A Day in My Life

Today is Wednesday, which means I only have two classes; I actually have just two classes every day here in Paris. My Monday and Wednesday classes are identical, and then on Tuesday and Thursday, I have the same morning class, but a different afternoon class. Since it’s Monday, I don’t start until around 10:30 a.m., so I get to sleep in a little later than I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have to take the Metro to classes, so I leave my building around 9:45 a.m. to make sure I get to the BIA center in plenty of time. Since the Metro ride is around a half an hour, I like to bring a book along with me or listen to a podcast depending on how busy the train is. 10 o’clock is outside of rush hour, so I was able to get a seat and read for a little while. A lot of Parisians read while they’re on the Metro, so while it feels like an opportunity to blend in. However, I’m sure anyone who cares to look will see my book is clearly in English while everyone else is reading in French.

Classes last for either an hour and a half or three hours and both of my classes on Wednesday are short ones. After finishing up my first class of the day, it’s time for lunch. I have a break for another hour and a half, which gives me plenty of time to walk down the street at grab some food. During the first week of classes I discovered a crêpe store no more than a five-minute walk from the BIA center. My favorite thing to order there is a crêpe sucre with Nutella, bananas, and caramel. It might not qualify as lunch technically, but it’s my go-to. I always order in French; some days my pronunciation must be better than others, because half the time the staff responds to my order in English and the other half they talk to me in French. I must’ve done a good job today, because the man working the counter even sustained a short conversation with me in French.

Lunch doesn’t usually take up my whole break, so I headed back to the BIA center to wait out the rest of the break. There’s a nice seating area set up for students in the back that we can do work at or have lunch. Normally I’ll hang out here and work on homework or write these blog posts! It’s never super busy between classes so it’s pretty easy to grab a seat. Today, I worked on an essay for a competition at my home university for a little while since I’ve completed the homework that’s due for Thursday already. After about another hour, my break’s over and it’s time to head to my next class.

Once I’m done with classes for the day, I head back to my building. It’s still a little cool for my taste to walk around, so I took the Metro to head home for the day. Three o’clock in the afternoon is still outside of rush hour, so I didn’t have any trouble finding a spot on the Metro back. This afternoon I had a Zoom meeting with people from my university back in Pennsylvania, so soon after I got back, I had to get my area set up to hop on the call. After I finished the meeting up, I get to work on some of the readings I have for next week since I’ll be in the Loire Valley on an IES Abroad field trip this weekend.

In my French class earlier this week we were discussing an app called TooGoodToGo which is designed to help reduce food waste and I decided to give it a try. You can get a ton of great food at heavily reduced prices; the only catch is that you don’t know what you’ll be getting in the surprise bag. A boulangerie nearby participates and I was able to put in an order only a few hours before the pickup time. I headed over at 6pm for my timeslot and picked up my big bag of food. Once I got back home, I was excited to see that there was an entire sandwich in my bag. The surprise sandwich meant I didn’t have to worry about making (or going out) for dinner that evening! There were also four breakfast pastries which I’ll eat over the next few days. Overall, it was a great deal and I’m excited to do it again soon. With dinner already accounted for, I ate in my room and finished up the last-minute things I had to do for the next day. My Thursday class starts pretty early (for me, at least), so I decided to call it a night and get ready for the next day.