J’essaie de trouver l’équilibre

I arrived in Paris last week! We survived the last three weeks of backpacking still friends with each other and with most of our things intact. This was the first time I had traveled without my parents for such an extended amount of time, and it was so much fun to see another side of traveling: staying in hostels, avoiding taxis, eating cheaply, meeting strange people, and experiencing how different the night life is. I want to go back and relive it.

I almost forgot I could unpack my things until my host mother showed me my closet. It is nice to feel settled, even though I can barely understand anything that is going on around me. Dinners with my host family are a little bit of a struggle, but they have been so patient with my housemate and me. I was really ashamed of my accent at the beginning; I hated how easily people can peg me as an American. But I traveled to Normandy with my orientation program yesterday, and now I'm realizing that being an American in Paris isn't such a bad thing after all. 

Is my life in Paris like the video below? Why yes: everyone smiles, people help me with directions when I'm lost, the metro is never crowded, and of course I have met a cute French boy. 

False: no one smiles, no one helps an American tourist, the metro is always crowded, and I'm still working on meeting a cute French boy. 

I smiled at the gardener when I left my apartment the first morning, he gave me a weird look.

Post title from La terre est ronde by Orelsan.