On Thursday, we had a meeting with a professor at a prestigious school in Paris, to discuss the possibility of working with their researchers. I set up this meeting completely by myself, and I along with my coworker made the presentation with very little instruction from our boss. I was very nervous, but I was proud to see it all come to fruition after the work I put in. I did have to read a slide, after which there were 30 seconds of silence, which was kind of mortifying, but hey, it all worked out.
That brings up an interesting point about French communication. I have noticed that they are very hands-off – I suppose that’s what makes it low context. They’ll tell you to do something, but not give you any more details about what exactly they want; that’s for you to figure out. Case in point being the presentation I was instructed to make last week. I only found out that he wanted a presentation the day before, and he gave almost no instructions – just that I needed to “introduce the business.” I was very intimidated. Me and my coworker asked a few times for clarification on what exactly he wanted, and even after a Teams call, we didn’t know if we were doing it right. However, after the meeting, he applauded us on the presentation and said we did a great job despite not getting a lot of guidance.
On Thursday night, me and some friends went to Le Caveau de la Hache, which is a very famous jazz club in the Latin Quarter. I remember Hailey telling me about it on the plane ride to Paris – specifically, that it is featured in the movie La La Land – and I knew immediately that I had to go at some point. It had a really cool ambience despite how crowded and hot it was.
On Friday, I had one of my favorite experiences in Paris so far. During the summer, the Louvre hosts an outdoor cinema called Cinema Paradiso. And on Friday, they happened to show one of my favorite movies ever, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, in honor of David Lynch who passed away in January of this year. Before the movie, they had three musical acts, so I got a concert and a movie all in one night – and it was free! They had lots of food trucks and even an Amorino, so they really had everything I could ever want. I must admit I cried for basically the entire movie, both because of the subject matter and that I was experiencing this at the LOUVRE in PARIS. And I even got out of the movie in time to catch the metro – it was a completely perfect night.
On Saturday, my host mom and I headed back up to Lefaux in northern France, to watch the Tour de France! The Tour de France is a cycling competition that basically runs for the entire month of July. The route changes every year, but for the first time, they went through Lefaut, which is where my host mom’s vacation home is. I got to meet her son and grandkids for the first time, which was really exciting. It is a little embarrassing to realize I can barely understand French children – I don’t know if I should expect them to be easier or harder to understand. That night, we had a typical Hauts-de-France dinner: eating fries, while sitting outside on a cold and windy day. We did get to enjoy some live music at the restaurant, but finally enough, they were playing American folk music.
We gathered in the street to watch the cyclists come by. Before the cyclists, there is a parade of cars – shaped like pickles, apples, teddy bears, all sorts of things – that come through tossing out gifts to the crowd. My host mom’s grandkids got a lot of swag, and I got a Tour de France bucket hat! When the cyclists came through, it was absolutely crazy. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was way different. All the cyclists came through as one big mass, and they were gone in about 15 seconds. It was such a cinematic moment – everyone was cheering, and my hat literally came flying off at the wind caused by the cyclists. I couldn’t believe they all came through together like that; I was expecting at least a couple stragglers. I guess that’s why they’re professionals.
After we watched the Tour come through, we drove my host mom’s family to the train station. I might be seeing them again in two weeks, as they have invited me and my mom (who is coming next Friday!!!) to the house in Lefaut. My mom and I definitely have to sort out our plans, as we want to go to Strasbourg and Lille at least, but it would be so nice to introduce my mom to my host mom. Conveniently, my mom speaks French as she studied abroad when she was about my age too – honestly, she probably speaks better than me, despite the fact that it’s been almost 40 years.
That’s all for this week – a bientôt!