Study Abroad Diaries: La Rythme

It has been so easy to get settled in this city. I was quick to find a simple, day-to-day routine. I surprised at how easy the adjustment was for me, especially because of my initial shock at  how different Paris actually is from New York. Time passes differently in Paris, it moves in an endless lull, up and down and back again, like lazy waves on a warm summer night, sliding up and down the sand. There is a unique rhythm to this city. It is a continuous, repetitive, reliable pulse. It feels as if this rhythm is engrained in every bit of Paris—from the cobblestoned streets to the metro stop on the corner—it is even engrained in the language.

 

During my first week at NYU Paris, I had to take an Intro to French phonetics course. At first, it just sounded like my professor had a strange speech impediment because of the way she would over-annunciate. Every. Single. Word. So us English- speakers could learn how to communicate properly in French. After listening to the ridiculous sounds coming out of her mouth, I realized I lacked an awareness of how I pronounce words and sentences in English. I simply speak. I emphasize certain syllables in certain words, and different syllables in different words. There is no pattern to the phonetics of the English language—each word and sentence is distinctive.

 

 

French is not like English. No matter the words that compose the sentence, the emphasis is always at the end of the sentence. No exceptions. This was the one rule I learned from my phonetics course. Listening to a native French speaker takes you on a slow journey upwards, to the peak of the wave, and sets you back down again, only to bring you back up to another crest with a new sentence. The lull, unlike the ocean, doesn’t put me to sleep. It is not boring because the content of the sentences always change. However, there is a constant expectation of something great awaiting me at the end—the final upbeat of the sentence. That is why this routine rhythm is not synonymous with “boring”. The language is the life here, the

language flows with the routines of la vie quotidenne.

 

 

The days and weeks here follow the same rhythm as the language. The beginning of the week is slow—the stores are closed and people are at home with their families; the middle of the week picks up—between classes and museum visits I am in awe of all that has happened here; and by the weekend, I’ve hit the top of wave—staying up until 5 o’clock waiting for the metro to reopen so I can get back home and eat what ever is left of my Nutella. The weeks here speak the same way the Parisians do. Yes, the cafes and the lectures, and the discotheques that I visit are different every week, but they all fit into the same rhythm.

 

New Yorkers speak in slang. The rhythm of the city is exciting and new and vibrant. I would be lying to say that I don’t have a routine in New York, but the only real routine in New York City is that there is nothing routine about it. That’s how the city survives. Sometimes in New York, I feel like I’m drowning. Drowning doesn’t have to kill you; it can prove just how much strength you actually have. I learned a lot about how far I can swim during my time in Manhattan, and I truly think it is because of the past one and half years I spent on that island that I even had the audacity to think I was ready to go abroad at nineteen years old.

 

And when I realize I’m nineteen years old and living abroad, I take solace in the rhythm of Paris. I’m enjoying a break from splashing in tumultuous waves of the East River (hypothetically of course). For the next three months I’ll be okay with following the rhythmic language and activities of the French.