Katherine Gurda, International Internship Program: Paris Summer 2024
Overall my daily life throughout the program stayed pretty constant. Breakfast was provided by the homestay and for me it was half a baguette that I could eat with jam, butter or plain. Every weekday I had work from 9:30-5:30. Some days I worked remotely but the majority of the days I went into the office. The days that I went to the office I would do my work in my office for the whole time. I had my own office for the majority of the time. For a couple weeks there was another girl who worked in the office with me and she was really nice. It was great though to have the office to myself sometimes. It allowed me to take a breather when needed and I move around a lot so I wasn’t bothering anyone else. Everyday we had an hour to an hour and a half lunch break. We would usually eat in the break room but sometimes we would go to a restaurant or if it was really nice we would eat in a park. After we finished eating we would play cards or different games for the rest of our break. If I worked remotely I would sometimes do it from my apartment and other times I would meet up with some of the other Americans doing the program and we would work at a cafe. After work I usually met up with the Americans and we would go to dinner, shop or do various activities. We met most days and our favorite activity was to meet and watch the euros. We were all doing homestays so we couldn’t go to each other’s houses so we would watch it at restaurants. Often I would meet with the other girl who went to Pitt and we would just sit in front of the Eiffel Tower and talk. Most days after work we would explore different areas of the city, visit places, or go to gardens to read. The majority of weekends we went on different trips. Not everyone went to all of these but the places I went with the other Americans included Nice, Aix en Provence, London, Tours, Mallorca, and St Gilles. I would budget by not staying in expensive places and taking the trains everywhere. The places we went for the most part weren’t expensive. It was very easy to want to spend a lot but overall I spent the amount I expected to.
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