at 8am the next morning. It sounded crazy to me at the time, and super exciting.

So we took the train from Paris Saint-Lazzare station to Le Havre. Round trip was around 34 euros with my carte de jeune. It’s funny because the trains don’t have a physical barrier that bar passengers from entering the platform unless they have the tickets so it seemed totally possible for someone to just sneak on the train and not buy the ticket. As I was commenting about this loophole in the transportation system (because the previous times I have taken trains, no one checked my ticket), the conductor came around to do the ticket inspection. The guy sitting behind us actually didn’t have his ticket and he was fined.

It took approximately three hours to go from Paris to Le Havre. Le Havre used to be one of the biggest sea ports in France before tradings increased in the Mediterranean and Marseilles over took Le Havre’s importance.

After living in Paris for a while, Le Havre was a nice change because it was such a quiet, cute, little town. Sciences Po actually has a regional campus in Le Havre. I wondered if I made the right choice of going to the Paris campus as I was sitting on the beach, watching the sun set, because it was just so peaceful and the people there were so nice and genuine. But I think, at least for me, who grew up in the city, I’d be really bored in Le Havre if I’m actually studying here so, I guess we can’t always get what we wanted.

Most tourists come to Le Havre to visit étretat. They are a set of cliffs that are shaped like elephant trunks because of wind and sea erosions. Because we got to Le Havre around 12pm, we missed the bus that goes from Le Havre to Etretat at 10 in the morning. Make sure to check the bus schedule because buses to Etretat are rare during off-seasons (after summer). So we decided to go to Etretat on Sunday morning and go to Honfleur, a really small town nearby, instead.

To be honest Honfleur is the cutest French town I’ve seen by far. It felt like a typical European town with its old buildings and hanging flowers from the balcony. Honfleur used to be a sea port as well and it has the largest wooden church in France as well. It was my first time being inside a wooden church and I liked it a lot more than the usual stone churches because it was very quaint and also quite warm inside. (stone churches are usually colder because of the texture)

Another thing about Le Havre is that it’s in the Normandie Region and it’s known to be really rainy out there. Make sure to bring your umbrella and footgear that’s somewhat water proof because the rain and the cold does not make a good combination for traveling. We were lucky enough that Sunday was a sunny day, the only sunny day in fact, for the following week. I highly recommend going to Etretat because you can hike up the cliff and have an incredible view of the area, kinda like the Scottish highlands actually. After being cooped up in the city scene for a while, the cliffs, the sea shores, and the horizon were very liberating.

Also, AMAZING sea food! Especially the oysters (“huitres” in french) and whelks (“boulots”)!

By bevvy2212

On Saturday, I took the SNCF (the French national railway) to Rouen so this week I’m going to talk about how to take the public transports here in Paris.

Paris has an extensive web of metros and railways to take and it is super easy once you get it all figured out. The intertwined web of lines might appear daunting at first but I found this app called “Paris Metro” in the iphone app store and it’s like, God’s gift to those who are lost in Paris. Basically you just need to enter the start and end stations and the app will give you a detailed itinerary, including where you should change lines and how much time approximately it will take for you to get to your destination.

A lot of people buy the “Navigo” pass for the metro. They are kinda like smart trip cards except that you pay it monthly. It’s around 68 euros per month I think but you can take the metro however you want; there is no limit on how many times you can enter the metro. Since I live very close to campus, I don’t have a Navigo because it is just cheaper to purchase tickets at the machine. There are ticket-vending machines at the entrance of every metro station. Unlike DC metro where the price of the fare depends on where you go, there is a set price of 1.7 euro for a one-way ticket in Paris. I usually buy the “carnet”. It’s a set of ten tickets and the price is 13.70 euros, a bit cheaper if you do the math. You can also use the same type of ticket to take the bus, but usually people opt for the metro because it’s easier and faster.

Like DC, there are public bikes to rent here in Paris. Apparently it’s easier to ride than in DC and a lot of people use them to go to school/work. The only problem is that usually during rush hours, either there are no bikes at the bike stands around you because people have taken them out already or you can’t find a place to return your bike once you’re at your destination.

I went to Rouen by SNCF this saturday. SNCF is the French national railway system and it basically operates all the trains within France, including the TGV (the high speed rail). The SNCF station in Paris is at the metro station Saint-Lazarre. You go up the escalators once you’re out of the metro and there’s the SNCF station. There are ticket vending machines around the station so you can just pay at the machines. HOWEVER! They only take cards that have a sim chip. I don’t even know how to explain it because I’ve never seen it before, but apparently here in France, the credit/debit cards here have a visible sim chip on the card, whereas in the US or in China, most cards (at least the ones I have) only have the magnetic slide thingy on the back. So I was unable to purchase my ticket via the machine and had to go in-line at the counter. I got a “carte de jeune”. It’s a discount card for people between 12 to 26 and a lot of the times it cuts the price of the ticket in half. The card itself costs 50 euros and is effective for one year. But if you are planning on traveling around France then it’s definitely a good way to save money because my trip to Rouen was originally gonna cost around 46 euros round trip. With the “carte de jeune”, I paid 23. So that’s 23 euros I made up with the cost of the carte de jeune already. You will need your passport and an ID photo of yourself when you go purchase the the carte de jeune.

I was shocked by the amount of people that were on the train… Life lesson here: so I was walking and I saw various seats on the train through the window and I was like hmm… maybe there are better seats ahead so I kept on walking but I ended up sitting on the stairs because the doors were about to close and I had to jump in a random coach. I had a seat on the train in India… INDIA!! So if you see something in life that you like, take it, don’t wait around to see if anything better comes up. (so philosophical these days.)

By mcbitter

With Paris being a major European city, not to mention the capital of France, there are plenty of issues to talk about in the news. One that's been affecting us (by "us" I mean the Americans in my program) is the recent Air France strike. Two weeks ago on September 15th, the union representing 75% of Air France pilots began picketing because they didn't want their paychecks to decrease or positions to be affected as a result of the airline investing more money into Transavia, its budget-friendly subsidiary. Overall, the strike - which was the longest in Air France's history - resulted in many canceled flights and a daily loss of 20 million euros, or about $25.4 million USD. Thankfully, the strike ended today (Sunday, September 28th), a couple days before many of my friends will be leaving for Amsterdam or Berlin on Thursday. (As for me, I'm taking the train north to Lille, France for the weekend, so I didn't have to worry much!)

It seems that competitors like RyanAir and EasyJet (which have rock-bottom prices - seriously, it can be as low as 25 euros for a flight!) are really throwing the airline industry for a loop. I haven't flown either of these airlines personally, but plenty of people I know have and would do so again. With such cheap tickets, they make money on pretty much any other service (like printing out your boarding pass, extra bags, etc.), but as long as you plan everything out, you can avoid these fees. So, overall, it makes sense that Air France would want to toughen up their own economical line of flights, but needs to avoid doing so at the expense of existing pilots.

Air France Ad
Air France Ad

Lastly - the timing of this event is rather interesting, because just last week - while the strike was still going on - I went to the Air France Expo at the Grand Palais downtown. It showcased Air France's new marketing campaign, especially all of the technological improvements they're installing. (For example, in first class, your seat - which is closed off from other passengers - actually folds down into a bed!) I wonder what the flight attendants working the expo must have been thinking at the time...

By bevvy2212

It’s been a month since I’ve been in France and three weeks since classes have started. I can’t believe time has gone by so fast and I’ll only have about three months left before the semester ends.

Even though it’s already been three weeks, I still feel rusty in terms of grasping what I have learned so far. Because I was on a plane the day class registration opened, I did not get the chance to be enrolled in my preferred courses and I was a little bit bummed in the beginning. Currently I am enrolled in four normal classes taught in English and a French language class, which isn’t bad at all in comparison to the French students who actually go to Sciences Po.

I was a little bit concerned at first because I am not at all familiar with the topics of my classes: 1) Foundations of moral and political thought. 2) Social policies in Europe. 3)International Law. 4) What is social democracy. For someone who is an international affairs major with a security policy concentration, I have no idea what went on with the welfare states in Northern Europe nor about the foundations of western philosophy.

The first two weeks were hard, mainly because it was a little bit difficult to bring up my interests for these classes that I didn’t intend to sign up for. Back at GW, I always had the perfect schedule with the perfect professors all planned out, so these uncertain classes made me a bit nervous. But it turned out that I was being overly worrisome. The professors are Sciences Po are… awesome. It didn’t matter that I have no previous knowledge about the subject, they made the class so interesting that I now have this unknown energy and motivation to finish all my readings and take diligent notes in class. (I mean, I did all that back in GW of course, *cough cough*)The one thing that I don’t like about the professors here is that they don’t offer office hours, nor do they respond promptly to my emails. We were warned before we got to Sciences Po that professors here are usually adjunct professors and they all have busy lives outside of the academic life. I guess I’m just used to being able to discuss the topic more in depth during office hours instead of seeing the professors fled the scene as soon as class is over.

We also went on a GW-organized trip to Giverny this Saturday. It was my first GW trip and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trip. Giverny is the place where French Impressionist Claude Monet lived. He created his famous Water Lilies there and it was very fun to see all the places where he painted.

Monet's house. It was very interesting because there weren't any corridors so in order to go from one end of the house to the other, we had to walk through every room. Talk about no privacy huh.
Monet's house. It was very interesting because there weren't any corridors so in order to go from one end of the house to the other, we had to walk through every room. Talk about no privacy huh.
The bridge in Giverny, Monet's water gardens. He was greatly influenced by Japanese culture so his garden consisted of various bridges and a lot of bamboos.
The bridge in Giverny, Monet's water gardens. He was greatly influenced by Japanese culture so his garden consisted of various bridges and a lot of bamboos.
he famous pond where he painted his water lilies.
The famous pond where he painted his water lilies.

It’s funny because I did not consider myself an “artsy” person before I came to Paris. I do like art but I usually just breezed past them due to lack of time. But because we are technically “French” students, we can get into all the museums and galleries for free, so I ‘ve enjoyed strolling inside the Louvre every Wednesday (because it opens till 9:30pm on Wednesdays and Fridays). I intend to make it a routine thing. It’s very nice to take my time instead of rushing through the gallery like other tourists.

Hotel de VilleOn a side note, the weekend of September 20 and 21 is the French National Heritage weekend. A lot of the offices that are usually closed to public are open on these two days. I was going to go visit the Palace Elysée (aka the White House of France) but the line was insane and I didn’t feel like waiting. So I waundered into Hotel de Ville (the City Hall) instead. Typical French to have golden chandeliers and oil paintings everywhere.Inside City Hall

By mcbitter

Over the past three weeks, I can honestly say that I've never been bored in Paris! There's an abundance of things to do here - in fact, I already know that this semester is going to be really short. (As I'm writing this, it's already September 21st!) I just hope that I'll have enough time to feel like I've made the city my own. That said, here are a few things I like to do with my free time in the City of Lights.

1. Grocery shopping. As mundane as it may sound, shopping for food is actually really fun here! It's interesting to see what kind of products they have in France that are different than the ones at home. (Admittedly, I did eat Oreos today... whoops.) I've shopped at a few different places, including Monoprix (kind of like Target - they have everything!), Franprix (smaller selection but tons of locations), and little produce-only stores. Monoprix is perfect for when you're doing a lot of shopping but you don't know exactly what you need. In particular, I found really good gnocchi and pizza there (I'm buying Italian food in Paris, go figure). Franprix is where I go when I realize I didn't buy something I needed, as it's only a block from my apartment. As for the produce stores, they're all tiny! And yes, the one on my block sells only fruit and veggies. I make sure to buy my bananas and salad ingredients from there because they seem to have a better selection than the larger stores.

2. Bus rides. Overall, Paris has a great public transportation system. Buses, trams, metro, trains, they've got it all. If I'm not in a hurry, I always try to take the bus because it lets you see and appreciate the city. For example, the other day, some friends and I went to the Champs-Elysées after class. The bus ride home showed us many Parisian landmarks as well as low-key places I'd like to check out. Unfortunately, it's impossible to take the bus to class in the mornings because traffic is usually too unpredictable to always make it on time.

3. Museums. There's too many to count! This weekend, my program offered an optional day trip to Giverny, France, where we visited Claude Monet's House and Gardens as well as an Impressionist Museum nearby. On Monday of last week, I stopped by the Louvre for a few hours, the highlight of which was seeing Napoleon's private apartments. (No, I did not brave the crowds to check out the Mona Lisa. Not this time, at least.) Other museums that are on my list are the Musée Rodin (dedicated to the works of sculptor Auguste Rodin) and the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (the biggest science museum in Europe).

4. Talking with locals. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with all of the GW students on my program, but I'm happy to say that I've made French friends, too! Last week, I went to an event called "Franglish," and I can't wait to go to another one. Held Sunday through Wednesday nights at bars around the city, each night accepts 25 English speakers and 25 French speakers, and is aimed at improving your foreign language skills. It's set up like speed-dating (it's not for dating, but that's the best way to describe it!), and with each person, you spend seven minutes speaking in each language. Basically, it's an awesome way to meet locals and exchange a little bit about your lives.

By bevvy2212

Ok, hold your scream mom, I know you’re discretely reading this via google translate, but what I’m about to talk about has nothing to do with the topic, at least not in the way that you expected it to be.

What I learned this week about the French and their confusing culture is their way of handling personal spaces and their “petites bisous”—kiss on the cheeks.

For someone like me who has little regard of people’s personal bubbles and always enjoy popping them to test their boundaries, the French might not like me very much. It is weird because I remember vividly back in high school when my French teacher told the class that the French are way more intimate than Americans, which has not been the case for me, or maybe it’s a Paris thing. I kept on forgetting that Paris does not represent the entire France. In fact, most people have told me that Paris is one of the few exceptions of France and only the Parisians are mean. (Not that I’m complaining about living in Paris or anything).

I was having coffee with a couple of French girls one day and their comments about personal boundaries really threw me off. First of all, no hugs. Don’t go around hugging people you have just met five minutes ago. (Oops, guess I’ve been doing Paris wrong for about three weeks now?) A wave or a hand-shake like “Good day, sir”, should suffice. Um ok? I don’t know how it is for other people but I am a very hug-ish person so I have been very self-conscious since that conversation. I would flail my arms in excitement when I see my friends yet have to forcefully retract above mentioned flailing arms in order not to hug them. Yes, it has been a struggle.

The French like to kiss each other on the cheeks, at least they do it to their fellow Frenchmen, and these little kisses are very confusing and super awkwardness-prone if you don’t do it right. Back in Peru, kiss on the cheek is a must. Even if you are just meeting a friend of a friend with whom you have never met, you kiss them first, then you introduce yourself. But I guess the French are more selective in this process. Since I want to get submerged in the culture so everytime I meet a new French friend, I look excitedly at them like a puppy staring at a piece of meat, hoping against hope that they would smack their precious cheek against mine, only to be disappointedly rejected by a handshake. Yesterday, I was meeting up with a French friend for dinner and she brought another friend with her. We both looked at each other, eyes full of uncertainties. “Are we doing this?” Our eyes read. Then her head leaned forward for an inch. “Oh? Oh! We’re doing this!” I thought. I handled the whole situation smoothly, the kiss didn’t feel out of place or anything. Brush dust off the shoulder. *Pat pat*.

So yeah, I guess in conclusion, don’t touch them, unless they initiate it or if you are specifically interested in them. Vice versa, apparently if a guy touches you surreptitiously, (yes, I sound like I’m writing a romance novel for six graders, surreptitiously) then that means they are interested. Guess I’ll have to be careful not to send out all sorts of mixed signals…

By bevvy2212

Three things I miss about the U.S/ GW

 

I never thought I would say this, but I actually miss Gelman… Sciences Po is kind of like GW. It does not have an actual campus; instead it has several academic buildings randomly scattered around in the 6eme arrondissement of Paris. That being said, space is quite scarce. Therefore, finding a desk to sit down and do some work is quite the challenge. For once in my life, I am actually motivated to do work and here I am, unable to even set a foot in the library because it’s so packed. Why Sciences Po, whyyyy. I also miss being able to physically go into the aisles and find books that I want because most of the books in Sciences Po are being stored underground that stretches miles and miles under Paris, so it requires some time to get the requested book transferred above ground.

 

  • Big Portions

Maybe I have been spoiled, but I am constantly starving in Paris because food is so expensive and the portions are tiny in comparison. 3 euros for a bottle of coke? What is this, capitalism! No refills? Blasphemous! I’m not a big fan of bread, wine, or cheese. So I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here in Paris.

 

  • The way I dressed.

The weather drops down to the 50s in the mornings here… while it’s been in the 80s in DC. It’s the first week of September. It’s barely fall yet. I should not be breaking out my llama sweater when I wake up for my 8am class. Also, I’m a pretty casual-dress person, so all the posh clothing and Louis Vuitton make me feel a little under-dressed at times. What I don’t understand is the Parisians’ need to dress up for badminton. Badminton! I went to my badminton class on Tuesday, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, I considered myself as dressed appropriately. But I was confused by the group of students in khakis, loafers, skirts, and flats when I reached the gym. I double-checked the address and came into realization that these poshly dressed people are, indeed, my fellow badminton players.

The teacher later cancelled class which was when I realized that my fellow posh badminton players immediately blended in with the Parisians on the street because of their way of dressing and I was left looking like I was going to the Olympics in my sports attire. Not to mention the amount of stares I have received again because of my shorts, God forbid that a girl should not show some skin when it is 82 degrees out!

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Picnic at the Eiffel Tower

If I had to choose one word to describe my first week in Paris, I would choose fantastique! It's hard to believe that we've been in the City of Lights for a week already. Just like at GW, everyone in my program (GW Paris Fall Business Studies) is really diverse and brings a lot to the table. There are people from each region of the States, plus Puerto Rico and Switzerland. We've gotten to know each other pretty well over the past week, which has been something like a “welcome week.” There have been a lot of small excursions, during which we’ve explored the campus, met professors, and enjoyed a lot that the city has to offer. Some other highlights include:

  • A picnic under the Eiffel Tower
  • A wine and cheese tasting on a rooftop overlooking the city
  • A guided tour of the Musée d'Orsay

During these excursions, I think a lot of people (myself included) have discovered one particular challenge of living in Paris: navigating the metro. You'd think that we would be able to do it easily, as there's a metro in DC, but the Paris metro is rather tricky with many different tunnels and ways to exit. On top of that, all of the station and direction names are unfamiliar to us, which applies to city streets as well. (When I went on a run in my neighborhood yesterday, I made sure to write down each street that I turned on should I need to retrace my steps!) So far, no one has gotten terribly lost (yet!) and it will undoubtedly get easier as the semester goes along.

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GW Paris students in front of the Muse d'Orsay

Despite the looming threat of classes starting tomorrow, one thing that I'm really looking forward to is spending more time with the five French SciencesPo students in our group, both in and out of class. Each of them is really interested in learning more about us and American culture, and they're more than welcoming to us. In my opinion, this has made the transition to Parisian life a lot easier. We will be taking all of our classes with them (three GW business courses and two SciencesPo electives), so it will be interesting to see the differences between American and French academic settings.

Overall, this week has had a lot crammed into it, but I wouldn't have it any other way! All of the activities have served as a great introduction to the city that will be our home for the next three months. See you next week!

By bevvy2212

I have been in Paris for a week now and even though France and the U.S. are both modernized, developed countries, I definitely did not mistake myself for being in the U.S.

 

  1. College—French Style.

GW automatically enrolled us in the Welcome Program that is offered by Sciences Po, which I am truly grateful for. Even though going to classes is a bit of a bummer in comparison to those who aren't participating in the Welcome Program, I have benefited greatly from the classes. The French, they are a classy bunch, and they like to think their education is a superb and exquisite pursuit to true knowledge. Hence, their expectation of us had quite hit the roof. They like to question everything, just like Descartes had put it, “I think, therefore I am.” For the full week, we learned how to dissect question prompts to pieces. For example, we were given an essay prompt, which was “Should we live in a world without borders.” From first glance, this seemed like a pretty easy topic to go at and I would have probably attacked it from all the wrong angles according to the French standards. Our professors walked us through the process, dissecting each important word and gave those words boundaries. For example, we had to narrow down the word, “borders”. Does it include political borders, or national ones, or geographical ones etc. Then we would have to derive a paradox from the question, like, border has a negative connotation to it yet humans need borders in order to establish their individuality. So towards the end of the week, I was really paranoid and started to question everything… It is as if I am in Inception or something. Where am I? Am I REALLY in Paris? Is this real? Am I real?

The French also put a lot of emphasis on exposés, which means oral presentations. I personally really dislike speaking publicly. Don’t get me wrong, I usually can be a chatter box and go on and on for days. But once you put me on a podium, I’m like a deer in the head light. We had to each do a five-minute oral presentation for our classes and mine was on the U.S. policy in the Middle East. It went fairly well, which was surprising. My professor thought I was quite composed and relaxed, which again, was blasphemous. But after it was all over, the exposé doesn't seem nearly as bad. So I guess at least I’ll come back from France, fully able to take charge and give public speeches. *I hope*.

 

  1. Cat calling.

Another aspect of the French culture, or maybe the European culture in general which I find quite appalling, is the amount of cat callings I have received. I admit that maybe I should have swapped dresses for pants, seeing as how most Parisians think winter has descended upon them already, but it’s been 60 to 70 degrees, like, come on. I have felt very uncomfortable walking down the streets in my dresses simply because of the amount of vulgarity and explicit sexual content that was directed toward me. For heaven’s sake I’m in France! I never expected for this to happen. I never considered myself to be a true feminist but after a week in Paris, I feel the strong need to advocate the fact that the way men view women as if they are some fresh meat need to be changed. Like, I felt safer when I was in Peru. PERU! (Not like I’m discriminating against Peru or anything, I love the country.) Way to go, Paris.

 

  1. Pick pocketing

I think I should consider myself lucky that I have yet to be pick pocketed, in the U.S., or in France. But I feel like sometimes, things such as theft seem very far to you unless they actually happen to you. We have been so used to the safe environment in GW that when we are outside of the cocoon of campus, we don’t realize that we obviously don’t blend in with the locals and are easy targets for thieves. My friend actually got her wallet stolen in the Paris Metro. The thieves were two girls, and their moves were unbelievably fast. Luckily for my friend, she was able to hold onto one of the thieves and a nice Parisian rang the alarm in the Metro for her. The thieves freaked and gave her back her stuff. Nonetheless  I know for sure now that I am going to be extra careful with carrying my bags. (Though I can barely find my wallet most of the time, I’d like to see them thieves try.)

By mcbitter

In less than 24 hours, I will be boarding a plane to Paris! It seems like many of my peers have already left for their programs, but my departure date was perfect for me - it allowed me to spend about two weeks with family and friends at home, as I had stayed at GW the majority of the summer for an internship.

One question I've been asked a lot is "What are you most looking forward to in Paris?" That's an easy one for me (and no, it's not sampling all the croissants and macaroons I can find, though that's a close contender!). After paying a visit to all the typical tourist attractions and sites, I'm really excited to discover what we can call 'city gems,' or the niches that locals enjoy regularly and that a tourist might stumble upon while exploring a neighborhood. (Hopefully, finding these places will help me feel like less of a tourist!) Although I'm not originally from the area, I've found many places like this during my time in Washington, DC, and they've really made me feel like I have my own grasp on the city over the years. (For example, if you have a sugar craving and need a cupcake in Georgetown, go to Baked & Wired rather than Georgetown Cupcake! GW students practically swear by this.)

Another thing that I'm excited to enjoy is one advantage of participating in the GW Paris Fall Business Program (which is for GW Business students). Though we have classes Monday through Thursday, each Friday includes a "site visit" (aka field trip!). Some of this year's highlights include visiting the European Union, paying a visit to Normandy, and seeing Monet's Giverny estate. It should be a lot of fun!

I could probably go on for many more paragraphs, but I'm going to limit it to this - gotta get some sleep before the big day! Safe travels to all the other GW students out there!