Category Archives: France

OGP’s Peer Advisor Explores: Maria’s Travel Videos

Posted on by

Studying abroad is about immersing yourself in your host environment and creating a life in a new city, as well as exploring nearby countries and discovering even more cultures. During her time in Paris, Peer Advisor Maria Giménez Cavallo filmed the best sights when visiting other cities in order to create these short travel videos.

The “OGP’s Peer Advisor Explores: Maria’s Travel Videos” are a monthly series to bring snippets of the foreign experience to Columbia students who may be thinking about studying abroad and are looking for places to visit. Watch Maria’s first videos on:

 

To travel or not to travel

Posted on by

For many, a key aspect of the study abroad experience is the opportunity to travel. In Europe in particular, it is so easy (and often affordable) to get from one country to another that many students have grandiose goals of seeing the majority of the continent in a semester.

In Paris this spring, I too had to figure out how to spend my weekends. Should I stay in Paris? Cross Budapest off my travel bucket list? In the end, every student decides what kind of semester abroad they want to have. Another episode in the quality vs. quantity debate.

Most people, myself included, took a middle-of-the-road approach. I had friends who seemed to be gone every weekend and others who were always exploring a new hidden niche of Paris. Over the course of the spring term I’d say that I traveled every third weekend or so. This allowed me to spend some much-desired quality time with the City of Light, while also getting a (small) taste for Europe.

Of course, I also had the week to see Paris. However, between classes and transportation there wasn’t necessarily much time for getting lost in the labyrinth of the Latin Quarter or a leisurely stroll through the Bois de Boulogne. I think that in order to really get a sense of one’s home abroad it is important to set aside time to just walk aimlessly and “do nothing” which nearly always leads to doing something.

Another solution to the free time question is to remember your host country and not just your host city. This can be a nice compromise between flying halfway across Europe and staying in your neighborhood. I invested in a youth train pass in France which paid for itself after my first trip to Normandy. After that I also went down to Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and La Rochelle. Each city was unique and made for exciting trips, while still feeling vaguely familiar and French. Admittedly, Marseille felt like another country altogether.

On my program, everyone seemed to find their personal balance. I wouldn’t trade in those weekends spent roaming Paris for anything; nor do I regret taking that spontaneous trip to Granada. Studying abroad is exciting because the opportunities are truly endless. In addition to any courses you might take abroad, you are already pre-enrolled in Time Management 101.

Repetition

Posted on by

Some of the most beautiful encounters that I had in Paris came from visiting the same place more than once.

There was a bakery around the corner from my university that sold the most mouthwatering desserts and sandwiches (I’m lying: almost every bakery was mouthwatering), and I would visit sometimes twice a day. There were generally three people who worked there—an older woman, a younger woman, and an older man. I would rush in almost every morning and quickly ask wide-eyed for a pain au chocolat before scurrying up too many flights of stairs to a grammar class. The bakery moved at such a fast pace during rush hour. Every customer knew exactly what he wanted, and, unlike me, he knew exactly how to say it.

I spent a great deal of time finding the right words before getting to the front of the line. I wasn’t comfortable until after the first month. What surprised me though is that despite the hustle of early morning crowds, the younger woman had seen my face so much that she would begin to notice when I was tired or sick. She would always greet me (Salut Madamoiselle!) and ask me if I was well (Ça va?). If she had a difficult customer while I was in line, she would give me a knowing wink. I realized after leaving Paris that she’s one of the people I wish that I could have said goodbye to. If I were to write a novel about my about my time abroad, she would be a constant character that floated in and out of scenes filled with baguettes (viennoises) and sleepy mornings. She, unintentionally, has seen me in my worst head colds and at my brightest afternoons. Who would think that out of all the relationships I made while abroad, I would want to say goodbye to someone like this? It’s amazing how almost every person helps to shape your experience in a different place whether they realize it or not.

On being Jewish in Paris

Posted on by

While there is a vibrant and active Jewish community in Paris (especially in the Marais, where you can find some of the best falafel in Europe), I found that Parisian Jews are generally not as open about their religion amongst non-Jews as what I’ve grown accustomed to living in New York City. I had the great fortune of living with a reform Jewish family in the 16th arrondissement, where there is no shortage of Jews (according to my host family), and we did Shabbat every Friday night and celebrated Passover together. However, I was warned by my host family not to openly express my religion in the presence of strangers, because it’s impossible to know “how they’d react.” I was never confronted by any sort of anti-semitism, I was just told

that it exists in Paris and may possibly be becoming an increasing problem, but I do know that my host family took special measures to ensure that their religious identity was not made obvious in public. Even when friends came over to the house, Shabbat prayers would be said discreetly in a separate room so as not to “alienate” any non-Jews. Perhaps this discretion of Parisian Jews has something to do with France’s policy of “laicite” and is not so much a question of anti-Jewish sentiment, but compared to New York City, where Jewish culture is celebrated openly and

proudly, Paris is less openly accepting. However, this is not to say that Jewish students will feel ill at ease in Paris—on the contrary, I found that although Jewish culture may be somewhat strictly confined to within the Jewish community, there is a strong sense of solidarity, warmth, and acceptance amongst Jews in Paris. Though perhaps a bit insular, the Jewish community is vibrant and the culture is incredibly rich, making it quite easy to forget that it is not a mainstream lifestyle. – Alexa Davis, CC ‘11

Academics Abroad

Posted on by

“I found the French university system difficult to navigate. On the first day of class, I was given a very vague syllabus and a list of topics for each week’s class. It was hard to figure out what exactly I was supposed to do especially when most French students did not ever interact with the teacher. However, in approaching the teacher American-style, I was able to figure out what was going on and the teacher ended up being especially considerate of my place as the only foreigner in his class.” Arielle Fox, CC ‘11

“I was surprised by how much different the French grading system was than the American system. In France, the grading system is out of 20. I was told right off the bat that a 20 or even 19 or 18 were extremely hard to get. It was hard to get used to getting a 15 out of 20 at first since I knew it converted to a C in the American system even though it was considered a very good grade.” Arielle Fox, CC ‘11