A few months ago I went with a friend to see Les Intouch­ables. Another bonus in France, it’s rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive to go to the movies! It was 5,50 euros for each of us, with the stu­dent dis­count. And the the­ater was right on the Champs-Elysées! In brief, I have never laughed so hard at a movie that I only under­stood 65% of the dia­logue French, no sub­ti­tles. More­over, not only was it a hilar­i­ous movie, but also a fan­tas­tic social com­men­tary on Paris and the sur­round­ing suburbs.

The pop­u­la­tion of Paris (the “arrondisse­ments” or dis­tricts) is quite seg­re­gated by socio-economic fac­tors; the left bank tends to be extremely wealthy (and white), the right bank a tad less so, and the North­ern arrondisse­ments (the 19th and 20th) are the poor­est, and mostly com­prised of for­eign­ers and immi­grants — typ­i­cally of African or Arab descent. The same goes for the sub­urbs or the “ban­lieue” of Paris, which in gen­eral is sig­nif­i­cantly more impov­er­ished and has a high immi­grant population.

While I say that I live in Paris, it isn’t totally accu­rate; I live in the North­ern sub­urbs, the ban­lieue of Paris. How­ever, the school at which I am study­ing is located in the cen­ter of Paris, in the most expen­sive, most chic area — Saint Ger­main des Prés (the 7th arrondisse­ment). As I go to school, from the sub­urbs to the 7th, from the train to the metro, the peo­ple change, the clothes change, the races change. While often France doesn’t like to admit it (they refrain from pub­lish­ing a lot of sta­tis­tics that have to do with race), I have found there to be quite a few racist ele­ments in Paris, that often go undis­cussed. A lot of this has to do with the his­tory, the crime, the immi­gra­tion poli­cies, the social ser­vices, etc. but, when going between the sub­urbs and through Paris, it is impos­si­ble not to notice the divide between peo­ple and areas.

While Intouch­ables is a com­edy (and I guar­an­tee you’ll be laugh­ing!), it also touches on a lot of inter­est­ing and impor­tant fac­tors that char­ac­ter­ize ele­ments of Paris, those which often aren’t spo­ken of. In addi­tion, it’s based on a true-story, mak­ing it all the more real and intriguing.

I loved a Woody Allen’s Mid­night in Paris, but Intouch­ables shows another impor­tant side of Paris, too.

View­ing information:

Intouch­ables is play­ing at the Sun­dance Cin­ema in Seat­tle (4500 9th Avenue North East)

Now that school here has ended, find­ing a job for the sum­mer has con­sumed most of my time. The job quest has been fun and inter­est­ing — but also chal­leng­ing. The task: find a job for two months, July and August. Where to look? Eng­lish teach­ing, babysit­ting, tourism related jobs, restau­rants, bars, and the like. These places have proved the most likely to hire an Eng­lish speak­ing for­eign stu­dent, on a part-time basis for the summer.

What to know? Know the web­sites! In France, there are sev­eral sites ded­i­cated to Anglo­phones in Paris/France; most are for fam­i­lies seek­ing Eng­lish tutors or babysit­ters for their chil­dren. Ask around, every­one you know — natives, expats, other stu­dents, etc — for web­sites. By ask­ing around I’ve found two of the most help­ful sites yet: fusac.fr (a site with job and hous­ing announce­ments for Anglo­phones liv­ing in Paris) and cherche-cours.com (a site where you can post free ads for Eng­lish tutor­ing, etc.). By respond­ing to announce­ments, and post­ings announce­ments, I’ve had four inter­views for sum­mer jobs! While going to inter­view after inter­view, isn’t the most excit­ing — it has been great prac­tice for my French! Bars and restau­rants: go in, ask if they are look­ing for any new staff, have your CV ready — some of my study abroad friends were hired on the spot!

Part two: Dur­ing my job hunt, I’ve found one thing, as a native Eng­lish speaker, there will always be a nanny job in Europe, par­tic­u­larly in France. Why is this impor­tant? Well, if you want to travel, see new places, expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent cul­tures there is one (inex­pen­sive!) sure way to do that: be an Au Pair. Tons of fam­i­lies in France have almost all of July and August off for sum­mer vaca­tion and many are seek­ing sum­mer Au Pairs to accom­pany them on vaca­tion– how does the South of France — the beaches of Nice and Cannes — or, Spain sound? I’ve found over thirty posit­ings on au pair web­sites (i.e, abc-familes.com, aupair-world.net) and other sites, such as Fusac.fr, with fam­i­lies seek­ing Eng­lish speak­ing au pairs to come from any­where between two weeks and two months on vaca­tion to look after the chil­dren. What is typ­i­cally included? Free hous­ing, food, and a stipend around 70–150 euros a week.

Part three: Woof­ing! (wwooff.org) World Wide Oppor­tu­ni­ties on Organic Farms. Sounds a bit North-westy Birken­stock, veg­gie doesn’t it ? While I have never “woofed,” I have heard won­der­ful things about it. Essen­tially, you select a region to go (I’ve known peo­ple who have gone to Italy and France), and you work five hours a day on a farm. I think the stays can be as short as one week, but check the web­site to con­firm! In exchange for work­ing on the farm, you receive hous­ing and food. But what’s more, you have the oppor­tu­nity to immerse your­self into a for­eign fam­ily to see how they live their daily lives. And if you go to Italy or France, I’m bet­ting that the food and wine won’t be too bad, either. I think I might have to try this ‘woof­ing’ out…

Moral of the story: always know that there is work avail­able in for­eign coun­tries, but find­ing where to look is the tricky part! 748 Google searches later and you’ll be ready to fund (or pre­vent from div­ing into too big of debt) your study/travels abroad.

À la prochaine!

Noto­ri­ously French, and ever so accu­rate: hol­i­days and vaca­tions in excess (although, I can’t say I’m com­plain­ing). Par­tic­u­larly in May, but start­ing in April, there are a total of 7 national hol­i­days, days on which schools and offices are closed. Over these week­ends, it is com­mon for the French to take an extended week­end, or some­times even an extended week off. For the Parisians, a com­mon week­end des­ti­na­tion is to the Nor­mandy region–just a cou­ple hours by train or car from Paris. Nor­mandy, famous for the camem­bert cheese, is part of the beau­ti­ful French coun­try­side, and also has a lovely coast­line bor­der­ing the Eng­lish Channel.

One of the many won­ders of France is the huge diver­sity in land/areas/cities/countryside/seaside/mountains, con­cen­trated in a rel­a­tively small area. After just 2 hours in a train, I had left the busy sub­ways of Paris to arrive in a small vil­lage in North­ern Normandy.

First, we stopped at the mar­ket to pick out some fresh seafood.

Here are some of the scal­lops we choose from– and then took home to crack open!

The meal was accom­pa­nied by fresh oys­ters, her­ring, warm bread, fresh melted but­ter, tart and salty lemon sauce, and of course– a sweet, crisp, sug­ary white wine. Mhmm.

Tak­ing in the fresh air, eat­ing the deli­cious food, and, work­ing on the farm. We played with the goats, built a fence for the horses, and, took in the countryside.

It was a won­der­ful week­end– an escape from the stresses and real­i­ties of every­day life, to step back, reflect, and slow down.

Inside the cot­tage– Nor­mandy, France

A lit­tle about one of my favorite things in France: the food.

Before com­ing, I knew that I would love the cheese, bread, meat, sauces, etc…What I wasn’t as pre­pared for: the incred­i­ble desserts. While it is a bit tor­tur­ous walk­ing by all the amaz­ing “Patis­series,” look­ing in and see­ing the col­or­ful cre­ations, the smell is equally irresistible.

With­out exag­ger­at­ing, win­dows like these fol­low you around Paris:

From top to bot­tom: A bak­ery near where I live in the sub­urbs of Paris, the cen­ter two are from bak­eries in “Le Marais,” a nice dis­trict in Paris, and the last (mhmm Nutella…) from a crêpes stand on Boule­vard Saint Ger­main, near my school.

I travel Paris like a dog, by scent.

Who needs a map?

As col­lege stu­dents, we can often fall into rou­tines with work, school, friends…with our lives. While rou­tines can be com­fort­able in their famil­iar­ity and orga­ni­za­tion, a change can often bring much needed awak­ing, excite­ment, and chal­lenge. Study­ing abroad in France shook up my life in a way I would have never imagined.

Every­thing is dif­fer­ent here: the lifestyle, the food, the peo­ple, and def­i­nitely the school. As far as school goes, while the con­tent of the courses is very sim­i­lar to that which I stud­ied at UWB, almost every­thing else is dif­fer­ent. The struc­ture of the sched­ule is as fol­lows: five 4-credit courses, meet­ing two hours per week, and one 10-credit course, meet­ing four hours per week. Rather than lec­tures or sem­i­nars, the 4-credit courses tend to be largely con­sumed by stu­dent pre­sen­ta­tions, or “exposés” as they are called. The atten­dance pol­icy is a bit strict: miss two classes (for any rea­son, even med­ical) and you auto­mat­i­cally receive a zero in the course! How­ever, a huge ben­e­fit of study abroad is the chance to become quite pro­fi­cient in a for­eign lan­guage by study­ing in that lan­guage, with native speak­ers. Plus, my classes here are filled with for­eign stu­dents from all over the world, giv­ing me the chance to not just learn about France, but also Ger­many, China, Switzer­land, and many oth­ers.  I’ve even picked up a few Ger­man words since arriving—yaw, oops I mean “Ja!” Ich liebe spätzle.

Study­ing abroad allows for a state of con­stant learn­ing and adap­ta­tion. That’s maybe what I notice most here in France; just going into the post office is some­times a chal­lenge, and a learn­ing expe­ri­ence – fig­ur­ing out how the sys­tem works and try­ing to do it in a dif­fer­ent lan­guage. In the begin­ning I was frus­trated at how long lit­tle tasks would take – like mail­ing a post­card – but in the end, after mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and some dif­fi­cul­ties, even­tu­ally I got the stamp. Some­times it’s in the gro­cery store, some­times it’s at La Poste, and some­times it’s in the class­room, but when in Paris, new expe­ri­ences fol­low almost as closely as the smell of fresh baguette.

One of the amaz­ing things about study abroad is that it offers the oppor­tu­nity to not just travel, visit, or tour a for­eign coun­try, but, to live in a for­eign coun­try. When I first arrived in France, I felt in a weird posi­tion; I didn’t feel quite like a tourist — I was run­ning around try­ing to find my classes and way around a new city, get­ting lost, becom­ing acquainted with a new uni­ver­sity, doing school­work, fig­ur­ing out where to buy socks…and the like. These “tasks” were not like those in Seat­tle, in that, in Seat­tle I could go to Tar­get to buy socks (and every­thing else I needed), and I knew how to get there. How­ever, these “tasks” that I expe­ri­enced dur­ing my first month or so here in Paris, were com­bined with a sort of quasi-Touring.

Occa­sion­ally, being lost would brighten my day. Dur­ing my first week in Paris, I was frus­trated and angry when I couldn’t find my way to the metro sta­tion — but where did I end up? Right along the Seine, star­ing across to see a giant build­ing: The Lou­vre. Another day, I had a break dur­ing class so decided to take a walk down Boule­vard Saint-Germain, a famous street just next to Sci­ences Po. Walk­ing along, enjoy­ing the sun, I came upon a park. It looked nice, so I entered and took a walk around. Later, I dis­cov­ered that it was The Lux­em­bourg Gar­dens; bliss­fully igno­rant, I had walked around enjoy­ing the flow­ers, ponds, and stat­ues with­out a clue that I was in the famous gar­dens, with the French Sen­ate build­ing just next door. Not real­iz­ing where I was made the expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent in a way. I have been back to “Les Jardins du Lux­em­bourg,” but will always remem­ber that first time I walked through what to me was just a beau­ti­ful park.

While not quite a tourist, but not quite a res­i­dent, the first few days, weeks, some­times even months in a for­eign coun­try are often com­prised of a bizarre mix of “nor­mal,” daily tasks, with that of your aver­age tourist activ­i­ties. What’s dif­fer­ent is that you might find your­self stum­bling upon the Eif­fel Tower on your way to meet a friend, rather than seek­ing it out in a guide book.

Blog by Chelsea Boren, UW Both­ell Global Stud­ies Major, Study Abroad–France

Bon­jour à tous! Wel­come to the UWB study abroad blog. My name is Chelsea and I’m spend­ing the year in Paris. After never hav­ing trav­elled out­side of the coun­try (other than Van­cou­ver), I found myself as a six­teen year-old going to France. It was whirl wind trip – nine days, includ­ing travel. As a small group of six from the Lake Stevens High School French class, plus a rather large group of 20 or so Texan high school stu­dents, we took the North of France by storm: cheese, wine, mon­u­ments, muse­ums, the coun­try­side and the city.

 Being in a truly for­eign coun­try for the first time was an expe­ri­ence like never before, and really, some­thing I strug­gle to put into words. If you have had the expe­ri­ence of trav­el­ling out­side of the coun­try, remem­ber that time when you first arrived on truly for­eign ground. If not, imag­ine your­self in a place where all around you things sound dif­fer­ent, look dif­fer­ent, and often even taste dif­fer­ent. The mind and body don’t know what to do! It’s like being a child, expe­ri­enc­ing things from the first time, through all of the senses. I remem­ber being in France for the first time – every­thing seemed amaz­ing: the tiny cars, the peo­ple speak­ing French in the metro, the metro for that mat­ter, the smell (ick!) of the cheese, the taste (yum!) of the cheese, and churches sig­nif­i­cantly older than our coun­try. I can’t say I have ever lived as much in nine days as I did on that trip.

The end of August was the first time that I had trav­elled back to France, but the plan­ning began two Novem­bers ago, at the begin­ning of my sopho­more year. Want­ing to travel again, espe­cially to France, I saw study abroad as the per­fect time to do so. I met with the UW Inter­na­tional Pro­grams and Exchanges office in Seat­tle to dis­cuss pos­si­ble study abroad oppor­tu­ni­ties. Ulti­mately, I nar­rowed my first choice to the direct-exchange pro­gram to Sci­ences Po in Paris for two rea­sons: the loca­tion and the pro­gram. The school, Sci­ences Po, is not only located in the heart of France, but the courses offered are per­fectly aligned with my line of study: the social sci­ences. Fur­ther, the direct-exchange pro­gram means that tuition is paid directly to the UW, and remains the same (if you receive finan­cial aid, it also applies). After being accepted to the pro­gram, one large chal­lenge arose: how to finance study­ing in Paris. While tuition remains the same, Paris is among one of the most expen­sive cities in the world to live. After some thought, I had an idea: I knew of some friends who had “au paired” before – essen­tially, being a live-in nanny in a for­eign coun­try. Typ­i­cally, Au Pairs receive full room and board, and often a small stipend. I posted my pro­file on aupair-world.net and took it from there. After inter­view­ing with sev­eral fam­i­lies via Skype, I came upon the per­fect sit­u­a­tion: a fam­ily look­ing for a part-time, live-in au pair who would also be study­ing (most au pairs typ­i­cally only au pair, and most fam­i­lies typ­i­cally look for an au pair who can work full-time). 

I was thrilled at the oppor­tu­nity because I now had a way to finance study­ing abroad. At the same time, I was extremely ner­vous. What if the fam­ily is crazy? What if they don’t like me? What if the decide they don’t want me at the last minute? Ques­tions and fears buzzed in my head. I had Skyped, e-mailed, seen pho­tos, and had a con­tract so I was nearly pos­i­tive it would be a safe, good sit­u­a­tion; but of course, until I was there in per­son, every­thing was a lit­tle bizarre.

How­ever, upon arriv­ing in France, my ini­tial fears were gone. Amaz­ing food, incred­i­ble wine, and a sunny, beau­ti­ful Paris have a way of putting one at ease. The fam­ily was warm, kind, and wel­com­ing. At Sci­ences Po, I par­tic­i­pated in a wel­come pro­gram that helped to ori­en­tate me to the Uni­ver­sity. Not only did I learn about the Uni­ver­sity, take tours, etc., but more impor­tantly, I met a ton of other exchange stu­dents. The wel­come group orga­nized nights out; with beers in hands, as excited and ner­vous exchange stu­dents we talked amongst our­selves, becom­ing fast friends in the city of light. I started each day and ended each night not quite sure of what would come next.

I have now been in Paris for just over seven months, and still, each day is dif­fer­ent. While the ini­tial chal­lenges have been over­come (set­ting up a bank account, a cell phone plan, reg­is­ter­ing for classes, etc), new and excit­ing things seem to take place all the time. I should note, upon com­ing to France, I hardly spoke any French. Still, my French is nowhere near fan­tas­tic, but after a while your brain becomes a bit like a sponge – soak­ing up vocab, verbs, and the like. For­eign lan­guage adds to the crazi­ness and amaze­ment of being in another coun­try. And I wouldn’t have it any other way – it’s the new and chal­leng­ing which makes study abroad an expe­ri­ence unlike any other.

On paper, I’m a Global Stud­ies major from UWB study­ing top­ics rang­ing from polit­i­cal sci­ence, his­tory, media stud­ies, to inter­na­tional rela­tions at Sci­ences Po Paris, but in real­ity, that doesn’t even begin to explain what it means to be an exchange stu­dent. Sure, I go to class, write papers, take tests, just like I would at UWB, but more than that, each day is a chance to inter­act with some­one from a totally dif­fer­ent cul­ture, eat new food, go to a new museum, walk down a dif­fer­ent street – see, hear, feel, smell, taste things new. I hope that through this blog, I can let you all in on some of the magic of this expe­ri­ence! À la prochaine!

– Chelsea