As of now I have been in Paris for 1 and a half weeks and I love it. I have explored and have done so much and we are only on week 2.
I started my second week of my internship today and it is interesting. So far, I have just been doing intro stuff, mostly just reading about the company and their products/technologies. It is interesting, just very tedious after multiple reads. My coworkers are all very nice. Every day I have lunch with them in the break room. We also play cards every day. They have taught me how to play two card games that are common in France. Originally, I was in a room by myself during the day, but today a girl got moved into the room with me because the main room ran out of space. She didn’t really speak English, so I got to practice my French a lot. I liked talking to her and I got to learn a lot about France from her. We ended up talking a lot throughout the day.
There was one thing that we talked about that I was a little confused about when she said it. She asked what college I went to, and I answered the University of Pittsburgh. She replied with “oh that’s the one in the movies, right?” Which confused me a lot because I have never seen a movie that has taken place at Pitt. She then pulled it up on her phone and said, “it’s this one right.” I was a little speechless when she did this.
Most of the days this past week, after work, I met up with the other Americans and we went to dinner or just walked around. We talked about how work was and just how things were going. Right after I write this I am meeting up with the Americans to just do a little recap and see how everyone’s doing.
Friday night we went to this place that was 90s arcade themed and they went all out with the decorations. It looked so cool and they had so many games to play as well. On Saturday I went window shopping with a girl from UVA. We didn’t buy anything because one of the cheapest things we could find was around 300 euros. Saturday night we went to this old subway station that was turned into a bowling alley. It was so nice, and they made it look so cool. We went for a walk around the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower afterwards.
On Sunday I went to Disneyland Paris. None of the other people studying abroad in Paris wanted to go so I went by myself. It was so much fun. It was a little crowded but not bad. I was able to go on almost every ride. I also found out that I actually do like loop de loop roller coasters when I used to never go on them. Both of the ones I went on I didn’t know they were loop ones. I got on and thought “oh I’m upside down now.” It was a weird feeling but overall, I ended up loving it. I ended up going on them multiple times. Halfway through the day I ended texting my friend asking if she wanted to go to Six Flags when I get back. Disney just made me remember how much I love amusement parks.
Overall, it has been really easy to manage my time at my internship. Since it is still really early in the internship, I haven’t really had any tasks. As I mentioned before I have mostly just been reading about the company and their products. Some other tasks that they have been having me do is editing an email here and there and editing videos that they are putting out. Overall, all these tasks have been really short and not taken up a lot of time. Also, when they ask me to do this, they need it very soon, so I have to do it fast. It makes sense that they have me do this because I am the only one who is from an English speaking country and that is fluent in English. Most of the people can speak English really well but for a lot of the things they use a translator so there usually are at least some mistakes. When it comes to prioritizing my tasks, the ones that are on a time crunch or have to be done fast usually come first and should be dealt with sooner.