Episode 18 - Recovery Weekend
Volleyball party near the Eiffel Tower, Thanksgiving, and catching up on sleep!
After a week of studying and late nights, it seemed my body needed a rest.
So I slept for 14 hours straight on Saturday, went on a run, and had a great dinner with friends. What else do you really need?
Enjoy :)
Saturday 11/11/2023
When I found out yesterday that I was no longer going to Lille this weekend, I was a bit stumped about what I was going to do. I hadn’t been in Paris for the weekend for a really long time, and was considering going on a bike ride or museum during the day.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to decide what to do during the day since I woke up at 5:15 pm to the sun setting outside and my sister calling me.
14 hours of sleep is a new personal record for me. It has been a while since I’ve been this well-rested.
It was also so strange that it was dark outside not from it being so early, but because it was so late. My mind was kinda broken from it but in a really good way.
I talked to my sister for an hour while cleaning my apartment. She was off on a run in SF, which inspired me to go on a run myself. I was planning for a big bike ride today but that idea clearly was vetoed by the darkness.
So I went on a run instead!
I did my beloved 7 km loop to the Bois de Vincennes, around the lake, then back home. The park was completely dark and the lack of light pollution was absolutely lovely. Turns out, the ducks and swans swim on the lake. I always thought they slept on land!
I called the ducks “Les Quacks”.
At 2 am in the morning, I received a phone call from a number and then a corresponding text that told me it was my interviewer at BCG. I called him back, and turns out,
I GOT THE OFFER!! Oh my!
It was my third time applying and my second time interviewing for this exact internship position and I finally got it.
I was just so proud of myself and all the hard work I’d put in literally since literally March.
I didn’t get the official offer yet (waiting for that next week from the recruiting team), so I’m not celebrating 100% just yet, but my oh my, it is so exciting and relieving to be done at last.
I called Mama and Papa right away to tell them and they were super excited and proud! My mum is already looking at tickets to come visit me in Seattle, lol.
I called Micah, Tatiana, and Simon after as well to thank them for all their help and support over the last few months with recruiting, too. Y’all are the best!
Tatiana, it was such a pleasure to be in your consulting boot camp. Without it, there is no way I would’ve made it. You are the best :)
I walked over all cheesed-up (smiling) to meet up with the gang for dinner. We went to Bouillon, which is very well-known for having cheap, high-value, yummy food.
So well-known, in fact, that we waited an hour and a half to get in in the longest line I have ever witnessed in my entire life. To be fair, we did have a party of 12.
I was super excited to tell everyone about my getting the BCG offer, and proceeded to get hugs from everyone for the next 5 minutes. If I’m being honest, I was more excited about getting hugs from everyone than getting the BCG offer. I love hugs and my friends so much. :)
I also feel such a profound feeling of self-pride that I got the offer and all the hard work paid off. It was great to share with everyone, but I was just so content with myself for getting done that which I had worked toward for so long. I don't even feel the need to make a LinkedIn post about it because I have all the validation I need internally. Wow.
Bouillon was delicious, and we all had 3-course meals. Me, I got escargot, steak and fries (much to the chagrin of Emma, the vegetarian sitting next to me), and a chocolate mousse cake for dessert! The high value was no joke! The food was cheap!
We left around 1:30 am and went our separate ways. What an absolutely amazing dinner with everyone!
Sunday 11/12
I woke up around 11:30 (I could get used to this!) and went out into the wild (outside on rue du Faubourg St. Antoine) to look for an open boulangerie.
There were none open, as it was Sunday.
Good thing humans don’t need to eat on Sundays.
I eventually found one that was open, and got a yummy pain au chocolat and butter croissant. Then I got groceries at Monoprix.
The croissant and pain au chocolat were YUM! And with a nice cup of coffee?
Give that bad boy a chef’s kiss.
I headed over to my beloved Le Pain Quotidien (fyi, pain means bread in French) and met Annabel and Molly. I was blogging my heart out for 3 hours and Molly was getting her mind blown by the wonders of my iPad and GoodNotes. She was using my iPad for her work and was having an absolutely wonderful time.
To be fair, iPads and GoodNotes are amazing things. Those two things have single-handedly improved my efficiency by so much, it’s crazy. I could not recommend those two together more. Goodnotes and Apple, I would love to be your ambassador. That would be so much fun!
Writing in this café is such a lovely experience. I cannot recommend it higher.
And this whole staying in Paris for the weekend thing? I could not recommend it more! I am having such a great time chilling and relaxing with great company. Good thing I didn’t go to Lille, lol!
After working some more with Annabel and Molly in the cafe, I headed home to drop off my things, then met Annabel and Molly at a pop-up vintage store in the Marais.
The clothes were cute but mostly for women, so we headed over to another store where Annabel had previously seen Channing Tatum.
We didn’t see Channing Tatum, nor did any of us get any clothes. It was lovely talking to Molly, though, while Annabel was brutally criticizing herself while trying on new outfits.
What a legend, she is!
We all walked over to the République station, where I said bye to Molly and Annabel.
Molly, it was so lovely to meet you!
I then walked over to Joe’s while calling Sanketh, my tour guide homie, from back home. He had just come from a concert at Dodger Stadium, and was going back the next day for the second performance. How exciting!
At Joe’s, we just chilled for a bit. He called his mum, I called mine, and we ate raw pasta at Joe’s insistence. Around 8:30, we went over to Emma’s to meet her, Alex, and Ben for pizza at a lovely local shop. The vibes were great, but I dipped for a solid 45 minutes to catch up with my sister on the phone.
She wants to learn Mandarin and get better at playing poker. She’s one ambitious person, that’s for sure!
I then FaceTimed Albert from my Boy Scout troop to help him out with his personal insight questions for the UC application deadline that’s coming up in a few weeks. It’s pretty insane to me that Albert’s applying to college now, because I remember when he was super young and just starting Scouts.
Thank goodness I don’t need to apply to college again. That was brutal.
The pizza dinner was delicious. Massive pies, delicious cheese, and water pitchers in the shape of the fish.
We then migrated over to Emma’s apartment, where we drank tea from massive teacups and had some great convos. The teacups are so massive, in fact, that they’re basically just bowls with handles.
Drinking from that bad boy is a two-handed operation!
We all dipped home around 11:30, and I walked back in about 20 minutes while drying my umbrella.
Monday 11/13
I woke up and chilled in my bed while reading some Time magazines that I had borrowed from Emma the night before. I finished the Time magazine, then Vélibed over to Rose Bakery to do some work and read my labor economics lecture slides. Those were some interesting slides, but for some reason I couldn’t comprehend the material.
And why Rose Bakery, you ask?
Cuz Joe works there, and I wanted to see my beloved Joe in his natural environment! Joe serving me was quite a strange power dynamic, but he kept bringing me free cookies, so that was quite nice. :)
I biked over to the Pantheon around 2 to meet up with Sapir, my group partner in my labor economics class. We discussed who would do which parts of the homework, then she headed back inside the library. There was a long queue to get in, which was so strange to me because I’d never seen a line for a library before.
At UCLA, you just walk in.
That’s the advantage of being part of the largest academic library in the entire world, I guess!
After chatting with Sapir, I biked back toward Sciences Po to meet with Emma and get lunch with her. We went to the University Cité campus right near Sciences Po, which was quite more majestic than Sciences Po. Good thing all students get to get in!
Mondays mean fencing, so I then biked (again) to the fencing area. We were fencing in pool groups to determine our class’s rankings, and guess who won?
If you guessed me, well done! It was indeed me!
It seems that fencing has come quite naturally to me. Twas’ a fun time. :)
I walked back to Rose Bakery after fencing while calling my sister, and then met up with my Romanian friend Iorgus while getting more free cookies with Joe. Iorgus explained to me how European policy research papers are written (he has written a number of them himself!) and he briefly explained the history of the Balkans to me.
What an incredibly rich and diverse history and region. I can’t wait to visit it one day.
That entire conversation was super interesting and I learned a ton. Iorgus is incredibly smart and I can’t wait to see where his career takes him; his mind is sharp as a blade.
After our lovely talk, we walked over to Sciences Po and parted ways there.
There was a super cool event at Sciences Po today — a guest lecture by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate! The laureate was Maria Ressa, who won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her journalism in the Philippines. It was incredible to hear her speak about her career and learn more about the industry, especially in the context of autocratic countries.
The fact that I have the privilege to attend institutions like UCLA and Sciences Po that put on these kinds of events is amazing to me. How lucky I am!
I even briefly spoke to Ressa afterward, then worked in the library for a bit until Joe’s class ended and we biked over to my neighborhood. Joe was finally free and ready to try my beloved Urban Grill, and let’s just say he lost his Urban Grill kebab virginity that day.
Joe loved his falafel kebab (I would’ve been very disappointed otherwise) and I got my 10th stamp on my Urban Grill rewards card! That makes the next kebab free! HOORAY!
We went back to my apartment after, where we chilled for about an hour and listened to some great music, especially “Great Escape” by Tom Misch. What a vibe.
I officially signed my BCG offer letter with Joe, and honestly, he seemed more excited about it than me. It was very strange to have finally gotten the offer after all the hard work and years of effort. It was strange, yet tremendously satisfying. I have done it. Truly reached the pinnacle of what consulting club students aim to achieve.
Let’s hope I enjoy this internship! Regardless, it will be a great summer in Seattle. I can’t wait to be there. The office is going to be gorgeous and this city will be fantastic.
I need to make sure I find something fun to occupy my time at UCLA now that I’m not so focused on recruiting. I’m considering learning to play the ukulele.
We shall see what happens!
Tuesday 11/14
I woke up extremely exhausted and decided to skip International Finance class for the sake of preserving my ability to function the rest of the day.
After I woke up a few hours later, I went on a short run, bought some soap, ate breakfast, and met up with my two potential future roommates back at UCLA to have a vibe check.
I loved them so much. I would love to room with them!
Besides being just super chill, they were incredibly interesting and passionate about many things. Luke’s hand gestures in particular were mesmerizing. I can already imagine the great conversations we’d have and the fun adventures we would go on together.
Let’s hope it works out!
I biked over to the Sciences Po area to have lunch with Sara, the wonderful Swiss girl I had met the week before. I loved the lunch, the conversation we had, and the vibes. We did have lunch at Au Savignon, one of my favorite cafes in Paris and the place were I first felt like I was truly in Paris all those months ago.
I’m still planning on seeing Sara next week. We shall see how it goes!
After lunch, I walked over to the Pantheon and hit a pretty church along the way (Église Saint-Sulpice). I’d visited before with my orientation group at the end of August, but wanted to go back inside and check it out now that I had some free time.
I proceeded along to the Pantheon, and found this really cool National Geographic by the Luxembourg Gardens that showed photos of extreme athletes during extreme athlete things.
I think it would be so cool to have pictures of me doing those extreme things one day.
The Pantheon itself was amazing and a great place to visit. Free admission for students, and some of the grandest architecture I’ve seen in Paris. What was especially cool was that the Pantheon is where a lot of famous people are entombed, including Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Louis Braille (who invented Braille reading for the blind), and Marie and Pierre Curie. It was honestly so cool to see their tombs. Absolutely wicked!
I finished up the Pantheon around 3:30, and went to the fancy library at Saint Genievere nearby. I called Tatiana while waiting in the long line (the same one I couldn’t believe people waited in literally the day before) and tried to do some work with Emma and Joe, who were already studying there.
No work got done on my end, so we left to get coffee and croissants. Now that was a much better idea. It was time for me to head to French class, so I dipped and walked over to Sciences Po super quickly.
So quickly, in fact, that my Apple Watch asked if I was on a run. Nice!
French class was aight, I presented about my hometown but not super well. It was really cool to hear about where my classmates are from. It turns out that one of them is also from Antioch!
Antioch, Turkey.
Like the original Antioch. The biblical Antioch. What a small world!
I biked home quickly after class while calling Mama, and chilled for a bit in my apartment while waiting for dinnertime.
Dinnertime meant meeting up with Emma at the Urban Grill. Finally, she would try the wonders of the best kebab shop in the world!
Emma is moving into my apartment after I leave as she’s working in Paris next semester, so she needed to test out if Urban Grill is good enough for her veganism.
I’m happy to report that it is! She absolutely loved it. Though apparently it makes her gassy, lol.
A small price to pay for salvation.
She did not love the fact that she has to write an advanced law paper, but that is a problem for tomorrow.
My kebab was free because it was my 11th kebab. The fact that it was free made is tastier than any of the other kebabs I’ve ever had at Urban Grill. I was super proud of myself for having eaten enough kebabs to warrant getting a new one. That is hard to do, I reckon!
Emma and I chilled in my apartment afterward and together (though she did a solid ~95% of the work, I just found the remote) we set up my TV. I had never turned it on before, but Emma wanted to make sure she had it for when she moved in.
Basically, she wanted to make sure that the TV that would soon be hers worked.
It did, and we confirmed it by watching The Tourist (set in Venice), starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. The movie was ok, but the company and vibes were 10/10. :)
Wednesday 11/15
I woke up at 10:30 and chilled for a bit before vélibing to the Marais to meet up with Emma for a nice morning coffee.
The bike was great, the velib was great, the coffee was great, Emma’s nails were great.
Great vibes overall! These morning coffees at nice cafes are lovely!
But my espresso was only 2 euros, but her massive cup was 7. Wowzers.
Wednesday means Eliana tutoring, so I biked to northern Paris to spend time with her and continue teaching her English. She was super excited to see me again, and I was so proud to see that she can make paper airplanes from scratch all by herself. She has memorized all the steps, how crazy! She will be an absolute menace in class, I can’t wait.
We played some checkers, then sang Disney movie songs while reading the lyrics from the TV. My rendering of “I Have A Dream” from Tangled is a force to be reckoned with. That is my favorite Disney song, and I know it by heart. There was a phase of my life where I would listen to that song for hours a day!
After tutoring Eliana, it was time for one of the most highly anticipated event of my study abroad in Paris: Thanksgiving!
In particular, it was the Thanksgiving Dinner for the alumni of American universities in Paris. Norma Jr., my landlord, good friend, and dental hygienist’s daughter, was one of the organizers, and so I was able to be one of the volunteers for the event. The dinner was at École Militaire, the military school near the Eiffel Tower (basically French West Point), and they rented out a super nice ballroom for the event.
My job was to check people in and take their coats, and it was a surprisingly fun time. I found it tremendously interesting that I could tell pretty immediately how wealthy someone was by the quality of their coat. I myself dressed quite fancy, and was wearing Ben’s extremely fancy coat that he let me borrow all those weeks for my interviews.
The other volunteers were super cool too — one is on exchange in law school to study energy law, and was telling me all these stories about how she and her intern class were wined and dined in DC over the summer before getting full-time offers.
So basically, like the show Suits.
The dinner was super delicious, and the company at the table — Jimmy (American) and Christina (French) who had lived in the US together for a number of years before moving to Paris together. What a lovely couple.
After the dinner, I talked with a Berkeley Law alum there would had studied in Beijing, Berkeley, and now in Paris, all in law. She just loves learning and was telling me about all the places she had traveled to — all around China, the US, and Europe.
There was also a side quest when she worked in Uganda. Wild.
She was just super excited about life and tremendously curious. She was impressed about me knowing about the gaokao, the Chinese entrance exam for university.
Having Chinese exchange student friends at UCLA seems to have come in handy, it seems!
What a lovely conversation it was with her! I hope to have her curiosity when I am her age. :)
On the way out the door, I met a Russian girl who had just recently graduated from MIT and had done a bunch of hiking in Colorado. Good stuff.
I took the train with Norma Jr. back home, and told her how I tell everyone her name is Norma Jr., even though her name is actually just Norma (her mom is Norma too). Emma (who will be moving into her apartment) was completely shocked when I told her Norma’s name did not actually have a jr. in it, and Norma Jr. thought that was hilarious.
Good thing I warned Emma, lol.
Along the way to the train, I decided that I wanted to bike home on Rue de Rivoli, Joe and I’s favorite road in Paris. I got off near the Opera, just to find out that the gang was meeting for pints across the river.
Instead of Rivoli, I biked across the river to meet them, with a lovely route along the Seine. Everyone was super excited to see me, and I got a lot of compliments of my outfit and amazing jacket.
I’m not sure they knew it was Ben’s, but I’m not exactly gonna correct them.
A lovely pint with them, and a lot of excitement about Berlin this weekend. We can’t wait!
On the bike ride home, I called Simon to catch up, and he was super hyped about BCG even though I told him like 3 days ago, lol. He is more excited about it than me. What an amazing guy!
Thursday 11/16
I woke up surprisingly well rested and decided to try taking the bus to class today.
Never taking the bus again.
It took forever, and I found myself consistently thinking how much faster it would’ve been if I had just biked instead.
On the bright side, it was pouring rain, so being in the dry bus was nice. I guess I’ll end up taking the bus if it’s pouring like that again in the future.
French class was a big W today. Tremendously interesting class, and my questions and grammar were on point. Matias presented about Vienna, and I successfully asked him a question about fishing in the Danube River in French.
Turns out he’s been fishing in the Danube, but has never caught a fish. Yikes.
I went to St. Thomas to buy food and talked to the cashier lady for a bit. Someone in line even complimented me on my French. Nice!
I randomly thought about whether it was possible to get merch from the Crous (student cafeterias in Paris). All the workers there have Crous merch, and it’d be sick to wear some around campus.
Anyway.
I saw Iorgus in line, so we chatted for a bit.
THEN
I saw Amelia (fake British girl), so we all walked over to a table together and chatted for a bit. Turns out, Amelia really likes being referred to as the fake British girl because it reminds her of the Normandy/Brittany trip where we first met and is a great conversation starter to boot.
Amelia went to Lille with Tim (resulting in me getting kicked off the same trip), and turns out, she now has a boyfriend (in Tim). HOW EXCITING!
Glad to see Tim finally got his shit together.
I was tremendously happy for her, and found it hilarious how we both ended up having great weekends — me in Paris, catching up on sleep and hanging with friends, her getting cuffed in northern France.
She told me Lille itself was only an ok city though. Looks like not going on that trip was definitely a blessing in disguise!
Thursday means Czech lunch, so I met up with Magdalena for our weekly ritual. She showed me the Czech center right near Sciences Po, then we headed to a nice cafe near Sciences Po. I got a burger Benedict egg thing for breakfast.
It was an interesting choice, but no need to get it again.
My conversations with Magdalena are always so hilarious. I was telling her how Americans piss freedom, and she was like, “Really?!”. Amazing. Just like for my history teacher, I have become the personification of America herself. Our weekly catch-ups are something I look forward to every week.
Unfortunately, it turns out her apartment has black mold. And she smokes cigs.
Not good.
After our lovely lunch, I headed to international finance class but I wasn’t really able to focus.
So I instead polished up my LinkedIn, worked on this blog post, and read my core readings for my upcoming history class.
History class was interesting, and it was great to be the American punching bag for my professor again. In the next few weeks we’re talking about Britain and France during the Cold War, and I will somehow sneak in that my family is from Belarus and Russian was my first language.
That’ll give him an identity crisis, that’s for sure.
After class, I dipped to the metro in the pouring rain to head south.
And I mean south south.
We had a volleyball game against the polytechnic engineering school, and their campus was about 15 kilometers south of the Parisian center. So in woop.
I took the metro to the train, and the train to the bus, and the bus to the campus. I met up with my teammate Carol on the bus, and we had a great time getting to the gym!
That gym was the nicest gym I have ever been to in my entire life. The engineering campus was just like a campus in America, with massive lecture halls, soccer fields, dorms, everything. It felt like home.
We warmed up well but only had 6 players, since most of my teammates had class during the game time and weren’t able to leave to the very southernly campus.
So we played with just 6 players.
I’d say we held our own, but we did lose that game. They were definitely the better team. I felt I did ok, not my finest playing, but it was still a ton of fun and I was passing pretty well. I was put as middle, which was a very new and strange position for me.
Middle is incredibly difficult. Especially if you’ve never played it before. I got only about 2 blocks.
We lost in three sets and made 15 and 18 points in the first and second sets. No need to talk about the third one. We were winning for the first half of the second set, though!
I watched a bit of the handball game after, and then as teammates, we all walked back to the bus station. It honestly felt so nice to feel like part of a team again, cuz I haven’t really felt that on a sports team since playing volleyball in high school. We were cracking jokes, talking shit, laughing a lot. Great times.
On the bus ride back (that took forever), some random guy was playing 2048 on his phone and had one square at 65,536. That must’ve taken forever to get there.
I called Mama on the train back to Paris, and then my teammates successfully convinced me to come to the huge Sciences Po party that night.
I wasn’t planning on going because I had to leave for Berlin the next morning at 7:16 am from Gare du l’Est and wanted to be well-rested, but my logic was overruled by their earnest urging.
Going to that party was an excellent decision.
We got pizzas and alc on the way to Elisa’s apartment (Elisa is our teammate on the girl’s team) and we all pregamed there. Carol taught me how to open beer bottles like a German, and I was chatting with Elisa, Carol, and Antoine for most of the pregame while everyone else was playing a card “game” while rapidly speaking in French. What a crazy language.
Halfway through, I biked to Ben’s apartment just a ways away to give him my Sciences Po card. His friend is in town for the weekend and they’re trying to go to a museum, so he needed my ID so that they can get in for free cuz apparently we look alike. I chatted with Ben for a bit, and it was honestly such a great time. Ben is an amazing person, great friend, and just an all-around fantastic lad.
I made it back to the pregame, where we chilled for a bit more before heading to the nightclub by the Eiffel Tower. The venue was amazing, the queues to get in were long, I successfully convinced my bouncer friend to let me in for free because I wasn’t able to get a ticket online under the condition that I buy 20 euros worth of drinks inside (which I would’ve done anyway), danced with Elisa and my teammates for most of the night, and left at 5:30 am.
What a crazy night, and the end to a crazy week. Berlin will be awesome!
Pictures from Gibbles’s amazing film camera that came in this week:
