During the fall vacation, the Dickinson students and team left Toulouse to spend four days in Paris. Some of them had already visited the capital whereas others were discovering it for the first time. During the train ride, I asked them about their perception of Paris before and after their four-day trip.<\/p>\n
Darcy expressed her excitement to visit this famous city for the first time: \u201cAll I\u2019m thinking is \u2018Paris! I\u2019m going to Paris! Paris! I\u2019m going to Paris!\u2019\u201d After four days, satisfied of with her visit, she still felt the charm of Paris, but she had also discovered how tired the city can make you: \u201cI walked a lot this week, so today my body is tired, my feet are tired, my head is tired, I al tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
David noticed a change in his perspective from when he visited Paris in middle school : \u201cI visited Paris when I was young\u2026this time, I\u2019m older, but I\u2019m now a resident of France, not a tourist.\u201d He adds: \u201cI was able to appreciate the city more than last time. With more independence, you can discover the lesser known parts of the city, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the way there, Eric pointed out the mysterious qualities of Paris : \u201cI feel like Paris is a beautiful woman, the most beautiful city in the world.\u201d After a few days spent wandering the \u201ccity of Enlightenment,\u201d he explained that \u201cmy favourite day was when I walked for about eight hours; I think the best way to see Paris is by foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marie came to Paris with many plans in mind. She wanted to visit a lot of different monuments and museums, but choosing her visits was more difficult: \u201cI\u2019d like to visit small neighborhoods, markets, but honestly I don\u2019t know yet. I think I\u2019ll just decide when the time comes!\u201d In four days, she felt she had a firm grasp on the city and declared: \u201cI was surprised by how comfortable I felt\u2026even though Paris is a huge city, I could find my way around easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michekke wanted to visit the unknown, to get away from tourist sites: \u201cI\u2019m not going to go to the Eiffel Tower, to the Louvre museum or to other places packed with tourists. I\u2019d find that a waste of time, especially when there are lots of other things I\u2019d like to do.\u201d She really appreciated the cultural diversity of this \u201cwonderful and cosmopolitan city,\u201d where you can \u201chear more foreign languages than French and run into people from lots of different countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having already been to Paris, Nina thought that \u201cParisians aren\u2019t as cold as we make them out to be and the atmosphere is actually less stressful than other large cities in the United States.\u201d During her thrd visit to the city, she found that Paris is \u201ca good city to discover by foot, which allows you to see the personality of the buildings that give Paris its charm\u201d and she also notes that \u201cthere are lots of Americans \u2013 I heard English everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Nina, Rosy discovered the city for the first time. \u201cThe only sources of inforlation I have on the city come from films and (probably) aren\u2019t a good representation of the city,\u201d she said on the train ride there. Having run into Parisians during her four days, she concluded that \u201cthey like it better if you speak French because they initially tried speaking English with me once they guessed I was foreign. Once we told them we spoke French, they were luch nicer.\u201d She was enamoured by the city and enthusiastically exclaimed that \u201cIt was almost impossible to believe I was actually there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monica, also in Paris for the first time, expected to be \u201csurprised, charmed and intimidated by this wonderful city, Paris.\u201d She took off to discover the city alone, determined to \u201cvisit all fo the things that are most important to me even if nobody wants to come with.\u201d The energy of the capital let her appreciare Toulouse better than before: \u201cParis is a beautiful city, great to visit, but I personally prefer living in the pink city. It\u2019s less expensive, there are less English speakers, and the weather is much nicer!\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, Ashleigh confided that \u201cI\u2019d asked my French friends in Toulouse for suggestions and they gave me a list of things to do.\u201d Like Monica, she added: \u201cI think Paris is great for vacation, but I\u2019m happy I don\u2019t live there.\u201d She avoided tourist locations and dedicated her time to more mundane activities: \u201cI went to a lot of caf\u00e9s (and drank a lot of hot chocolate!), I went shopping, and I strolled around Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Click here to view photos from the original post http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/2012\/11\/19\/quelques-impressions-de-paris\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the fall vacation, the Dickinson students and team left Toulouse to spend four days in Paris. Some of them had already visited the capital whereas others were discovering it for the first time. During the train ride, I asked them about their perception of Paris before and after their four-day trip. Darcy expressed her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4846,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[30101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-la-une-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4846"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/toulouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}