Author: Mya Kryschuk

There are a few things that I will miss and not miss from my teen summer language camp in Paris experience. Luckily, what I’ll miss out-numbers some of the frustrations of my time in France.

What I Will Miss:

1. All of My New Friends:

It was so great to meet so many new people in France from so many different countries!  I learned a little bit about my friends’ cultures and lifestyles and I made some of the best friends I will ever have.  It was times like the last day when I was so thankful that my parents let me have Facebook so I could keep in touch will all of my friends, even though we are separated by vast oceans and time change differences.

2. The Wonderful Food!:

The cafeteria food at the school may not have been haute cuisine, but the food I was able to partake in during our time shopping was truly phenomenal.   I enjoyed the BEST banana, Nutella and Chantilly crème crepe of my LIFE, as well as some other traditionally French foods such as Coq au vin (Rooster in a red wine sauce) and Mille-feuille (a dessert with custard and lots of very thin pieces of pastry paper.)  For more food, check out my post on French food!

3. Seeing My French Exchange Student from Last Summer:

It was wonderful to see Anne again and hang out with her in her hometown instead of mine.  I was able to spend the evening with her and some of her family, and I got to practice my French a lot with her and her mom which was fantastic!  I was super sad to say good-bye to her, but I am certain that we will meet again sometime.

4. Language Classes:

While extremely challenging, the language classes were a really good way to boost my comprehension of French as a whole.  The concept of school in the summer is difficult for sleepy brains to imagine and the constant heat combined with no air conditioning made it hard to concentrate sometimes. I do think that I learned a lot from the classes, and I am excited to put into practice what I have learned this summer.

5. The Metro:

I may not have loved the smell of the Metro, but I loved being able to take the Metro places.  Those little ticket things are wayyyy less expensive than gas!  Also, I got to know my way around the Metro pretty well within the first week.  I was almost better than one of my counselors….oops.

6. My Counselors:

Marie and Quentin were the best counselors ever!  They were really nice people and always kept us laughing.  Well, Quentin did anyway.  He was a goofy person who liked to sing rap and Disney songs on the Metro and in public.  Marie was quieter, but just as nice and silly once you got to know her.  I miss both of my counselors a lot, but hopefully if I ever go back to Paris in college I will be able to see them again.

Now for a few items I won’t be missing from my time abroad….

What I Will NOT Miss:

1. The Beds:

These beds were so awful.  They were gross and mine had hair on it from whoever had been sleeping in it last, it hurt my back, and there weren’t ladders to get into the top bunk.  My friend Erika had to monkey herself to get onto her bunk and I had to climb onto a stool and then onto a table and then hoist myself up.  Seriously though: really uncomfortable.  I have been camping in the woods sleeping on tree roots and these beds were barely above that.

2. The Time Change:

The time change itself wasn’t awful, but the fact that the sun DIDN’T SET until 10:30PM was really irritating.  Because I couldn’t sleep with sun coming in the window and I had to wake up early to go to class.  It was a problem.

3. The Metric System:

How am I supposed to know how hot 30 degrees Celsius is?

4. The Picnics:

Every single day we would get the nasty sack lunches.  You ate it if you were hungry, but you cringed the entire way.  Fortunately our counselors would let us go to the grocery and get food to eat, so that was nice of them.  See my blog post on French food if you want a more detailed description of nasty sandwiches.

That’s all I have to complain about.

It was WONDERFUL to be in Paris this summer and I am so sad that it is over.  If anyone reads this and wants to go on a language camp, do not hesitate to sign up!  There will be bad things and good things but it will be such a special experience regardless!  I’m sure you will never ever forget it.  I know I won’t!

This summer during my language camp I really did experience the culinary expertise in Paris.  No, not the cafeteria food silly, the street food!  As a true Instagirl without an Instagram, I did my best to take pictures of all of the food I ate so that I could show you my firsthand experience with Paris’s culinary grandeur.   (For the record, all of these adventures happened with my friends Ana, Erika, and Sydney except the first two.  Hana was in some of them.  Shout out:  YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME, I MISS YOU ALL!!!!!)

Read on for pictures and descriptions of the French food I experienced.

Mille-Feuille:

Mille Feuille is a delicious pastry that I happened to get at a little shop in Paris on the second day of camp.  Mille Feuille means “thousand papers” in French.  It is made of very thin, flaky philo layers all stacked on top of each other with two layers of yellow custard and frosting on top.  It tasted so good and so sweet and I’m sure I gained five pounds just eating that, but hey, it was totally worth it.

Coq au Vin:

Coq au Vin is literally translated as “Rooster with Wine.” Whether what I had was actual rooster or normal chicken, I have not the faintest idea, but it was spectacular.  This dish was really filling and delicious and I enjoyed it a lot, although it was too much for me to finish.

Strawberry Juice:

While we had free time, my friends and I all went to a café and sat down outside to enjoy a beverage.  Unfortunately in Europe, there is no such thing as “iced coffee” or even ice in general.  Rather than getting hot coffee on a hot and humid day, my friends and I got cold juices instead.  I chose to get strawberry juice which consisted of sweet, red syrup with semi-sparkling water put on top.  Fortunately, I had friends to tell me to stir my drink together before I started to drink it.  If they hadn’t warned me, I’m sure the drink would have been less refreshing than it was.  Look, it even has ice!

Japonais:

While in France, my friends and I tried to avoid the cafeteria food as much as possible, so one night we all went together and bought a bunch of sushi at a Japanese(Japonais) restaurant and brought it back to our rooms to eat.  It was delicious, but I had a traumatizing experience with miso soup in which someone made me laugh (I think it was either Erika or Hana) and I snorted really salty soup out of my nose.  They laughed at me and wouldn’t let me forget about it, but my nose will never be the same again.  During that same meal, Erika spilled soy sauce on the table and it dripped off onto her best friend Ana’s suitcase.  It was an eventful meal, to say the very least.

Picnics:

Picnics were an ever present fear in all of our lives.  We had one almost every day, if not every day, we were in Paris.  No, I’m sure you can’t imagine the horror of these picnics because food is food, right?  WRONG.  Imagine every day getting the same, soggy loaf of nasty white bread trying to pass off as a baguette smeared with awful mayo and egg and chicken that has been sitting in your backpack or purse for the past 4 hours getting warm and gross in the hot Paris weather.  Not to mention that the rest of the meal was always the same: applesauce, greasy potato chips, and a very dried out lemon cake patty thing that tasted like sawdust.  So we held a rebellion and they let us go to the grocery to buy things to go with our picnics.  Usually my friends and I all went in together, buying extra drinks, chips, cheese, croissants, and candy to go with our applesauce.  These self-made-picnics were the best things ever because we could eat what we wanted to eat.

Crêpes:

Let me just say right now that the crêpes you can get at the fair are nothing like the ones that you can get in Paris.  Throughout my trip I ate at least three crêpes that I remember:  one with sugar and butter, one with bananas, Chantilly cream, and Nutella, and one with ice cream while we were at Disney.  Let me tell you, these crêpes are like nothing I have had, and probably nothing I will have again.

Ice Cream:

The only gelato place I went to was this chain called “Amorino”.  They had super delicious flavors and if you wanted multiple flavors, they would take the cone or bowl and turn it into a flower.  It was so cute!  In this picture, I am holding a coffee, spekulatius, and chocolate flower.  It was delicious!  (For the uninformed citizen, spekulatius is a German cookie that tastes a tiny bit like gingerbread cookies.  It’s really good.)

Caffeine:

During our time in Paris, it was rarely cold enough to get coffee, but sometimes we did it anyway.  I had two coffee items while in Paris:  a “café au lait” on the Champs-Elysees and an espresso at a little café in some scenic district of Paris.  Both of these tasted surprisingly good, considering the fact that I am not a rock hard coffee addict.  The espresso I tasted in Paris was my first espresso ever and I had to order it in order to sit down with my friends at a café.  They recorded a video of me trying it and laughed at me while I was deciding if I liked it or not.  But joke’s on them!  I love espresso now and I have had two more since that one.

Starbucks:

First day out in Paris, I went into a white-girl-withdraw and I went to Starbucks.  I didn’t get coffee, I got an iced chai tea latte and it was delicious.  The only bad thing: Starbucks spelled my name wrong.

And that is all of the food adventures I had in Paris!  If you have never considered Paris as an option for vacation or language camp, do it for the food.  Seriously.

This blog post is a special edition about Bastille Day in France.  Every year the nation celebrates the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 which was the beginning of the first French Revolution.  The lower class individuals believed the Bastille was a symbol of the power and hypocrisy of the nobility and they hoped that by taking down the Bastille they would be able to capture enough ammunition to start a real revolution.

Today, French people recognize this as the official end of the monarchy and the beginning of the republic.  The celebrations include a celebratory parade down the Champs Élysées and fireworks (feu d’artifice) on the Eiffel Tower.

As a foreigner participating in the festivities during my language camp in Paris, it is really cool to watch another nation celebrate their national holiday.  Whether it be hearing jets fly super low over the city (and hearing shouts throughout the school of “Is this an air raid?!”), or eating street vendor food while waiting four and a half hours for a firework show, the experience is very special.

The first thing we did to celebrate the day was go to a little fair in the Tuileries and do rides and eat junk food.  As an American teenager away from home, it was good to indulge in a little bit of junk food.  Like cotton candy!

One of my favorite parts of the day was sitting with my friends and watching all of the people walk by and attempting to guess their nationalities.  It was a great filler activity for the four and a half hours we spent waiting on a patch of grass with our counselors waiting for the fireworks to start.  We also played a game called 94% with our counselors to increase our French vocab knowledge.

Additionally, there were street vendors selling street food everywhere, but not the kind of food you would expect, like hamburgers and hot dogs, but rather kebobs in baguettes with onions on top.  My friends and I all got some and it was very, very good.

The fireworks were magical.  It was a roughly 35 minute show of multi-colored fireworks shooting out of the Eiffel Tower and creating a very patriotic and magical atmosphere.  The experience is something I will never forget in my entire life.

Everyone anywhere who has done something away from home for an extended period of time has experienced homesickness.  Sometimes it is worse than other times, but everyone has experienced a little bit whether they know it or not.

I haven’t ever felt really homesick before even though I’ve done three summer camps by myself.  This trip was the first time I really missed home.  But I’m not the only person who felt this way. My roommates have also felt homesick in these first four days of our teen summer language camp in Paris.

Since everyone experiences homesickness, it is okay to talk to people about it.  I learned that the hard way. I tried to keep everyone from seeing that being in another country that was an ocean away from home was scaring me.  I tried to prove that I could be bigger than I felt on the inside, and that inevitably didn’t work.

Here are some things that you can do when you start feeling homesick.

• Call, email or text your parents and talk to them about it.  Parents are your biggest support team!  They want nothing more than seeing you happy and successful and most parents will be willing to take five or ten minutes out of their day to talk about it with you.  Even if they can’t physically help you feel better, the love pouring out of your phone is enough to summon seventeen My Little Pony’s to give you hugs and take you back to a place of happiness.
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• Talk to your roommates.  It can seem tough, because it’s the first few days and you don’t want to seem like a wilting pansy, but chances are they’re also experiencing something like that and haven’t wanted to say anything about it either!
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• Take advantage of the scheduled excursions. On your outings you have opportunities to go shopping and experience Parisian city life.  Use those trips to your benefit! You can hunt for things that your family might enjoy seeing or just soak it all in so you can recount a great story later.

• Find some comfort food. If your counselors stop at a grocery store for anything, go in and get your favorite food.  They may not exactly have your mom’s special chicken noodle soup, but they probably have some of your favorite types of candy!  Then you can call or text your parents later and eat some during your conversation to create a homelike atmosphere.
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• Find a funny person. Hang around them until your sides are about to split from laughing and your eyes are tearing up!
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• Stay busy!  There are plenty of things to do.  From playing games with your counselors, participating in the evening activities (like dancing!), or talking with your friends about their home countries, there is always plenty of stuff to keep you busy during your stay.
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• Listen to some pump up songs!  I recommend the following:
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Always remember that being in another country is an opportunity of a lifetime, so try to enjoy yourself. 

Do you have any tips for dealing with homesickness? Share them below!

Hello Everyone!

I am Katherine Fetter!  My friends all call me Katie or Kat, though.  I was selected to be a Greenheart Travel correspondent for the language camp program in Paris, France this summer.  I am ecstatic to share my adventures with everyone!

For a little bit of background on me:

• I am 16 right now, but I will be turning 17 on July 5^th
• This coming school year I will be a senior in high school
• I play tennis at my school
• I live within an hour of Chicago, Illinois
• In college I want to study French, Greek, Latin, and Archaeology

The first time I heard about this program was last summer when my family hosted a French exchange student for a month.  It was so cool to expand my cultural perception of the world.  I was pretty shy while she was at my house, but after she went home, I decided that I wanted to expand my horizons and try an exchange program for myself.  We saw this program online and I decided that I wanted to go for it.

I got a job to start raising money for the trip, and I loved getting bank statements telling me that I was getting closer and closer to my goal.  There were times when I got discouraged and wanted to give up on my goal of going to France.  Every time I thought about that though, my mom gently helped me back on the path of pursuing the trip.

My advice to future applicants or people who are thinking about going on the trip is that even though the process might seem intimidating, the overall reward of going to another country to learn a language is well worth it.  Going to France, or Argentina, or Costa Rica, or Germany, or WHEREVER will be worth the little bit of nervousness you put into it.  Plus, bragging rights!!!  Hello?!?!?  You will automatically be 15% cooler.

Now, if you get to the week before your trip, like me, and you feel a little bit nervous about it, here are some things that will help you feel better.

Watch subtitled movies.

What language you watch in is up to you, of course, but I would recommend listening in French and reading in English so you can get used to how the language sounds as well as begin to recognize some of the more common words!

Listen to foreign music.

Again with the listening recognition. Even if you can only pick out a couple of the words, that is still a huge gain!  Think of all of the rap songs that you can’t understand.  It’s like that except in another language. See?  You’re fantastic!

Distract yourself with loads of books! (or your phone)

 

Text your friends about your fears.

Friends are usually helpful and supportive, but even if they are not, at least they will be a helpful distraction!

So on that note, see you all in my next blog and thanks for joining me on this adventure!