What I’ve learned.
People
Some knowledge you seek, some knowledge you stumble upon, and some is forced upon you.

Human beings love to categorize each other. It’s that much easier to relegate someone to a certain type of person than to really try to figure them out. It’s only fair, however, to say that people often make it difficult to understand them. That said, I find that it’s easy to confuse cultural differences with stereotypes. I’ve always been pretty good about trying to ignore stereotypes, but I admit that before I came I thought I might be lost in a culture for which my French classes hadn’t even tried to prepare me. It wasn’t the case at all. Paris isn’t such a leap, culturally, from New York City anyway.

Being alone was hard for a while. There was a period of 2-3 weeks in which I didn’t know anyone at all. I’m not talking about just as I arrived, I met people easily enough then. Somewhere in the middle of the semester, I found that I simply didn’t have any friends here. The people I had been hanging out with certainly had time to hang out, then, but they didn’t call me and if I called it just never worked out. I took a hint and just let it go. That was during one of the worst parts of my ordeal with Beth, about which different people know different amounts, and so there was literally no one I could call. I don’t think I’ve ever been more disheartened than that time spent sitting in my room looking out the window. “est-ce que tu sais que tu es à Paris?” [do you know that you're in Paris?] my host mother asked me at one point. I really don’t know exactly where that time went, but it’s like a big void in the semester, just white noise in the middle of the transmission. I enjoy my time alone and I know I need it from time to time, but when it’s not taken by choice, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Paris, France or Easton, Pennsylvania, you’re just nowhere.

Just then, it all started coming back together. I met a couple people in my photography class, a couple in my communications class, so on and so on… and I could come out of my trance. My post about the Roisin Murphy concert takes place just as I come back to life. I’d essentially lost touch with the Americans from my study abroad program and this came back to haunt me when I wanted to plan a trip to Rome, so I ended up going alone. I didn’t slip back into the void though, I did research and looked up everywhere I wanted to go and everything I wanted to do; I’d never been more on top of anything in my life. There, I learned independence. Not in the sense of providing for my own meals and living outside of a family, but in the sense of living each day for yourself: it’s great to have friends around, but there’s no reason to miss out on things if they’re being flakey or otherwise holding you back.

Living with people in a hostel is like meeting them on an airplane. Your time together is short, friendships are transient, ephemeral. It didn’t affect me so much, my time alone in Paris prepared me for the time in between when the friends I’d made at the hostel had left and before I’d met their replacements. During that little stay I made about as many friends as I have in the entirety of my semester in Paris. I have a much smaller chance of seeing these people again, though, than I would if I still knew any Americans. I guess it’s just another excuse to go see Germany, Brazil, and Chile.

I’ll be very glad to see you all when I get back.

Finally, the official allotment of chances you receive with the opposite sex is one. You’ll either waste it or you’ll take it.
-Vic
PS: It occurs to me that some of these things I’ve learned seem rather basic. I’d like to point out that there is a difference between knowing something and learning it. If someone tells me something I know it, but if I experience it, then I’ve learned.