-Changelles in Paris-

Living in Paris has been such an incredible honor, but it is not shy about its challenges. A couple of challenges that I have run into have been the metro, language barrier, and accidentally offending people.

With any good miscommunication or language barrier, it is inevitable to offend people in the process. This has happened multiple times and has been smoothed over with apologies and the fact that we were just oblivious to the situation. The language barrier has been a real struggle. The amount of people that do not know English was surprising and the lack of grace they have for those learning French is limited. Some are nicer than others but a lot of them have a hard time understanding our French when we speak and sometimes we have no luck with our English either. I wish I would have learned or practiced more conversational French during my time here, I think it would have benefited me a lot.

Another struggle that keeps occurring is the lack of convenience Paris has. Almost everything in Paris is inconvenient, whether its walking 40 mins to get somewhere, or the tiny cars, the long metros, or the tiny restaurants, they are not the most efficient country. However, minus all of these minor irritations, Paris is still a dream.

The only real challenges with the metros have been reading the signs to get to connecting trains, however, Paris has made it pretty simple to follow the directions they put up. Another challenge concerning the metro is creepy people. A lot of homeless people are on the metro as well as older men who don't understand personal space or that staring is considered rude, however, besides all of those the metro is a pretty simple way to get around the city.

There are very few places in Paris that I do not like but one of them is the metro at night. I rarely feel safe in the metro at night, unless I am with all the students here. It has been very safe though and nothing has ever happened. I still don't prefer it.