So I’m writing this from my apartment in Le Marais, wearing a top that proudly proclaims my new area and watching A Very Long Engagement with two of my favourite French actors, Gaspard Ulliel and Audrey Tatou.
Life could not be any more French or any more perfectly unbelievable.
I arrived in Paris for the first time in my life about two weeks ago and I’ve put off writing this post because of how frantic it has been!
I flew here with my mum for company and I was so surprised by how short the flight was. I’m certain that preparing for the flight and getting through the airport to our gate took far longer.
It was a marked comparison to the only other time I’ve been to France to the Ardèche on a Year 9 school trip. We took a coach and it felt like we’d never get to France, whereas this time, I wouldn’t have minded the time to reconcile myself with such massive life change in the newly-found peace of the plane.
In fact, when stepping off the plane, I couldn’t hush the question of ‘what on earth have I done?’ from running through my head. Then the panic at the luggage carousel didn’t exactly help to calm my nerves, but the opposite.
The carousels had the incorrect information displayed so my heart may have stopped beating for the fifteen minutes that the first carousel gradually emptied without my luggage appearing.
We did manage to leave the airport with the help of the friendliest taxi driver. During one of the more surreal rides of my life, I watched French signs barrage past me, while our driver delivered a lesson on the difference between an academic education versus attending the school of life with Paris pickpockets, the not-insignificant scar on his arm from a thief’s knife and the segregated nature of the city.
However, do bear in mind that this may have been said in all seriousness but it was delivered in the lightest tone possible. Plus, he at least gave me a much-needed boost of confidence in my French.
While speaking and listening in French to him and translating to English and Punjabi to my mum, I understood that he was black and adopted by white parents, but never quite fit and that he worked as a taxi driver to help support the education of his children to become some of the doctors of the future.
Such a short journey reminded me of an important motivation behind my year abroad and perfecting my French; I’ll probably never see him again but taking a leap of faith meant that someone took one too by opening up to me with genuine kindness.
