Finding the daily grind in Paris a little depresso

After living in Paris for two months, I think it’s safe to say I have absolutely everything I need. Well, everything except easy access to a good cup of coffee.

Don’t get me wrong — there are plenty of cafés here in Paris. In fact, you can’t walk down a single street without spotting at least one bustling café or brasserie (that’s the French word for brewery, but they’re basically small restaurants which often serve coffee too). But while in the U.S. one can find a casual café to grab a quick cup of coffee or do some homework for hours on end, such establishments are a little harder to spot in Paris. For starters, having your laptop open in a café, unless you’re in a one made explicitly for working (of which there are few), isn’t exactly commonplace. Neither is ordering coffee to-go (or emporter, as they say in French). And for constantly working, constantly caffeinated students, like myself, this poses a problem.

I’ll admit it — I’ve definitely sought out the Paris equivalent of Nature’s Brew and Ground Zero-type study cafés that all USC students are used to. There aren’t too many of them here in Paris, but when you discover them (I’ve found four), you realize they all have one thing in common: they’re always filled with foreigners. They’re mostly study abroad students who, like myself, just want to find a little taste of home as they attempt to transcribe their nineteenth century French literature homework. As one of my fellow café-goers loudly observed, “This place is expat-central!”

It’s not surprising that expatriates — especially students — would be drawn to places that remind them of home. But if my study abroad experience (and my frequent trips to the expat cafés) has taught me anything, it’s that there’s something to be said for weaning oneself off the subtle reminders of home while abroad. Though major challenges such as language barriers, new cuisine or different fashion are to be expected in a new country, sometimes the most difficult habits to break are the smaller things, like remaining quiet in the queue (or even using the word queue) and enjoying your coffee at a café rather than sprinting off with it to class.

Nevertheless, though I might not be enjoying my coffee in the same way I did back home, I’ve come to appreciate it an entirely different way. Now, coffee isn’t just a morning Coffee Bean run to get me through my 8 a.m. class or a Ground Zero All Nighter to get me through an assignment. Now, it’s just coffee for coffee’s sake — and I don’t mind at all.