The Beginning of This Thing

Well, huh. This morning marks my first morning in Paris and the beginning of the first full day of this roughly four month adventure.

As I sit here I don't really know what I want to write, but I have questions. How cool is it to be able to sit in my underwear at a nice little table, looking out double balcony windows without really worrying whether or not someone will see or care? Will this be a problem when my roommate moves back in a few weeks? Should I be concerned about it now? Will these four months feel like a long time? Or will they fly by? How am I going to find a gym so that the food doesn't conquer me? Will I meet interesting, soulful people in my classes? When will I make friends? How often will I be able to see my friends from the U.S. who are also studying abroad? What the hell am I doing?

Because of how busy and amazing this summer was for me, I spent very little time thinking about what this Autumn in Paris experience would be, and the time I did spend thinking about it was geared less towards thoughts like "it could be this or this" and more towards thoughts like "wow, I really have no idea what I'm getting into," which became clearer and clearer as I tried to obtain my visa.

For a variety of somewhat confusing reasons, it turns out I wouldn't have needed a visa if I had booked a ticket to leave Boston three weeks later, and I would still have had about three weeks to travel and explore once I got here before starting my mime class in October. However, we bought the nonrefundable August 25th ticket since I was convinced mime started September 1st, and then thus had to find another class in order to obtain my visa which I had to get because we couldn't return the ticket, etc, so I'm taking kung fu should be great blah blah.

But that leaves me with little class time in September and a ton of time to do_____. What is _____? I don't really know. I think it's seeing Paris, going all over France, visiting friends in other places, going to museums and theatres, and hopefully making friends. But I don't know. It's just so odd to be here on my own, and I don't regret it, but it's terrifying. All of my friends who are studying abroad are on programs where they're meeting people their age who speak their language, and I really have no guarantee of that in this situation, which is exciting, but also _____. I don't know what. Scary? Unreal? Lonely? Illuminating? Eye-opening? Beautiful? Choose any one of em and that's how I've already felt about this in the less than twenty-four hours I've been here.

I guess that's the theme right now. _____. What is _____? That's the thing for September, I think. Not letting blank time be blank time because hey, I'm in Paris. That's pretty damn cool. And on that note, I should probably shower and start the day!

Miss ya, U.S.
Avery