Before traveling to Paris, I traveled to Egypt in March 2019 and London in March 2020, so the HISP trip to Paris is the first since the beginning of the pandemic. Prior to my Egypt trip, when I told people where I was going, I got a huge variety of reactions from friends, teachers, and other family members. Some were excited for me and believed I was going to have an amazing time (which I did), while others were scared for me or didn’t believe the trip would be a good experience, for a variety of reasons. I got told I was going to get pickpocketed (a legitimate worry), groped, stared at, harassed in other ways, and that I was just generally going to be uncomfortable for the entirety of the trip (which was roughly 10 days long). All of this negativity meant I had very low expectations for the trip, which meant that when none of those things happened, the trip exceeded my expectations and changed my entire worldview. In Egypt, I discovered that the stereotypes people (Americans specifically) hold about Egypt and the Middle East in general are almost never true, and that our perception of the region is severely warped by the media we consume. In the end, Egypt was nothing like I imagined it to be.
Because of the way the Egypt trip exceeded my expectations, I believed the same would happen in London. I tried to keep my expectations low but I was so excited for my next international trip that I mostly failed on this front. The trip was not very fun for lots of other reasons as well, but London was actually underwhelming for me, so by March 2020, I had experienced both ends of the international travel expectation spectrum.
Now we’re in Paris! I dealt with the same kind of stereotype-dumping from the people I surround myself with. Examples of these stereotypes are as follows: Parisians are rude, Paris is dirty (rats?), Paris smells like pee and cigarette smoke, travel within Europe is dirt cheap, bakeries are plentiful and baked goods will never be the same, and everyone speaks English. Honestly, compared to my other two trips, I think the stereotypes I heard about Paris and Parisians are the most accurate, as accurate as stereotypes can be. Parisians CAN be rude just like people are rude anywhere else in the world, but I find that Parisians are kinder towards each other than to tourists, which makes sense to me. Paris does have rats, and does occasionally smell like pee and cigarette smoke in certain places, but I don’t think this makes Paris dirty (Paris is still overwhelmingly pretty most of the time and the built environment looks exactly like I expected it to). It’s possible travel within Europe is dirt cheap, but only when you’re on a European IP number (AKA not looking at train tickets in the US). Bakeries are plentiful and baked goods are amazing here – enough said. Finally, the language barrier. I would honestly disagree that everyone speaks English in Paris. Two days ago I went to the post office to buy some stamps for my post cards. I decided it was too complicated of a question for me to manage in French, so I asked an employee if he spoke English. I figured the post office would be a likely place for people to be bilingual but I was wrong! This particular employee responded with “non, désolé!” The next employee did speak a little English, but not a lot, so we got by with a mix. Outside of the post office, we’ve had interactions in small groups where Parisians spoke less English than we were told to expect before coming. Additionally, I know many of us (myself included) have expressed regret at not learning more French, just to simplify our interactions in public.
After thinking about my other two major trips and comparing them to this one, I think it’s super interesting how they differ in terms of my own expectations, what I was told to expect, and what was actually accurate. So far, the expectations I had for Paris have been met, and I think this is a good thing. I already know I won’t want to leave and the reverse culture shock will hurt, but that means I’m immensely enjoying the trip so far.
A picture of the Parisian built environment looking exactly as I expected!
Hi Sarah, it’s so funny you say the workers at the post office didn’t speak English! I’ve definitely noticed that since we got here, people you’d expect to be bilingual ending up only speaking French but people who you wouldn’t expect to know two languages, the random Joe Schmoes on the street, are speaking fluent English. That’s probably a stereotype I have against french people, people working customer service should be able to speak the language I speak, but it’s fun seeing the exact opposite! We aren’t in America anymore!
not only do they speak french and english, but probably more languages than that, like the crepe guy outside who apparently speaks 5??????