First Blog Entry

The other day Julia and I went to the train station, Gard de Lyon, to purchase tickets to Provence for this weekend. A simple task we thought at first, turned into an afternoon full of hectic running around. We started our little adventure at the Accent center, trying to purchase tickets online, yet every time we tried to finish it, another problem would arise. We soon realized we had to go to the train station to purchase tickets. Of course “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” and that’s just what happened when we got to Gare de Lyon. Train stations like Gare de Lyon, are already a hectic place, people coming from every which way, you have to know what and where you’re going, or else you will get pushed around. Not sure where to go we got in line at information to figure out where we needed to go. Up to this point I’ve had small interactions that have grown into more frequent comfortable interactions with the French, but just how I felt overwhelmed at the train station, everyone else did too and they were looking out for themselves. One woman was bouncing around from window to window, when it was almost my turn up in line, she cut in front of me and started speaking very fast French to me, and I had no idea what to say, so I just walked away, because I was already feeling stressed. A man came up to me, asking if I needed assistance, but I didn’t even know what to say, I just said “No” and walked away. Julia remarked to me later on that even though she knows French in stressful stations like the one we were dealing with, it’s difficult to think clearly. I’m not the biggest fan of crowds, specifically in a place like a train station or airport, but what I was more concerned about was being in a place I’d never been before, people speaking in a language I don’t know and not knowing where to go. I love cities and Paris has grown on me greatly, but this experience was definitely a test of patience. I just count this one experience as learning one, in the moment, it was stressful and upsetting, but looking back on it, we handled the situation to the best of our ability. Being here a little over a week, I have been to many parts of Paris and have begun to feel comfortable with the metro and commuting to the point that I’m starting to really embrace and appreciate Paris.