Tuesday morning in a cramped bathroom I threw on mascara, tried to fix my hair, and checked my phone. 11:12 a.m. I had already known I wouldn’t make it to class on time.
“Can you tell our professor I’ll be late,” I texted a classmate. Normally this is when I’d try to think of an excuse to justify my tardiness, which didn’t so poorly mask that I missed my alarm after a rough night; but this time, the next text needed no stretch of the imagination. “I’m still in Paris.”
I think I’ve wanted to go to Paris ever since the first time I saw a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night. Everything about the city—the lights, the landmarks, the language— drips with romance and beauty. To spend five days there, and for my 20th birthday, was like living out a fantasy.
In five days we saw and did everything: window shopping down the Champs-Elysees, somberly viewing the tomb of the fallen soldier at L’Arc de Triomphe, eating dinner at a café overlooking the Eiffel Tower, perusing the Moulin Rouge, climbing the steps of Sacre de L’Acour to see the best view of Paris, and everything in between.
When I called home while waiting to go on a river cruise of the Seine, my mom told me how proud she was that I was doing this trip so independently. Though I hadn’t thought about it before, she was right. I can barely find my way to the nearest Target at SU. How is it that I, and three friends from similarly small towns, managed to jet set off to a non-English speaking country with no one to fend for us but ourselves? You just have to make up your mind to do it, and hope you make it back in one piece. I think your 20’s (which I can now say I’m in) are the perfect time for traveling, because you’re mature and educated enough to want to see and appreciate all the historical landmarks, but young enough to run on full throttle, touring all day and raging into the early hours of morning soaking up the nightlife.
Savoring our Parisian dinners for one last time, we began to talk about our favorite parts of Paris. The Opera House, Versailles, sunbathing under the Eiffel Tower, mass at Notre Dame, and sipping wine on the glass pyramids of the Louvre all made the list. So did the food. I don’t need a cheap T-shirt to remind me that J’adore Paris.
I’m writing this as I stare out at the French countryside, which looks a lot like my hometown. I’m alone, having just missed booking a seat on the train my roommates took an hour earlier. I’ll be back in London one minute before my lecture begins. In a little while I’ll need to finish the reading for class, but for now, and at my leisure for the rest of my life, I’m just going to enjoy thinking about this trip and all I was able to see. Studying abroad in Australia might give you a killer tan, but it won’t give you weekend trips to foreign countries whenever you please. If London itself isn’t a big enough incentive to study abroad, then the ability to travel through Europe for a semester definitely makes it worth missing a few football games.
