My life in the City of Lights
By Maggie Beidelman
I've been an American in Paris for seven weeks. Seven weeks as an international student subjecting myself to one-way suicidal streets, unavoidable cigarette pollution and that eternally pungent smell of urine in the Metro.
In the past 50 days, I have climbed and descended over 40 flights of stairs -- per day. I have relentlessly dealt with the aggravating language barrier, asking waiters for shoulders instead of spoons. I have been the awkward expatriate in this city of the suave and the svelte. And I love it.
Living in Paris sounds like a dream to many Americans, and in a way, it's still surreal. With Nutella and banana crepes on every corner, charming architecture and the invariable opportunity to share a bottle of wine on the Seine, living in Paris may appear more reverie than reality.
Like any other place, however, it's not perfect. I can't smile and say good morning to people on the street like I do in California or they do in Morocco. Parisians will always know, through some sort of inborn intuition, that I am an American, and thus I am automatically Velcroed to the stereotype of being loud, rude and fat, until I prove otherwise. This is the first time in my life that I've truly felt the frustration of prejudice.
But, in exchange for the chance to gaze at the Eiffel Tower from my bathroom window, meet students from Sweden and Romania and Brazil at a jazz club on any given night or better understand a culture that was once so foreign to me, it's a small price to pay.
Each day here is a challenge, but not without results. In the Metro, I have to consciously force myself not to look around at people or smile. Here, the former is rude; the latter is suggestive. But at least I can look at their curiously pointed shoes.
If there's one thing I love about Paris, it's the diversity you can find among the people here. In a city so central to Europe, it is impossible not to encounter people of several cultures. After one night at a local bar, I had learned that Americans do tend to live up to their stigma of being louder than Europeans, there are far too many lost Irishmen wandering the streets of Paris during rugby season, and Swedes eat pea soup and pancakes for dinner on Thursdays.
It will take some time for me to become completely OK with being the American in Paris, to adapt to the routine that the French indifferently refer to as "Metro-Boulot-Dodo" (the equivalent of "work, eat, sleep"). Until then, I will treasure the possibility of getting lost on every corner just to find something unique on the next, savor the crispy croissants and prime people-watching which most street-side cafés offer, and indulge in those sinful stolen glances on the Metro.