In January 2025, I fell in love. Not with a person but with a city: Paris, France. From January to May of 2025, I lived in the 15th arrondissement of Paris as part of my Junior Year Abroad (JYA). When my semester of fresh baguettes came to an end, I returned to Vassar for my senior year. I was excited about senior year, but it was a difficult goodbye. Little did I know that just over a year from when I first arrived in Paris, I would return to play the role of a tour guide for my roommate Luke during our spring break trip. With an itinerary and my skills from being a Vassar summer tour guide, we headed to the City of Love.
We arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on a Friday night, after spending the first part of break at a wedding in India, and immediately headed towards our Airbnb in the 19th arrondissement, near Belleville. Our street was lined with Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants, highlighting the diversity of the immigrant-built neighborhood. After climbing four flights of stairs with our heavy luggage—Paris is notorious for rarely having elevators—and already jetlagged due to traveling from India, we crashed.
On our second day in Paris, we woke up and headed straight for a boulangerie, and I was eager to introduce Luke to the delicious pain suisse. Spoiler: he loved it. One of my favorite parts about living in Paris was the access to all the fresh food and baked goods. Boulangeries are a cross between a cafe and a bakery, with options ranging from classic croissants to the more extravagant Paris-Brests. The next stop was the Musée d’Orsay. This is my favorite museum in Paris, with its collections of Monets and remnants of the Gare d’Orsay train station. At 10 a.m., there was no line. Lines at museums were something I did not have to consider when I was abroad. If there was a long wait, our professor would simply lead us to a specific entrance for students and programs. I took a sketching class, and we often came to museums to sit amongst the crowds and create our own little quiet space to sketch the art around us. This time, with Luke, I showed him where I would usually sit to get the best angles, and the artworks I spent the most time in front of when I was alone.
After we both picked up some souvenirs from the museum gift shop, we began a walk that would have us in bed at 9 p.m. I have never walked more than I did while I was abroad, so I knew that many walks would be a part of our trip. We walked over 11 miles through the Tuileries Gardens, past the Louvre Museum and along the Seine to another museum: Palais de Tokyo. We were not stopping here for an exhibition, but for the American-style iced lattes and the photobooth, one of the last of its kind with a film camera that casts visitors in black and white. After our time in front of the camera, we headed up the Champs Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe. My personal recommendation is to go to the Arc around 10 p.m., as it stays open until 10:30 p.m. The view at night feels like a secret bit of Paris, but it is still pretty magical in the daylight, too. For lunch, I treated Luke to the formulaire dejeuner, or lunch combo, where you can get a sandwich, beverage and dessert for 14 euros at most boulangeries. We took some more touristy photos to send to family and then we embarked on the long metro ride back to the Airbnb, where we showered and got in bed—quite the Saturday night in Paris. As I drifted into sleep under the warm duvet, I thought about how I spent the very first weekend I arrived for JYA. I had gone to three different clubs and consumed something too similar to absinthe… It is safe to say I now prefer the duvet.
The rest of our stay was spent taking more walks through parks, indulging in sweet pastries, visiting my favorite restaurants and even showing Luke where my homestay and classes were. Seeing Paris through my seasoned lens while also experiencing it all for the first time with Luke was a beautiful experience. I had changed a lot in the year since I had been there and the city had too. More restorations of Notre-Dame de Paris had been completed, an entire building next to my homestay had been erected, certain shops had closed and new TikTok-viral spots had claimed fame. Returning to Paris also meant I had a second chance to try things I did not have the chance to last year, such as the famous Café de Flore. Croissants definitely were not seven euros when Simone de Beauvoir ate there, but we did have a good meal and a perfect table for Parisian people-watching. As we approached the gate for our JetBlue flight back to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the familiar feeling of returning to the United States hit me. When they called our group number, I made a last-minute call to buy a sandwich from the Pret A Manger. It was no boulangerie, but I was not ready for the immediate transition from Paris food to airplane meals. I turned off my roaming data as I pressed play on “Paris” by The 1975. I sat back and closed my eyes as we took off. Leaving was much easier this time since I knew returning to Paris was not as impossible as it seemed when I left for the first time back in May of 2025. “But oh, how I’d love to go to Paris again” – The 1975.