Voices

When I was eight I can recall moving from our apartment in Brooklyn to a new house in New Jersey. I remember waving goodbye to my best friend from the neighborhood as we pulled away for the last time. I was sitting up high in the moving truck next to my dad and […]

Equipped with my 3-country, 5-day Eurail pass, I’m speeding through Germany from Munich to Frankfurt, our third European destination of the week. It’s impressively easy, traveling with the Eurail pass. Europe is full of interconnecting high-speed trains like the TGV and ICE, but with this pass there’s no need to book separately for […]

Well, folks, this is it. Two days before Christmas, classes are done except for finals, and the Duke and Emory students have all left for the States. Paris is feeling pretty festive with people shopping and traveling, decorating and baking. The city has set up ice-skating rinks and carrousels on several major […]

Friday night around midnight at Chatelet. Torrents of rain are falling from the sky and it’s cold. Clusters of soaked and tired Parisians are waiting for their trains, dreaming of a warm bed after a long week. There’s unassuming old me, walking down the stairs to the platform to bid a friend […]

^ This is about as simple as a Paris map gets.  Courtesy of http://www.tns-sofres.com
Lately I have this sense that there’s so much to absorb in one tiny city and just not enough time to do it all. I spoke with one of my neighbors from my apartment building over a drink last night, and together […]

My, how time flies. I haven’t updated since my birthday post because suddenly it seems like the semester is racing by and I’m obligated to snatch up as much I can before it’s over. The students from Emory and Duke are already thinking about going home because for them the semester ends before […]

Last night I celebrated my twentieth birthday with all of Paris.
My friend Allison and I, who share the exact same birthdate, thought it would be fun to gather our French and American friends together at a restaurant to enjoy good company and spicy Indian food. The goal for the evening was to have the […]

Today was a peculiar day. As students we saw the upshot of a double strike: students against the Pécresse law and transport workers against the suppression of special regimes. Most university classes were canceled because theoretically you couldn’t get to them. But even if you found a means of travel (foot, bike, […]

I’m here musing at 2 am. I often have a hard time convincing myself to go to sleep even after a full day of living Parisian-style. I think I’m truly afraid I’ll miss something important.
It was a terrifically long day, this Tuesday. Woke up at 7, started at 8:30 with a travaux […]

Well, folks, it’s just me and the cats for a while. My host family left on Sunday for Bordeaux, where they will spend their Toussaint vacation week. Toussaint will be this Thursday November first, but most schools get the whole week off and many families decide to take it as vacation time.
Toussaint is […]