This study abroad trip provided me with insight into a whole new world of culture, traditions, languages, and different ways of living. Having never been out of the U.S. before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I learned so many valuable life lessons, how to be more culturally aware, and I grew in my cultural knowledge. I was able to experience new challenges, such as figuring out public transportation and the metro station systems and how to communicate with rude people when there was a clear language barrier. I also learned how to remain respectful throughout the entire interaction with people local to that area because a lot of the things we do in America are not common in France. Dining was an eye-opening interaction for me, with respect to how leisurely and extended they view eating dinner or any other meal at restaurants. When a restaurant was a three-course meal we were usually there for around 2-3 hours because they don’t ever feel the need to rush. They do this because this is just a part of their culture and Europeans tend to value working to live life instead of living life to work. I also had to learn how to compromise when things didn’t always work out. When you live your whole life one way, even small changes like no air conditioning and adjusting to less friendly social behaviors can feel very draining to conform to. Having to adjust mentally to all these changes was a lot harder than I expected as well, but it helped that our program had us exploring new places very often to help keep us engaged and our professors were always providing information on how to help adapt to our new environment. They genuinely cared about our experience and made sure we were prepared to be flexible when things didn’t always work out. Even though we faced a lot of challenges and unexpected events, the sites and places we got to experience made everything worth it. The Palace of Versailles and the Louvre were my favorite places to visit. They both had intricate designs and breathtaking art. It really showed France’s love for their past and the importance of their history to their nationalism. Overall I would recommend that everyone takes the opportunity to travel abroad, it really opens your eyes to how different other countries are to America and it grew my love for traveling!
