Evaluation: Year Abroad Part 1

It is 10AM. The sky is clear, streaked with strips of wispy clouds and when the wind picks up it is strong and bitterly cold. I stand across the street, in a park opposite the coach station, looking down onto a giant motorway where cars pass underneath.

Except this time, I am not alone. Behind me my sisters are standing, in the pale morning sunshine, chatting to each other. I steal a glance at the horizon, a moment all by myself.

Paris, of all the places I had ruled out. But after all that had happened over three months, here I was. And it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was still mysteriously beautiful to me. It suddenly occurred to me that whatever bad that happened, experiencing Paris would never get old. It was timeless, exciting and beautiful.

As you look at the city, early in the morning, on a Sunday when everyone sleeps and only the tourists straggle through the Tuileries Gardens, amble through the fiery leaves that pave the banks of the Seine and stand before the diamond shaped pyramids that flank the Louvre gazing in admiration at the beauty before them, you realise that Paris is very special, and very unlike other cities in terms of its beauty.

But it is mysterious to me that such a place, whose ancient buildings and cobbled streets, jet-black lamp posts and delicate patisserie shops can also contain the filthiest train stations, the foulest smelling Metro tunnels and the largest rats known to France. It is a mystery to me that just beyond the invisible border which separates Paris from the infamously less beautiful suburbs (the 'banlieue'), there is complete lack of charm, of elegance and romance. The train ride home brings me through into a land that is a world entirely different to the city which has somehow charmed and tricked the world.

“The most romantic city in the world!”

“The capital of elegance!”

“The hub of all culture.”

The difference between these two Metro maps, and the difference between the two geographical maps, is quite significant. London is a big maze of Tubes, buses, cars, bikes and trains which lead out into 'Greater London'. 

Whereas Paris...

Paris just stops. As soon as that invisible boundary which signifies the ends of the city, you are no longer 'in Paris'. You aren't even 'Parisien' any more. You're in the 'banlieue'. (a word which doesn't have a very nice connotation). Some of the 'banlieues' are nicer than others, of course. Versailles, where the deceased monarchs castle still reigns proudly, is a suburb which is more beautiful than any I have seen yet.

But take the Line D, south of Paris, past stations such as Villeneuve St Georges, Evry Courcouronnes and the very best of them all, Corbeil-Essonnes (which sounds a lot like 'corbeille' which is 'bin' which gave me the new nickname for it: 'the Bin of Essonnes') and you realise that here, everyone's expectations and standards are lower. There isn't a whole lot of beauty in these slightly run-down suburb towns, least of all in the area of public transport. They're dirtier, poorer and not romantic in the slightest.

However, I have spent more of my time over the past three months in these towns, passing through and waiting for the elusive buses and briefly chatting with strangers who live here too. And the day that I found my feet was the day when I took the train out of Paris, transported myself away from the breathtaking view of the Sunday morning skyline in the most romantic city there is – that was the day when I ended up in the suburbs, in a small and dim apartment surrounded by a family of African strangers whose love and openness was infectious.

So did I find my feet? I come back to my senses and realise that my sisters behind me are calling me, calling me up out of my reverie, telling me that it is time to move, time to get going.

The time to move, the time to get going, the time to walk to yet another station, another Metro stop and another monument or fascinating corner of this exclusive world. This has become the mantra I am forced to adopt every time I set foot in Paris. If you are not moving in Paris, there is nowhere to even sit. The solution to this? Keep moving.

And as I walk the streets with my sisters, it occurs to me that I don't know Paris at all. And the truth is, I will never know Paris. No-one ever does, fully. Once I met someone in the south of France, hundreds of miles and almost an entire world apart from Paris, who told me:

"Paris is a city that moves. People go there to study, then to work and after two years, they leave. There's nothing left to see after two years, nothing left to experience. The reason Paris is so good is because the population changes every two years."

And as you look on at the city, even after a weekend I get restless. The same cafés, the same monuments, the same tourist shops selling the same tacky souvenirs at every corner...and there isn't anywhere to go to escape this madness.

Except for the suburbs.

Life goes on in the suburbs. Families live, schools run, children grow up and the communities build their lives. There is solidarity and there is semblance of stability. The constant movement of Paris is what scares me sometimes, makes me feel that there is no identity to it. Its identity has been formed around the ideals, the flocks of famous writers, actors, actresses, politicians, hell everyone has been to Paris at least once in their life! But who can say that they have never moved on from it?

There is a song, by Maurice Chevalier, which sums up Paris's reputation in what seems to be a fairly accurate description:

Paris sera toujours Paris !
La plus belle ville du monde
Malgré l'obscurité profonde
Son éclat ne peut être assombri
Paris sera toujours Paris !
Plus on réduit son éclairage
Plus on voit briller son courage
Plus on voit briller son esprit
Paris sera toujours Paris !

Three months ago, I looked out onto the beautiful city skyline and tried to contain my excitement. I was so convinced in that moment that I was going to find my feet. But my feet weren't in Paris, not where the tourists' heels clicked, not where the students filed in and out on a yearly basis – not even in the cafés where waiters and waitresses' black leather shoes squeaked, preparing to squeak away as soon as they got sick of the same routine serving tiny espressos on uninspiring round tables.

The land beyond Paris, the somewhat excluded neighbouring towns where life went on, where families grew together and communities held themselves together with what they had, that was where my feet had landed. And there were many moments of frustration, of undecided emotion at what life had handed me, living in these communities.

I am brought back to my sisters, who are saying goodbye to each other as one of them gets on her bus to London. I wave and hug her, as we promise each other to experience Paris once more, in the spring when she gets a chance to come back. Because even after a weekend, there are things we have not seen.

Sometimes, I tell myself the next day when everyone has left and I am getting on the train alone to go back to my small village, sometimes, it's hard to understand why you have ended up where you are. When you're bustling around, travelling from A to B, rushing in and out of the two worlds which represent the same place, you don't understand which one you belong to. 

Sometimes its very hard living somewhere you never expected or wanted to be living in.

Sometimes the bad moments outweigh the good moments. Solving your problems on your own, in spite of language barriers, waiting for elusive trains and buses, sorting out grown-up things like social security, insurance and installing phone lines, understanding terms and conditions in a foreign language, receiving yet another bill for a service or charge you did not expect (because you were struggling to understand the complex vocabulary that was thrown at you and never fully explained) and trying to find your identity in all of this, often all of the above being done whilst fighting back tears...tears of frustration, exhaustion and unrest.

That is what the lecturers did not tell us about in preparation for our year abroad. But if they had, perhaps we wouldn't have believed them anyway. No one could believe that spending a year abroad would entail some of the most difficult and loneliest moments of your life; the connotation of a year abroad is much like the connotation of Paris. You are presented with the romantic image; an unreal paradise which in reality can't possibly live up to the expectations.

The year abroad is all you can think about, but what happens when you are actually faced with the reality? It's kind of like looking at Paris's skyline on a cold but clear Sunday morning, where all is calm and it looks exactly as you imagined it to always be. But the reality is so incredibly different, worlds apart from what the tourists see.

Paris will always be Paris, sings Maurice Chevalier; the most beautiful city in the world. In spite of its deep mystery, its radiance will never burn out.

Paris will always be Paris, the more you darken its lights, the more it shines on courageously; the brighter its spirit shines.

Paris will always be Paris.