October 19, 2015. A young Kelly pens her first blog post after moving to Paris for a semester.
Like all other English majoring, expatriate young adults, I have decided to start recording my many wild and varied experiences living in France’s capital city. When posed the question ‘but Kelly, do you think anyone actually gives a shit what your fantastic life in Paris is like?’ my immediate answer is ‘of course they fucking do, now get out of my room.’
Honestly, I’m not really sure what I expected when I decided to abandon my life as an Irish socialite and up sticks to another country. The idea was to improve my french, but I live with three other Irish girls and the vast majority of acquaintances I have acquired are English speaking. It’s a tragedy. I mourn daily. And of course, what was to become of my social stature in the mother land plagued my mind at the beginning, but thanks to the wonders of Snapchat, no one is safe from my trials and tribulations in gay Paris. No one.
It’s always difficult to choose where to begin the tale of my time in Paris so far. So many different little things have occurred; I wish I’d started this sooner in order to truly capture my sentiments at those moments, but alas I’ve been in a stupor of wine, bread, and cheese, and writing of any kind has been beyond me. I suppose I’ll randomly reflect on whatever comes into my mind and you’ll just have to like it. If you’re reading this you’ve already deemed me worthy of your time so suspend your disbelief and shut up and read.
Now that I’m sure I’ve captured your attention, the first thing that springs to mind is how similar Paris and Dublin are. Stay with me here, I know you’re probably like ‘ah come on now Kelly, state of Dublin,’ or possibly the opposite, but trust me. It didn’t take very long once I’d started classes to feel as if I was walking down O’Connell street (aside from the breathtaking architecture and general cleanliness of the area around the Sorbonne in comparison with said street) but the vibes are one in the same. Both are thriving capital cities, both so alive they fill you with a sense of invincibility; you feel as if you can achieve anything just by breathing the air. It’s probably not true and let’s be honest you’re going to go and spend 3 hours in Costa or Starbucks drinking coffee and browsing Facebook when you should be reading Marcel Proust’s l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs but hey, we can pretend. Or I can, anyway.
Boulevard Saint-Michel is one of the main streets in the Latin quarter of Paris, which is where my university lies. It’s always buzzing with students and tourists, its main attraction being three huge, separate book stores all entitled ‘Gilbert Joseph’ that despite not being physically connected, are all the one store. For a self-confessed (and pre-college workload) bookworm, its a veritable heaven on earth. Aside from the fact that their selection of English language books is predictably small as, hello, this is France, and you should really be reading French books anyway Kelly. But for those of you who, like me, get a thrill just from the smell of a good bookshop, it’ll remind you of the massive Easons on O’Connell street, only bluer and Frenchier.
What I’m getting at here is how quickly and thoroughly I felt at home in this city, and how completely it stole my heart away. But it’s not all rosy in the garden; university itself is an absolute disaster, french men can be the creepiest feckers alive, and there are so many couples I’m about a bottle of wine away from putting myself up for sale on eBay (or puking, whichever comes first), but they are tales for a later date. For now, I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain that significantly sums up my experiences so far:
“In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”
Kelly Meehan Brown 