As promised.

I've already filled half a notebook with my daily activities and circuitous reflections, which are deadly dull to anyone but oneself. Alors, I shall concentrate for you my first week in Paris.


I.
Knew this would be the case, to some extent, but one always finds oneself overwhelmed when the smallest errands are not just occasions, but obligations, to use one's new language. And while the Parisians are actually pretty accommodating and kind, for the most part, they do "helpfully" switch to English after reaching a certain threshold of impatience.

But even over the course of the week during which I've been living here, those occasions are getting rarer. Sometimes I rehearse the first sentence to get everything exactly in place, because I find that if someone responds to me in natural French, my nerves settle significantly, and I'm able to sound competent.

And I must tell you, my friends, that though I doubted the Magical Power of Immersion at first, I find that even a week makes an enormous difference. As does, interestingly enough, the time spent each day speaking French. It's as though I need to stretch my linguistic muscles every morning in order to keep limber for the long workout ahead.

The best sign? I've started to forget which conversations I've had were in French and which in English.

II.
French bureaucracy is, indeed, a bitch. Full of Catch-22s. But I find that, except for things happening more slowly than I had hoped, I'm not on the whole held up by it. I had a very patient banker who trusted in my intelligence (and pitied my poor French; this was only Day Two), and overall, the moment I try out my French, even if I stumble, the majority of administrative workers are eager to help me. As one would do for a lost puppy, or bewildered child.

Took my placement tests and am awaiting the results. My interview went better than I thought, and I knocked my rédaction (essay) out of the park, but a few of the fill-in-the-blanks found me staring at a few conjunctions, etc, that I could not for the life of me remember. I hate not knowing anything, especially on a test. Well, voyons, mes amis.

III.
In tangentially related news, the main reason I've taken so long to get to you is that I've been running around in circles trying to solve my housing situation. You see, the "lovely" family I was going to live with to get accustomed to French life has actually been terrible, to a comically exaggerated degree. Monsieur mostly ignores me, but Madame is completely insane and controlling. Those who are morbidly interested can ask for stories, but I won't bore the rest of you with the detailed Dickensian woes of my current living situation. My colocataire (housemate) Amy, a lovely English girl studying math at the Curie--who has been through the wars with me in this house and will leave herself for a studio in the 19ème mid month--assures me that she has been keeping elaborate notes in her journal as well.

Fortunately, I was able to find a new situation with a lovely woman, divorced, who is renting me a room in the 15ème. I can't lie; the location is not nearly as ideal as this one: in the 6ème, a 10 minute walk from just about everything amazing. For those of you who know San Francisco, it's the Parisian equivalent of, say, the Richmond. But it's safe and lovely, and there's no Andrée to terrorize me. Besides, after this week (I move on the 29th), I will have my Imagine R pass, which will grant me unlimited Metro and access to all of the RER zones (Paris newbies: that means Disneyland and Versailles as well as the suburbs) on weekends. In Paris, nothing is much more than half an hour away by Metro, from the furthest southwest reaches of the Rive Gauche to the northeast border of the Rive Droite.

So I will drink up all of the loveliness of living in St Germain-de-Près for one more week before settling in my quiet little neighborhood. Well, ça va.

IV.
Those of you who know the city will know that although there is an incredible circulatory system of public transportation, the only real way to experience the city is to walk. I've nearly walked a hole in one of my only two pairs of ballet flats. Even lost two pounds in the process.

So far, I've meandered through decent maze-like sections of the 1-8ème, the 14ème and the 15ème. An embarrassing percentage of my foot traffic has been due to getting lost: I've been spoiled thus far with grid systems and GPS, and although I did inherit some natural bearings from my parents, I'm finding it harder to orient myself here, where the lawlessly arranged streets can point in any one of 360 degrees.

But as long as one has nowhere in particular to be, it's a pleasure to be lost in Paris. One sees boulangeries, patisseries, strange and darling and divine boutiques that one promises to return to but almost certainly never will. And so many tiny streets, cobblestone plazas, statues, and plaques (the French love to mark out where writers and philosophers and artists lived and died, to my great delight).

There's a certain smell here, too, that evokes a hint of my Proustian memory of Cambridge. It's hard to explain: I suppose it's a mélange of car exhaust, dust, mildew, sewage, river, freshly-baked bread and pastry, aging plaster, and--I like to imagine--a mineral note of warm stone. It doesn't sound particularly pleasant, in description, but to me it's sweet: the essence of actually occupying, in flesh and blood, a city so easily romanticized in fantasy. San Francisco has a certain smell too, as do New York, London, Florence, Venice. A stamp of authenticity.

I feared that, instead of being romantic, living here would be quotidian. It is, of course, both.

The luxury of living here is that one can take one's time. And experiencing the cultural hubs of Paris as a person under 26 is remarkably cheap. I already have a Carte Jeunes Louvre pass (I've been twice, just 1-2 hours for one section of a wing each visit--we cardholders have our own line-free entrance at the reverse pyramid) for 15 euro, have talked my way into free entry for a couple of museums who offer tickets gratis to EU citizens ages 18-25, and am researching the cheapest packs of opera and theater tickets, which--surprise, surprise--are absurdly cheap for students. My age also grants me benefits ranging from a higher yield savings account to a discount card for the SNCF trains--including TGV--that saves me 25-60%. Imagine: after four years of my youth being a liability, being twenty-three is now a veritable gold mine.

V.
It's been a while since I was in a position to find and bond with friends quickly. I always thought those French textbooks were dopey, with all of the fresh and friendly twenty-something students congregating at cafés and planning picnics and excursions. No one actually lives like that, thought the cynical, American me, the adult who had made most of her current set of friends--save those from earlier youth--either through working together or by considerable social effort.

Turns out: it's really true. Young expatriates, students in particular, are quite willing to accrue new friends, as we're all strangers in a strange land. It also makes for quite the Benetton ad, as David Sedaris would put it (or, to exaggerate further, It's A Small World): we're all from different countries and eager to engage in cultural exchange.

This past weekend was the Journées du Patrimoine, an annual festival that opens up most of the national museums for free, including some sites--like the Presidential palace, the Senate, and the Institute de France--that are almost never open to the public. On Sunday, I went to the Elysée Palace with Amy and her (now also my) friend Sophia, a German girl who's studying medicine and interning in a Parisian hospital. We arrived at 9 am, fresh-faced and revved up and ready to brave the line, which looked to be a good two hours.

Wrong. We waited eight.

For the first couple of hours, it was rather a festival atmosphere. The weather was more or less divine, and we spoke mostly in French. It's easy to communicate in a new language when one's conversational partners don't expect perfection, and as all three of us are intelligent and have plenty to say, we filled time quickly.

Then, the sun got hotter. I felt my scalp and arms roasting to a light pink. Our throats grew dry, our bellies empty, and the conversation lulled. We took shifts ducking out for breaks--crèpe and sandwich duty, bathroom runs, fetching plastic cups of water--but by the time we finally arrived at the gates of the palace, we'd nearly forgotten why we were there. The palace was, admittedly, luscious, but as my bleary eyes scanned the gold flatware, the elaborate tapestries and the unbelievable ceilings, I failed to rally in my sluggish, spent self the excitement I should have felt at entering the sanctum sanctorium of the French government.

But even after we unsuccessfully tried to revive our spirits at a patisserie and, afterwards, a café, I think our faith in Paris was only truly restored when we crossed the Seine and stopped at the bridge. The sun was setting, and I was almost embarrassed at how stereotypically, postcard-perfect the panorama of Paris looked at that moment. We all stopped for a moment to lean on the railing and admire the Eiffel Tower, the gilded water, the boats, the bridges, the spires.

For Sophia and Amy, who are from the Old World themselves, Paris is indeed new and overwhelming and beautiful. I don't--and can't--know all that Paris means to them. But for me, an inhabitant of a country where New is king, it is something quite incredible to lean against something many generations older than oneself, looking at ancient water and stone buildings raised by the hands of others over the course of a millenium. More than getting lost among obliquely angled streets of various widths, more than being steeped in a still-foreign language, more than being half a world away from the people I love, this is what makes me feel the most existentially small and remote. It's terrifying and thrilling. It's a rebirth. And it is, I think, exactly why I came here.

Mes chers lecteurs, je vous laisse. There's a freshly purchased three euro bottle of wine sitting in my chair that's calling my name. À la prochaîne.