Paris, you have taught me so much…

With our short time in Paris fatin and I both have learned so much about ourselves and how we live in America. We wondered why people call Americans entitled and now we know.

1.)Living here is a lot different than America. You stay with your parents longer, you might have a college education and you work hard for little pay. You have to have millions to own a house in Paris , so everyone here lives in a flat which is a small apartment or with their families still. One girl said to us “you try and leave your families so early, why?”. Fatin and I just looked at each other, because to us it’s normal. Society pushes you out and looks down on you for not being on your own. It’s kind of ridiculous if you look at it from their perspective… Also no one drives a car and if they do they all look the same. A Short compact Prius looking automobile. Sorry boys, trucks don’t exists.
2.)Appearance here is far different than what Americans think “Paris” looks like. Coming on this trip I was worried about my style and if I would look cute enough but still be comfortable and looking back I laugh at myself. The parisians here, yes some are stylish, but most don’t care. I’m not joking when I say no one matches their shoes here. Take a look in your closet, you have shoes to match each outfit and tennis shoes that color coordinate with your workout clothes. Here, they have a couple pairs and wear them till they are done. I haven’t seen hardly any name brands, or girls with big label purses. The girls here wear limited makeup. Like LIMITED, maybe some colored lipstick and some mascara but it’s minimal. No nails done, I have yet to see a woman with her hair curled and yet they are so beautiful. It’s not even outward beauty, it’s their confidence and their security within themselves that shines through. Everyone here is so happy and from an American standpoint they have nothing compared to us. They don’t have big shiny cars, even bigger houses, the best clothes or even an iPhone 6 or 7 (seriously, were the only ones). BUT YET THEY ARE SO HAPPY.
3.) Work here is so different. People (the people we met) work like 10-4 everyday and don’t work Monday’s. They get long holidays and vacation days and are expected to have lots of time for themselves as well. People of France have an average 35 hour work week. WHATTTTT. The French also start work usually around 10-11 and get off around 4-6… so that’s how they are able to club until 5am. It’s all about balance people. Take this blog post to your boss and tell them I said what’s up.

We have met several people on this trip and they have a lot to say about Americans that we can learn from. First of all, we live in soooooo much excess. We really do. We buy stuff just to have stuff. We go to sams and buy boatloads of food for half of it to go bad or we get too lazy to cook and just go out to eat. We make a $300+ car payment on a brand new car that works exactly the same as an 04 used car that’s paid off. We buy new clothes for every event and multiplies of it because they are “different shades”. We have so many choices. Too many if you ask me!

We also met a guy at a wine bar (a cute guy) and just compared life for a couple hours! We talked about how no one here works out and if they want a gym membership it’s €800 per year. How they are all so thin? Stay tuned we’re still trying to find the secret. We compared alcohol and how parisians drink with meals casually and how Americans drink to get wasted. He said for them it’s about taste and respecting the work put into the wine or alcohol, and for us it’s to party and make bad decisions. He also told us our movies are too sexual and so is the dating culture. Which we equally agreed to that.

We do like how American boys treat us though. We agreed they are more respectful/ we’re taught different manners. In the club if a guy wanted to dance with us as we walked by they pulled our hair… let me tell you the first guy to pull my hair got a mouthful of the word respect. Also no one here knew the word no. It got pretty annoying but when we learned to just turn our backs we had no trouble. Both cultures have their ups and downs with all this but we do prefer our American manners over theirs.

It was really nice seeing what others think about our world because I think we get so caught up in comparing ourselves to other Americans and try to climb the totem poll, that we lose track of what really matters. People here speak at least 4 different languages because they need it to talk to all of Europe. America is so cultural and yet no one takes the time to learn maybe one other language. It’s sad and really makes fatin and I want to start taking French, Spanish and Arabic right now. It’s incredible how smart parisians are yet they all do basic jobs, live with their families and are grateful for what they have. I will miss Paris oh so much and will be taking all that I have learned with me.

-B