Between the language barrier and living in a foreign city for the first time, I knew going into this semester that I would be facing challenging obstacles. Unfortunately, this had to begin at the height of my anxiety: the departure. I had flown many times before and knew there wasn’t much to it, but for some reason, doing this alone made me uneasy. I worried that I would miss my flight, spoiling my first days in Paris and costing my parents a fortune in last minute tickets. I had to continuously remind myself that it was a simple process, and that I would get there, one way or another.

After passing through security and waving goodbye to my smiling parents on the other side, I felt a rush of excitement. This was really happening. I had just begun my journey as an independent student in a foreign country. Miraculously, I boarded the right plane at the right time and was on my way to a layover in London. It was a smooth flight, but my thoughts couldn’t have been more turbulent; every ten minutes I bounced back and forth between being purely ecstatic and feeling depressingly unprepared.

One layover, a delay, and an unsatisfying sleep later, I had arrived in Paris. I, however, only got to the baggage claim at noon, which was when my group had planned to leave from a cafe in the airport. This was when the stress really settled in. Could I catch them if I moved quickly? Would I have to take a cab and try to explain, in French, where I needed to go? What if I didn’t find my group once I got to the hotel? Naturally, I attempted to find the group at the cafe, praying they would leave later than they had planned. This lead me to my first, and most unpleasant, French interaction yet.

I have never encountered pleasant airport information personnel before, but the one I met my first day was by far the least helpful of them all. Adhering my promise to myself to speak in French to every new person I met, I approached the woman at the desk with every intention of asking her where to find the cafe in French. But for some reason, she seemed to find me utterly repulsive and stared me down as if the information desk was her territory, and she was not to be disturbed. Entirely unnerved, I tried to speak to her in French, but instead of asking where the cafe was, I asked if she spoke English. If the way she looked at me before was bad, it was nothing compared to the look on her face now.

In the end, the woman was of no help at all, and I ended up taking a cab and finding my group without a hitch. But don’t let this reinforce any stereotypes of the French being snooty towards Americans; everyone else has been perfectly nice!

Emily McGovern can be reached for commented at [email protected].