PARIS—The butter in Paris is a scam.  Although it’s supposed to be soft, trying to spread it on hot toast is like trying to spread an ice cube: the best method is just to let it melt and smear the liquid grease around.  Much of the rest of life in France—a land without clothes dryers or drinking fountains—is similarly inconvenient, and the roads are downright terrifying.  Cars don’t have to stop for pedestrians, and most won’t.  Streets branch off in strange directions and five or six will frequently converge at an intersection so confusing as to make Dupont Circle seem like the sort of place one might take a beginning driver to learn the ropes.  Drivers frequently turn left from the far right lane, even as cars in the middle lanes try to turn right and cars in the left lane try to go straight.  Of course, even having lanes is quite a step up from most Parisian roads.  Typically, the street is an anarchistic free-for-all, with drivers making lanes wherever they want, trying to race past other cars before the road narrows, as the roads frequently do.  (I once heard a friend describe the streets of Paris as wide and airy.  I can only conclude that he was referring to Paris, Illinois.)

Of course, so much of this story is clichéd.  Like the photo I took of the Eiffel tower, you’ve seen and heard this all before.  Indeed, it could easily be argued that the whole semester abroad in Paris is clichéd.  Crowding around the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, eating Camembert spread on a baguette, drinking in a bar—legally—with your other under-21 friends, etc., etc.  It’s all been done. 

So why even bother studying abroad?  Because it doesn’t matter how clichéd it is if you’ve never done it.  And because there’s so much beyond all those clichéd moments, like slurping water from your cupped hands in the Louvre’s bathrooms, eating gyros in the shadow of Notre Dame, or struggling to figure out how to get through the gates and off the platform in the train station. 

But mostly because of the same reason we chose to come to AU: we know there’s a world out there, and we want to be part of it.

Clint Rice is a junior in the School of Communication. Follow his journey in Paris during the fall semester on The Eagle’s new blog, The Eagle Takes Flight!