Des Semelles Américains: stop for pedestrians

NYU in Paris is located on a rather busy road, and granted that the Starbucks we American students find so attractive is on the opposite side of the street, one will often see a study abroad student much like myself peaking out on the Rue de Passy, waiting for an opportunity to cross. Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that Parisians have little to no respect for the everyday pedestrian. We wait and we wait to cross, and though we always do, it sometimes takes a bit more time than expected.

In New York, the pedestrian rules the road. Illegal jaywalking is just plain oxymoronic. However, Paris seems to be entirely indifferent to our survival. We dart across the road with our eyes almost closed, just hoping to make it over in one piece. It truly is survival of the fittest.

All of us at NYU have surely experienced some state of overwhelming frustration, stuck at a kind of crossroads, waiting to cross onto the side of the street where our new and concrete relationships are located, but seemingly unable to find the right time to do so. The great thing about being in an absolute limbo is that were all in it together, and no one knows just where to go. Walking around in the Oberkampf looking for a bar, a friend of mine told me he had not felt this feeling of being completely unaware since those sweet first weeks of freshman year.

This pseudo-reincarnation of the spirit of freshman year has been the enabler for such a conglomeration of friendships. We are all so lost that we are up for just about anything. When you know no one, you are willing to meet anyone. In New York, we are so quick to cross the street that other pedestrians often go unnoticed. We look only at our friends, the people with whom we are familiar. We often thwart the potential for the breeding of a new relationship.

Here, however, we were all forced to stop and stand-alone for a little while longer. This necessary loneliness induces in us a willingness to take a second look around and an excitement to try building relationships with people of a different sort. I am blessed by the amount of uniquely interesting people I have befriended over the past ten days, and suddenly the trek across the street to Starbucks isn’t so scary. In fact, it is actually quite fun. Because I took the time to get to know the people standing next to me, I now have plenty of hands to hold while making the not so dangerous crossing, but frankly, I don’t see why we can’t all join hands and make the trip together.

Some pictures of a little gathering I had last night with new friends: