Arriving in Paris
The culture shock was as immediate as it was shocking. There was no secret to the fact that I had landed in a country far different from my home. I had been to Paris before, but I just don’t remember it being such a cultural tsunami. After being stopped at a security checkpoint with my luggage and questioned, I met up with Lindsey, a student in my program who landed at the same time, and Dhabia, the assistant at Hollins Paris. She handed us all the vitals for making it a week in Paris without taking the first flight back and just like that, she put us on a bus and sent us on our way. Ten minutes into the ride I asked, “What stop are we getting off at…?” Lindsey gave me the look that only another American tourist-turned-student-transplant could understand. We were lost and it had only been three hours. No phone. No international plan. And no Wi-Fi. The struggle had found us and called us home. We got off at the first stop to try to find a free wifi spot to send the study abroad director an email.. but much like New York, everything was locked. The distress was real, and the weight of my 3 suitcases was all too real. An hour later, we located a heavenly angel, a spot of rescue, a Starbucks. Within 30 minutes, our host families came to meet us and take us home. I wish this was the end of the adventure, but it really started to become all kinds of fun when host father said, “We’re taking the metro.” I looked at my luggage and was ready to give up. At no time in the packing process did I expect to have to carry any of those bags. By the end of the hour, we had made it to my temporary “home.”