Bonjour & Welcome to my blog!
To all the lovely people reading my blog who don't know me, let me start off by introducing myself! My name is Stephanie Mertens and I am a rising junior at Saint Michael's College, a small liberal arts college located in Colchester, Vermont. Born and raised in the D.C. metro area, I decided to spend my four years of college up in the beautiful state of Vermont. Trust me, I have loved every moment of it but, now for the next five months I'm going back to my city girl ways as I live and study in Paris, France!!
I am majoring in political science and minoring in Media Studies. (Hopefully, this whole blogging thing will come in handy one day with this minor since I spent the past two days trying to figure it out!) In Paris, I will be part of Arcadia University's College of Global Studies program. Through this program I will be studying at the American Graduate School in Paris and taking classes with Alliance Française. I chose the home stay option and have been assigned a french family located in the 16th arrondissement right near the Seine. I took french for five years in middle & high school, but we'll see how well I remember it once I actually get over there.
For those of you wondering why I chose to study in Paris (besides the obvious reasons!) , let me share a little bit about my younger years. Growing up with two older brothers, I was often found by myself playing with dolls. One in particular was Madeline, a spunky and adventurous ginger who grew up in Paris and attended a girl's boarding school. I had the Madeline doll, all her books and even a Madeline themed birthday party where we got the see the movie in the theatre--talk about obsessed.
 |
| Madeline 15 years later...her hair's a little messy and she's lost her mary-janes but she still looks as young as ever! |
As well all know, time passes on and we grow old of our dolls and toys, but for me I always remembered little Madeline and her stories of Paris. Now flash forward to my junior year of high school. My oldest brother, Andrew, was studying abroad in Switzerland and for our spring break my family decided to meet up with him over in Europe--Paris to be exact! It was a quick trip of about four days filled with sights and stories that would be remembered for a long time, but I knew that I had to go back again sometime soon. I knew I wanted to spend more time seeing all that Paris has to offer. So jump forward four years from that trip, and now its 2013 and I am about to live out the french lifestyle for five months. I have been approved through Saint Mike's to study abroad, accepted through Arcadia University's program, and I have an appointment on Tuesday to apply for my French Visa! It's all coming together and I can happily say I am excited and very nervous about it all.
I hope that through this blog I can share my adventures, stories, and pictures of this once in a life time opportunity that I will soon be embarking on! Thanks for reading!
Best,
Steph
