My first few weeks in Paris I was suffering from the worst case of homesickness. Starting that very first night sitting alone in my little chambre de bonne, I just laid in bed bawling my eyes out, texting my mom about how much of a mistake I thought I had just made by coming here. I had gone through the whole summer not preparing myself for abroad at all so everything about leaving home hit me like a ton of bricks in one moment. I remember my first few weeks here I couldn’t go more than six hours without bursting into tears, but at some point, it all stopped. I honestly can’t pinpoint when it was, but after a while, I didn’t have that overwhelming feeling of homesickness anymore. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like, it all became something of the past because I had finally distracted myself enough from it.

I’ve never been away from home before. Yes, I did move out of my home home for college, but the University of Redlands is only an hour drive right to my front door. I could easily get back home for weekends or even day trips. So with knowing I always had that as an option I never felt homesick in Redlands. Everything was familiar and convenient. I had familiar faces right away on campus because there was a handful of us from my high school who all happened to commit to the same university. I was alone then, but not nine-hour time difference, fifteen hours of travel time, and zero physical access to a single person I know alone. In Paris, I found myself in a totally new place, by myself, with no security blanket to hold onto.

I was too afraid to go out in the city on my own and at the same time didn’t feel connected with any other student in the program. I spent the majority of my time alone and in silence, waiting for my friends and family back home to wake up so I could text and call them. I constantly felt depressed and anxious and I was so afraid that the feeling wouldn’t ever go away and follow me all the way home. It was a bad place to be. I wasn’t giving myself the chance to adapt and was just hiding from the reality that I am living in Paris and the flight back home isn’t booked until December. I was afraid that it was going to be the longest 108 days of my life because the first four days alone felt like an entire month. I needed to get over myself and make the most of my experience. It’s not something that’s going to happen again later in life.

Study abroad was something I had always dreamed of. I get to be a student in a foreign country during this important time in my life where I’m still young and growing. Still not tied down by work, relationships, and bills. I have the freedom to travel, spend money on silly things, walk around exploring, and have fun. The opportunity I have been placed in is not something worth sulking and being sad during. I starting forcing myself to say yes to any social gathering with people and getting people's phone numbers so I could text them asking to do things. If I didn’t feel comfortable going out on my own at first, I thought going out with people would help me take the steps to feel comfortable. I started taking steps to help with the homesickness and it worked. I had to look back at old journal entries to even describe what I was feeling then because I have completely forgotten it. Thinking about how I was convinced that I would need therapy and counseling when I got home to deal with this experience is funny to me now, but it was so real then, and I totally get that. I was able to deal with never being away from home before and figure out how to live here and be happy, so I want to share what I thought helped with that for any future study abroad students who feel the way I did. It does get better and it gets better a lot faster than it feels. My week two journal entry was already doing pretty okay and by week three I didn’t want to leave Paris.

Go out with people. I knew I needed to connect with the people that I would be spending the next three months and two weeks with so I forced myself to get out there. It was silly of me to be afraid of this at first because honestly, we are all new here. None of us know the city or each other so essentially we are all going through the same thing just in our different ways. The first week was like freshman year of college all over. Testing out the waters. Everyone trying to get a feel for one another to figure out who the real friendships are going to be. It was madness, but it all settled eventually. It was also great to just talk to some of the other students to see how they were feeling and see that I wasn’t totally alone. Of course, there were some who really did feel super comfortable as soon as they got in Paris, mostly due to the fact they had studied abroad before or they moved away for school, but there were some who felt just as homesick as I did. I remember sitting on a park bench with one of the girls just talking for a few hours about how we felt and it moved mountains to help me feel so much less alone.

Now I’m going to contradict myself and say let yourself be alone sometimes. Going abroad is a growing experience for yourself. What you learn about more than the classes or the culture is about who you are and how you function as an individual person. I have always seen dating yourself and getting to know yourself as one of the most important things for us to do at this age in our life and this is another opportunity to do just that. I didn’t have wifi in my homestay room so when I was alone I had to find things outside of Netflix to do. I had to think and read and write and just deal with all of my emotions in a healthy way instead of pushing them back to deal with later. I was so afraid of that dead silence, but it’s what helped me get over the homesickness so quickly. A healthy balance of distractions and reflection is so important.

Go ahead and buy those Oreos. Pack a few bags of goldfish to take with you abroad. My mom makes fun of me but these tiny little snacks from back home are so comforting. My favorite part of dorm life in college is having copious amounts of snacks at arms reach so just having some familiar snack foods with me in my Paris “dorm room” made me so happy. So if you are craving Oreos and McDonalds, go for it. There’s no pressure to eat French every day because there're so many days here. We don’t eat American food everyday living at home so why would we eat french food everyday living here?

Make yourself feel at home. I am that college student that had three massive boxes that I bring to move-in day every year that are purely dedicated to room decor. I need the space I’m spending time in to feel cozy and comfortable. I knew for a fact I would need to do that here too because white walls don’t do it for me. I brought a cork board and art prints to keep my walls happy. I have a blanket here from home that I sleep with every night because I’m convinced it still smells like home. Making my tiny little room into a space that is so me makes it so much easier to be in there. Feeling comfortable is so important. We are living here, we aren’t just visitors so you have to do something to make yourself feel a bit more moved in.

Find your place. Paris is so massive and diverse there’s something in this city for everyone. Find a place that makes you feel the most at home. Maybe it’s a garden that reminds you of the weekend jogs that you go on with your mom. Maybe it’s a coffee shop that feels like the one you go to back home to read or catch up with friends. Maybe it’s Disneyland because you’re from Southern California and have spent probably half your life walking down main street USA so that feels the most like home to you. Okay, my place is the Disneyland one. As silly as it sounds it felt so nice to be in a place that I feel so comfortable in. A place that I know how to relax and enjoy myself in because it's so close to my heart. Hopefully, your little plot of home doesn’t cost 60 euros to get in to, but I will say it’s nice to know you have that option to just run away to somewhere when you start missing home.

I survived half the semester without needing therapy. Honestly, I am so proud of myself for this accomplishment. I am happy in Paris. Now I’m not saying the homesickness is completely gone. I am still so excited to go back home. I think one of the many things I have learned about myself since I’ve been here is that even though I am a very independent and adventurous person, I’m still a big old homebody that’s very connected to friends and family. As I’m writing this post there're only 52 more days until I am back in California with an in-n-out burger in hand and on my way to the real happiest place on earth. But with that in mind, I’ve been here for 56 days and have accomplished so many amazing things that I would have never imagined I could. Just knowing I’m here and pushing through the hard and enjoying every little thing gives me so much hope for the future. I CAN do it. I have faith that if I ever choose to travel or live abroad again it won’t be as hard. I even hope to come back here some day and show off Paris to someone I love. Homesickness is totally natural and it’s just a reminder of what home really is to you. It sucked, but I’m so glad I had to just deal with the crappy feeling that is homesickness. I honestly feel like it helped me so much as a person and just that alone makes going abroad worth it.

Julia Carrington

Oh the irony that a majority of this book what read while on a train/metro...

When in a large city you use public trasportation.
When using public trasportaion you have a lot of time to quietly sit in your own bubble.
When quietly sitting in your own bubble you get bored and need to find things to busy yourself.

Some opt to stare at their phones or listen to music. I personally have found this to be the perfect time to get some reading in. I have at least an hour and a half worth of commuting time on the metro every day and then sometimes more in addition to that if I choose to bop around the city a little more. Since I'm not the one driving I just get to read and it's so relaxing.

This was an amazing novel to read during my little commutes. I missed out on reading Gone Girl because I had to see the movie for a class before I had a chance to read that book, so I was not prepared to let that happen again with this suspense novel. I loved this book. It was beautifully written and so much fun to read. It was one of those stories that was just hard to walk away from. I feel like I don't read enough suspense or mystery type books because my go-to is more of a romance or coming-of-age type story. I'm not going to talk about the plot at all because it is a suspense and therefore background shouldn't be shared. Yes, I know the movie just came out recently so it's not that secret, but humor me for a bit.

Also just one more book and I can be done with these silly little book reviews. A one year goal turned into a two year goal, but the 12 book total will be finished nonetheless.

Julia Carrington

What a dream. To live in Paris during Paris Fashion Week. To be surrounded by beautiful clothes everywhere you go. To walk down the street and watch street style photographers snapping pictures of all the insane outfits that will be listed in articles online the next day. To casually run into famous celebrities and models. It sounds perfect in theory, but I promise you it is not the case at all.

Now I have always listed fashion on the list of things I love. After being around what the world thinks of when they hear fashion, I'm starting to think people might make incorrect assumptions about me. I honestly believe the people who participate in fashion week don't understand what fashion is. It seemed like these girls would layer on as much designer clothing as possible in strange enough ways and call it a "look" and people eat that shit up. Everyone else at these shows and events act as though they understand and love it, but inside they are probably just as clueless as I am. Yet, everyone keeps it to themselves and goes along saying it's revolutionary and inspiring. It's all code for "I don't know how to feel so I'm just going to say what everyone else is saying."

It's a week all about following the crowd. They trick themselves into thinking they are being individuals and daring but the reality is they are following the mainstream by being "different." Nothing seen during Fashion Week would be considered attractive outside of Fashion Week. The funny thing is all of their "different" outfits look very similar, probably because they are all subconsciously copying whatever the supposed trend is. Well isn't that what these fashions shows are meant for? They are put on to show the trends for the next season. We are letting these designers and journalists decide what the world is going to look like. The creativity of fashion then lies within just a few people because they have the influence. As much as I love clothing, this concept is something that I will always struggle with.

I have always seen fashion as a way of self-expression. It's our way of creating a costume to tell the story of the character that is you. The whole idea that surrounds fashion week and trending goes against my idea of fashion. So if you ask me what I like and I answer fashion, I by no means am talking about this high-end stereotypical stuff, but just creativity through clothing in general. My dream is to create a brand with those ideals in mind for girls who are intimidated by the world of "fashion" kind of like I am. I think the one good thing about being here in the middle of Paris Fashion Week is that it reassured that this dream is really what I want to bring to the world in my life.

I'm happy Fashion Week is over now. The crowds of people are gone. I get my city back, free of pretentious "high-end fashion" tourists. No more secret fashion shows spread around the city. Just nice quiet Paris. It was an adventure, but I'm glad I got the Fashion Week bug out of my system.

xoxo
Julia Carrington

One of the cool things about the program I am studying abroad with is the opportunities and excursions they offer for us. There was one all inclusive weekend trip they took us on in France to Normandy and it ended up being so special and eye opening. It's hard for me to describe just how special this experience was, but for the sake of the blog I'm going to try my best. It was a highly emotional and humbling experience that I know I'm going to take with me.

I've always felt like I learned a lot about the World Wars throughout my educational career. It was a subject that was repeated over and over in history classes starting in elementary school and up until college history courses. It’s true that we had increasingly gone a little bit more into depth as we got older, but not nearly as in depth as I seemed to learn in two days of visiting museums in Normandy.

In the states, I would say that we learn the history of our country more than anything with brief bits of information for other countries. This makes sense because we as humans tend to look at things through our convenient scope of culture, so in history classes in America taught by Americans, it is no surprise that America will always be the main focus. The world has been around for a long time so of course there’s far too much history for any person to learn everything about everything. Topics have to be narrowed down to what is most "important" for everyone to know. WWII is something we learn a lot about. I have never been particularly good with history and even I could talk about WWII so obviously, it is ingrained into our minds through education. We learn about the holocaust and Nazi rule over most of Europe through historical references and reading novels. We learn a lot of information about the big events of the war and all of the accomplishments American made to help or how life was for the wartime efforts back home. But some are events skimmed over more quickly, I'm assuming because it isn’t seen as relevant to our country.

Apart from Hawaii, the states weren’t really touched and affected in the same drastic ways as a country like France was during WWII. We did have some struggles to help the war, but we weren’t occupied by Nazis. We Didn’t have german soldiers walking through our streets and being a part of our daily lives in that way. It’s hard for us as Americans to imagine that and relate to what the constant fear could have felt like. The French had to adapt to this. They had to figure out how to go on and continue living their lives. This absolutely amazed me that I had never thought about that before.  

As I was walking through these museums we visited over the weekend, I couldn’t help but keep this thought in the back of my head. What life would have been like. How recent that all this was. My host siblings grandparents could have been alive during the war and experienced the Nazi rule. That would have to affect the family in some way or another. The way other countries learn about historical events like a world war is going to be different from how we do in the states. It’s crazy to think that although we share this history, we see it from two different sets of eyes.  

Our last stop of the trip was to the American cemetery which was a shock to me to see just how many American soldiers gave their lives to help another country's safety. It leaves me in awe to think about how terrible and terrifying war can be, but these amazing citizen from all different countries come together to help for the greater good of our world. We walked through this massive cemetery and learned about some of the most famous men and women as well as some that were connected with past students in the IES Abroad Paris program.

Being in Normandy and walking on the beaches where our countries mutual history was made was something amazing that I couldn't explain without babbling and making no coherent sense. It was a perfect time to slow down, reflect, and put my toes in the ocean again. Our night in Normandy is going to stay as one of my most cherished memories from this semester. Even just being with other IES Abroad friends, walking along the ocean late at night and talking about life was so great because in Paris we all live in such separate places it's hard to all get together and connect like we did. I really loved my experience in Normandy and I think I would have regretted not going. 10/10 would recommend.