"Dear Diary!"
Monday came herding around like an angry mob of unfed sheep. I had been in Paris for a week already.
The night before, after getting stuck in a cattle ground of my own kind at the Louvre during closing time, I frolicked home to meet up with my housemates. We put the kettle on, stirred an inexcusable amount of honey into our tea and layered fresh local bread with slabs of chocolate, sharing stories of experiences in the city, our opinions of Australian wildlife and our favourite animal youtube videos featuring the carpet stealing raccoon and anything and everything involving sloths.
I have been sick for the last week so it only added to the feeling on Monday of no longer being in that "I know it's freezing but I'm in Paris and I haven't seen anything, so 'blow it' I'm going to put an extra pair of socks over my hands and venture" phase. I got myself a big coffee and checked my emails for the first time since I'd been there, finding one from my university back home.
"Expressions of Interest - Study Overseas" flashed in a brothel-like rouge typeface before my eyes.
"Hey mate,
I have read your email and I'm really interested in studying in Paris at Dauphine beginning this semester, am I too late to apply?
Thanks a bunch broski,
Ruth xoxox mwah."
I got told I could submit an expression of interest so I did. And then I had to patiently wait for the morning Australia-time to come around.
I ventured out and began walking around the latin quarters in the centre of the city, and then remembered that I had been dying to see the Shakespeare and Company Bookshop that everyone so eagerly talks about visiting. And it was heaven on a stick.
The walls are completely covered in books. There are little reading nooks with low hanging warm lights and alcoves all about the place. Ladders roll horizontally along the shelves, dust collects on the Temple copies of old, forgotten Shakespeare plays and everything is warm and dry and wildly familiar. Upstairs lies a room with a piano where whoever wants to can play a diddy or a concerto or chopsticks (though you'd be hated if you did do the latter) and when I arrived a young Chinese girl was playing all sorts of beautiful melodies, including Yann Tiersen's La Valse d'Amelie which my ears sprung up to and a grin spread across my face from behind the pages of Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March that I found in the library in the next room.
Realising it was fast approaching 7pm I went to Starbucks to get myself an orange juice and use their wifi, and ended up sitting beside a fellow Australian who turned out to be doing the same degree as me and was studying at SciencesPo for 6 months. I felt strange about the coincidence of the morning's emails and now this. We talked forever and the desire to live and study here brewed inside me faster than a morning hangover coffee.
I am now in the process of organising my application for the Université Dauphine this September and everything feels so real and wonderful I can hardly wait.
The night before, after getting stuck in a cattle ground of my own kind at the Louvre during closing time, I frolicked home to meet up with my housemates. We put the kettle on, stirred an inexcusable amount of honey into our tea and layered fresh local bread with slabs of chocolate, sharing stories of experiences in the city, our opinions of Australian wildlife and our favourite animal youtube videos featuring the carpet stealing raccoon and anything and everything involving sloths.
I have been sick for the last week so it only added to the feeling on Monday of no longer being in that "I know it's freezing but I'm in Paris and I haven't seen anything, so 'blow it' I'm going to put an extra pair of socks over my hands and venture" phase. I got myself a big coffee and checked my emails for the first time since I'd been there, finding one from my university back home.
"Expressions of Interest - Study Overseas" flashed in a brothel-like rouge typeface before my eyes.
"Hey mate,
I have read your email and I'm really interested in studying in Paris at Dauphine beginning this semester, am I too late to apply?
Thanks a bunch broski,
Ruth xoxox mwah."
I got told I could submit an expression of interest so I did. And then I had to patiently wait for the morning Australia-time to come around.
I ventured out and began walking around the latin quarters in the centre of the city, and then remembered that I had been dying to see the Shakespeare and Company Bookshop that everyone so eagerly talks about visiting. And it was heaven on a stick.
The walls are completely covered in books. There are little reading nooks with low hanging warm lights and alcoves all about the place. Ladders roll horizontally along the shelves, dust collects on the Temple copies of old, forgotten Shakespeare plays and everything is warm and dry and wildly familiar. Upstairs lies a room with a piano where whoever wants to can play a diddy or a concerto or chopsticks (though you'd be hated if you did do the latter) and when I arrived a young Chinese girl was playing all sorts of beautiful melodies, including Yann Tiersen's La Valse d'Amelie which my ears sprung up to and a grin spread across my face from behind the pages of Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March that I found in the library in the next room.
Realising it was fast approaching 7pm I went to Starbucks to get myself an orange juice and use their wifi, and ended up sitting beside a fellow Australian who turned out to be doing the same degree as me and was studying at SciencesPo for 6 months. I felt strange about the coincidence of the morning's emails and now this. We talked forever and the desire to live and study here brewed inside me faster than a morning hangover coffee.
I am now in the process of organising my application for the Université Dauphine this September and everything feels so real and wonderful I can hardly wait.
