Traveling to Paris was an incredible opportunity that my peers and I in Literary Paris were fortunate enough to have been given. Not only was the city itself beautiful, but the course was designed in such a way so as to be extremely helpful to us throughout the duration of our trip. The class primarily consisted of reading the accounts of well-known American authors and their personal experiences while in Paris. We also played a game that helped us become familiar with the art we’d be seeing so as to better appreciate what we were looking at.
The end result was a very unique perception of Paris. We got to see it through our own eyes, but also those of Hemingway, Gopnik, and Edith Wharton. We visited the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay with the ability to understand what made the works displayed so great. We were able to pick out certain places that had played pivotal roles in the lives of the authors, like Shakespeare and Company or the Les Deux Magots (both mentioned by Hemingway), as soon as we saw them. Becoming so familiar with the city before our trip was endlessly helpful in being able to get the most out of it.
That said, we also got to experience things that we had not read about, ensuring that the trip was still individual. We went to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower and saw the city from above. We rode the metro, ate at random cafes we stumbled upon, and, of course, went shopping. We went to Monoprix (essentially Europe’s version of Target) at least five times. A few of us went to the Eiffel at night to see it sparkle on the hour, took a tour through Versailles, a cruise on the Seine, and so much more.
It was an unforgettable experience that none of us are likely to forget.
Chloe Tinkler is an English major. Her trip to Paris was funded in part by The O’Leary International Travel Grants Program, which provides financial awards of up to $2,000 to help offset travel costs for students in Le Moyne’s College of Arts and Sciences participating in study abroad programs. This grant program is administered by the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences and funded by a gift from the estate of Dr. Harriet L. O’Leary, professor emerita of Foreign Languages and Literatures.