PARIS II

After staying in a new country for a few months, one starts to naturally familiarize with the unfamiliar. My semester abroad ended just in time, when I got fully used to the different behaviors of the French people, especially Parisians. When it was time to leave, I realized how much I got used to living in Paris and spending time with the new friends I found during my stay abroad. I would always choose to do this Erasmus semester abroad again and advise others to take this step out of their comfort zone too. Now, I would like to get more into how the unfamiliar started to become more familiar over time.

I remember my first day in Paris and me thinking that all the people were so unfriendly and overall in a bad mood . It put me off at first, and it was very overwhelming, when you are so excited to be somewhere and then the people seem to be mad at you for some reason. This kind of unfriendly behavior occurred in the train station, in the restaurants, or with the manager in my student’s residence. Over time, I understood that this is just the way people are in Paris. I have talked about it a lot with my fellow Erasmus students from all over the world, and most share the same experience with me. Another thing that was hard to deal with for me from the start, was the carefree organization of the university. I am so used to it knowing the time, date, and room for my exams from the first day of university classes. At the EBS Paris they did not provide that information until a few days before the exam. For me, it was difficult to deal with, and I always asked for more information about the exams. It created a kind of uncertainty within me. At the end, I started to not care about it so much anymore, just go with the flow and see what happens.

Towards the end of the semester, I started to try to interact more with the French students. I noticed that the students from the fourth year, who had already spent some time abroad, were much more open-minded than the second year students. Due to group work that we had to do together in some fourth year classes, I got to know one of the French student better. He explained to us, that French people, and especially Parisians, love to complain and that is visible in their general mood. According to him, complaining about the weather is a classical conversation starter, no matter what kind of weather there is that day. Another thing he told us was that French people are always 15 minutes late. I had already figured that out by myself, since, like I explained in the first blog task, the students are almost always late for class. To this I was able to adapt very easily.

The French student I got to know told me, that he used to lead an organization at the EBS Paris that tried to help international students and organized events for them to interact between each other and the French students. Unfortunately, when he spent his semester abroad, which is obligatory for the students at EBS Paris, he was not able to continue, and eventually the organization died out. That is why he ended up privately inviting some other students and me to a fondue night in his apartment to give us the real French experience one last time.

All in all, I had the best time in Paris, and I believe I was able to learn a lot from it. I got more open-minded, and in relation to that, learned how to cope with change and cultural differences better. I learned to not always let other people’s mood affect me and still remain myself mostly. But still, not forgetting to act culturally appropriate and respectfully. I am very excited to discover more different cultures in the future.

Tanja Berchtel, December 2021