Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Loneliness is The Experience of A Big City

Bonjour tout le monde!


Mom, cover your eyes! Our French professor today told us to embrace loneliness. To us Americans we scratch our heads and say wait...what? I don't understand. Loneliness is an undesirable feeling and normally considered negative. Our professor, though, said to embrace it. He said take long walks, make new (French) friends, and do something by yourself. Mom stop quivering with fear! haha. Of course, this is all while being safe.


It's an interesting concept. In order to truly take in all the grandeur of Paris, we need to take time to reflect, think, and to immerse ourselves. He encouraged us to limit our e-mailing, facebooking, or whatever other addictive internet habits we have. Within our group, we're also ceasing speaking English in our conversations. It's hard and doesn't always happen, but we're trying!

Today we had a few classes in preparation for our linguistic class and cultural class. We'll be in class 5 days a week with 2 hour grammar classes and linguistic classes evvveryday. At times I wish I could exchange my Friday classes for free time to explore, but this is another opportunity to immerse myself in the language.


We saw the Notre Dame later today as well. It still had a Christmas tree up! What a dream! Love it. Unfortunately, Santa Claus was no where to be found. I'll keep looking, though. I also got a crepe with nutella. Yummm. Ofcourse, I'm including some pictures. Thursday we're planning on spending the afternoon into the evening at the Eiffel Tower (le tour d'effel) :)  

I'm going to try to continue to post as often as I can. If you don't here from me it's because I'm somewhere absorbing the language I continue to fall in love with more everyday. :)

Christmas Treet at Notre Dame!

Me, Rachel, and Lexi with our crepe and sandwiches! (Dad the pictures of food are for you)

2 comments:

  1. Love your blog, as I already told you! I especially love this entry- doing things alone in Paris is a great thing! I did the same in London and it really helped me grow as a person- as corny as that sounds. You know me ;)

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your mother and I just read this. I told her that you had a new post before I read the first line "Mom cover your eyes..." woops! She's doing great. Plus we already had wine with dinner so I think she was in her best condition to read that (but not tanked, don't worry!)

    I really agree with your professor, except that being alone or without facebook and cell phones doesn't mean you are actually lonely. It's just means you are without those things whether they are electronics or people. Soak it all in. And when you need a dose of American culture, put on some American rap song and walk through Paris with a smile on your face because no one else can even begin to guess what you're listening to :) (that's what got me through the sour days in Egypt!)

    ReplyDelete