I Moved To Paris...

Well bonjour there, comment ça va?

I haven't even been home for 5 minutes and I've already upped sticks and left my beloved England for another 6 months as I try my hardest to achieve my life goal by morphing into the best fake Parisienne you did ever see. It feels as though I have genuinely just got back from my semester in Montréal and I have already embarked upon the second half of my year abroad! Absolute madness, and to be honest, it seems as though I haven't even had the time to properly think about this next chapter because December has just whizzed by! I had a solid 24 hours between landing in Paris and starting the first day of my internship so you could say I was cutting it fine - not usually my style at all, for anyone who knows me. Nerves actually got the better of me the day that I moved to Paris - I was so afraid of the transport issue (for those who have heard my story back in December concerning the SNCF strikes, I'm talking about my horrific experience with that) and to be quite frank, I wasn't entirely mentally ready for the new adventure I was embarking on. My brain still felt like I was in Montréal and I felt like I had been in such a whirlwind at home over the festive period that I didn't have any time to breathe!

But, I have officially gone and done it.. I've fulfilled one of my most precious life dreams and I have installed myself into Paris, where I am living slap bang in the centre (and I'm talking The Louvre 5 mins round the corner!) and interning at one of the most prestigious luxury fashion houses in the world. I can't quite fathom how this has ended up being my reality; I can safely say I have a little bit of imposter syndrome and feel as though I could wake up any minute and realise this was all just a fanciful dream of mine. But for now, I am going to try and stay asleep for as long as I can so I can see how this dream pans out for me.

For anyone that knows me even slightly, they will know that Paris is the place that makes me tick; there is something about it that makes me feel so euphoric and I just adore the language and (most of) the culture. One of the reasons I wanted to study French at university was because I wanted to have the year abroad experience - integrating myself into francophone life and most important of all, gaining complete fluency in the language. I feel as though my semester in Montréal has already set me up well in terms of conquering the language, as spending 4 months trying to comprehend the Québecois accent has made my competence with metropolitan French much stronger (trust me, Québecois french is like a wholly different language). Now that I am in Paris, I will spend 6 months interning at Louis Vuitton (omg), and I can safely say that it will be an incredibly formative, confidence-building and challenging experience - which is what I have been craving for so long.

There isn't really much of a plot to this blog post, other than to ramble aimlessly about my current situation and to document this transformative change that I am making in my life. But, as  sit here in my little flat in Paris, I can safely say I have a bloody good feeling about the upcoming 6 months, and I cannot wait to document on here all of the memories I make and the experiences that I have whilst living in my favourite place in the entire world.

For now, wish me luck and let's all hope I don't wake up and this has all been a dream. Just like a movie, that would just be such a terrible ending, so we're keeping our fingers and toes crossed for me!