Greetings from Paris! The heatwave is really getting to me, I’ve seriously been missing the AC back home lately.
I’ve been spending lots of time in Tuileries garden lately, which is about a 15 minutes walk from my work. One of my favorite things to do is to visit a boulangerie on my walk from work, then eat in the gardens while I read a book or write in my journal. I spent both Monday and Wednesday evening there last week – though I think today is too hot to be spent in a garden in my work clothes.
On Tuesday, my friends and I went to the Lapin Agile, which is a cabaret in the 18th arrondissement, called Montmartre. Montmartre is my favorite area of Paris and has been since I visited it for the first time in 2023. It’s home to the Moulin Rouge AND some of my favorite artists and composers all have some history of staying there (Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Satie, Van Gogh!).
Friday and Saturday, I spent most of the day with my friends. We had a really nice evening, walking around the 2nd arrondissement and the 5th, which contains the Latin Quarter – where you can get very cheap meals, word to the wise. We met a woman on a bridge who took a photo of us for free in a cute newspaper format. It is such a perfect souvenir and I can’t wait to put it somewhere in my new apartment.
Saturday was the pride parade! We got brunch in the 3rd arrondissement before heading over, where I got tornado eggs with sourdough toast. It was so good – I’m definitely going back there with my mom when she gets here in a few weeks. The parade was amazing, with lots of amusing signs. We didn’t stay for more than a few hours because being in a huge crowd of people under the blazing hot sun was definitely getting to us. We ended up eating dinner by the Seine – just McDonalds, but it hit the spot.
On Sunday, I got to do something I’ve been wanting to visit for YEARS, which is to visit the Palais Garnier, which for those who don’t know, is the building that inspired Gaston Leroux to write The Phantom of the Opera, which is one of my favorite books and has been turned into one of my favorite (if not THEE favorite) musicals. My fellow Phantom enthusiast, Chloe, gave me and Hailey an amazing and informative tour of the building. I even got to see Box 5 – don’t worry, I didn’t go in, so I should be spared. I could have stayed in the opera house all day, but unfortunately everyone got kicked out at around noon. I took the hot weather as an opportunity to visit Amorino, a gelato and ice cream chain you can find all over Paris. I got the passionfruit sorbetto and I’m still thinking about it. Temperatures are supposed to reach at least 97 degrees Fahrenheit this week, and considering my metro line is down so I have to walk past the Amorino near the Palais Garnier every day, I think I’ll have a hard time resisting.
Along with the weather, I feel like my internship is heating up. I have an important meeting this Thursday with a professor at a prestigious school in France, so we can discuss working with her team. I made this meeting happen without any intervention from my boss, so I’m proud of myself for making what feels like substantial progress. Before my internship, I feel like I was more passive. Most of my jobs have been in food service, where my supervisor was always on hand and ready to give instructions. But in my first internship, my supervisor is almost always working remotely. While I can message him for help when I need to, he warned me from the outset that I will need to be “autonomous.” Because of this, I have had to become a lot more independent, as I am the one responsible for deciding my tasks for the day, managing my time, and setting up meetings with new colleagues. This is also one of the biggest challenges I have been dealing with. I wasn’t aware of this before I started here, but this is basically what tech startups are like. You have to be able to do things yourself. This is difficult because not only am I an intern, and theoretically here to learn, this is also my first internship. For my first few weeks, I felt completely adrift. My job is to do a market analysis – I had no idea what to do, and wasn’t given much direction. In order to do my work, I have to set up meetings and have interviews. My boss accompanies me to some of these meetings, and some he does not. The independence I have had to become accustomed to will definitely make me a better, more self assured leader in the future.