Podcast 11: I hate the Easter long weekend, French house party and Parisian garage sales

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Arielle

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Podcast, Paris podcast, Paris flea market, Easter weekend, storytime, French people, moving, Paris, travel guide, paris travel guide, paris travel, study in France, live in France, live abroad, move abroad, move to France, living in Paris, paris lifestyle, Emily in Paris, international student

Bye have a good life hi guys welcome back to Monday Chit Chats if you can tell it is holiday Easter Monday here in France that’s why Jean is home but he’s going for a run this morning so that I can focus on filming this video this

Is my least favorite weekend in France I actually hate this weekend it’s just as as an expat as someone who is in France without her family it’s just the worst weekend for me just because I grew up with things like Easter Sunday and Easter hunts whether

You’re 5 years old or 20 years old and big family dinners and to come to France and have none of that is very hard like I I really miss my family on this weekend and we’ll get into how the French celebrate Easter a little bit later but

I remember my very first Easter in Paris it was an absolute nightmare I had just moved to Paris so I had absolutely no friends I had no connections here I knew no one and my exboyfriend and I had just broken up and up until that Easter I had spent all of

The other Easter with him or his family so I didn’t feel as alone as I did on my first Easter in Paris and I remember when I realized that it was going to be Easter weekend because it was the Friday before and I was at work you know

Chatting with the colleagues just you know excited for a general weekend but unprepared for the long weekend and then I heard people talking about how they were going to spend their long weekend where they were going what they had planned and I was just like no this is

Easter long weekend I have nothing planned I’m not going to see anybody I’m going to be all alone and it just like my heart sank and I ended up spending that first Easter weekend in an unfurnished apartment literally all by myself cuz like I said

My ex and I had just moved out of our old apartment we had broken up and yeah I I just remember going for a long walk in the bu bu on Eastern Monday and just crying like sobbing because I felt so alone and obviously things have changed

Like I’m not alone this Easter weekend I have Jaan and you know it’s it’s different but I still really do miss my my family on this weekend and um yeah so bear with me it’s a hard weekend but I hope you guys are having a good Easter

Monday a good holiday Monday if it’s a holiday where you are and if it’s not then just a good Monday in general uh let’s get to a little recap of last week I have some interesting things to talk about so Jean and I went to a parte last week a little French

House party and it’s so different what a a house party means now in like my late 20s versus my early 20s and in University when House Parties were like these massive things where the whole neighborhood is invited and it’s drinking and drinking games and just getting up to Shenanigans and now House

Parties mainly consist of small groups of friends and a bottle of wine and a nice little dinner and board Gam so different but it was so much fun Jo and I I feel like sometimes we get into a bit of a habit of spending our sorry

When I smile if you guys see me like do this it’s cuz when I smile so much and I’m genuinely so excited to be doing these podcasts um I cry like I have tears that leave my eyes and I can feel them so I’m not crying because I’m sad

Um but yeah sometimes John and I get into these ruts of spending our weekends in or not going out as much and so it was really nice to have a social Friday especially with our friends the the two the two main people we knew at this party was Alex and David

It was actually Alex who hosted the party and those are my friends from basketball if you’ve been following the basketball sagas um and I hadn’t seen them in quite some time just because for about six weeks our gym had sort of been taken away from our basketball Club so

We just didn’t see each other as much so it was really nice it was aming that Alex hosted this little party and uh I’ll put a picture on the screen so you guys can get the Vibes but I did not expect this Alex made a or he set up a

Fondue we had this bowl literally like this big of a bowl of cut up steak or beef and he had an oil fondue and so we enjoyed the Fondo and fries and everybody brought little snacks for the Appo we had beer and drinks and stuff

And yeah it was just nice cuz it was a small group we just had a good laugh catching up and talking and uh we played codeen names which was very fun as well and the only sort of challenge I guess for me not even a challenge but just you

Know an interesting point I guess is that as you guys know I mentioned last but I’m kind of on this like weight loss Journey this health kick and when Alex was telling everyone to bring something to add to the Appo drink and a snack I knew immediately that Jean and I had to

Bring a huge Tupperware I’m talking like big tabware of every cut vegetable Under the Sun we made a really nice tuna cheese dip as well to go with it and um unfortunately we forgot it we forgot the vegetables at home so it was a little bit problematic for me because I knew

Whenever you go to a party and everybody like brings a little snack it’s it’s a given it’s a given what the boys are bringing they’re bringing chips or they’re bringing Pringles okay and sure enough I wish I had taken a photo because I walk into the living room and

On the table there’s at least 15 cans of Pringles in every color and every flavor you can think of and I was like damn I can’t believe we forgot the vegetables um but yeah it was honestly so much fun and uh it was nice to to see our friends

What else what else ah we had the time change my favorite time of spring I think it happened on Friday but yeah the clocks went forward an hour so yesterday night the sun was out until almost 9900 p.m. it’s just it was the best it’s the best

Feeling when the nights get longer in my opinion it’s just it just means that spring and summer well Spring’s already here but summer is around the corner um we also did some garage sales this weekend and I thought that’d be a great a great topic for me to rant about

Everybody talks so highly of Parisian garage sales and you know French garage sales I see so many Tik toks and like people suggesting and recommending that you go to a garage they’re called Brant in France but English garage sale or a flea market I guess as well

You could call it and the thing is brants are magical when you first come to Paris and it’s very fun to go through and look at all of the Antiques of French culture things that we don’t have in North America like it’s very fascinating to go through those things

But over time when you are living here and you’re actually looking to put things in your apartment and looking to decorate and looking to buy some of these older pieces and I don’t want to call them antiques because there’s just so many of them like everybody had every

Single one of these sellers has unique beautiful antique pieces and uh the thing is people are delusional people are delusional with their pricing and so yes it’s enchanting to look at it’s fun to visit as a tourist but yeah as someone who wants to buy things secondhand it’s so annoying

Because the people who are selling are not like you know the mom and pop sellers who are cleaning out their basement or the families that are getting rid of their children’s toys and clothes and stuff most people who purchase a stand because you have to buy

A stand at a BL it’s like 20 bucks but most people who set up a stand at a garage sell or a flea market are professional flea marketers okay they travel in these Vans with all of the items they’re selling and the goal for them is not just to make a little

Spending money but it’s to make to make money and it’s annoying because they just sell things for ridiculous prices I’ll give you a couple examples uh I’ll put I’ll put a picture on the screen I was looking for these glass green jars I’m holding it like it

Glass green jars and you can buy them brand new with lid and everything for1 that’s the price that I found them for in store and online 12 I go to a garage sale with a glass jar missing the rubber part of the lid so it’s not even airtight and the metal

Piece was rusted and I was like oh how much are you selling this for thinking that they would sell it for like €2 and then I would go and buy the rubber piece and the metal and the lid and all that and they wanted €1 and I was

Like you I could buy this for for 12 brand new and they were like their their answer to me was like okay we’ll go buy brand new I’m like what what who is buying this for 10 and then another one we saw this weekend we

Were at this this um yeah we were at this blal and we didn’t find anything that we were interested it wasn’t really what we were looking for we’re looking specifically for like um oldfashioned candelabra things so we can stick electric not electric um rechargeable light bulbs in them to use as decoration

Anyways we overheard this war woman pick up a water jug okay and it was the ugliest water jug I’ve ever seen if you can picture I want to say maybe from the 70s or 80s the brown porcelain the brown the brown ceramic looking materials yeah it was a

Duck out of that very ugly very Brown not something that I would put in my home and this woman picked up she’s like oh how much for this and he goes €20 €2 okay and then he changed his mind he probably came to a sense was like oh

That is a little ugly I don’t know who else is going to buy it and then he goes1 she’s like what and she put it down immediately and I was like thank goodness you put that down because like here’s the thing you could go and buy a

Beautiful duck water pitcher or just a nice looking water pitchure in in Ikea in a ma literally in any home design store for under1 15 and so to buy something like that second just I could talk about the subject for days but um even when it came to us okay like we are

Looking for uh we’re looking for vintage sconces vintage wall lighting and it doesn’t matter to us if the electrical of that like the wiring doesn’t work or anything because we won’t even be able to use it we’re going to put the chargeable light bulbs in them um but we’d like to buy them

Secondhand just you know for environmental reasons and for aesthetic reasons it’s better and people want more money than they cost like in the stores we bought this one light it was a shell light and it’s like a little glass shell mounted on brass hardware I guess and we bought it

For €60 I was like okay well before we unbox it before we set it up let’s see if we can find you know something secondhand and we found things that are similar for1 it’s like this is almost double what I’m paying full price in a store

So our our adventure at the garage sales this weekend did not go well I I don’t know I don’t always remember them being like this like I I I guess again it’s the it’s the enchantment I felt when I first came to Paris was going to these b

H and was just so amazed but it’s like when you look at the prices and when you look at the sellers as well like I said it’s it’s there’s just something kind of icky about people who are I don’t want to say trying to scam you but just like

Really like they’re not even their items for example oh my God sorry another story time but I bought my mom these lamp bures um they’re like these porcelain lamps that you put oil in and they send your home and you know typically the newer ones which are mostly made of

Glass are like 40 50 bucks but if you try and find them secondhand on lonan which is like the French version of Kijiji you can find them for like 10 bucks okay um because everybody everybody and their mother and their grandma and their aunt owns one owns

Seven of them and is trying to get rid of them so I went to this garage sale and I found this man who was selling like 15 different lamp brets and they were so beautiful and I was like this is what I’m bringing my mom home and so I

Asked him for the price he was like oh um you know 10 bucks for this one 15 for that one I was like okay that’s a great deal like I will I will buy four of them because that’s a great deal and then he was telling me how he got them and he

Had gone to an estate sale and he bought 200 of these lamps for €200 so he was marking the price up by 10 or 15 times and I totally understand the markup because there is work involved in going out and sourcing these antique items but um sometimes the prices just get a

Little bit ridiculous so that is my garage sale rent uh if you are interested in going to garage sales just to like look around and stuff they they are happening every single weekend Saturday Sunday in every single Alon small this weekend went to one in the 20th went to one in the 2nd

There was one in the 14th there was one in M mou they are just all over the place Springtime is the time to do garage selling and sometimes you can find good deals I have found good deals before um you do just have to sift through the you have to sift you you

Have to go through you have to sort out the professional garage sales sale the professional garage sellers versus you know the family that’s just there trying to make a couple bucks and actually selling their stuff for a fair price okay and I think this is the last

Topic before I get to your questions which are so good I’m so excited um is we tried planning our trips our trips we tried planning a trip this weekend because in May um France is known for the month of May because almost every single weekend you have one or two holidays which makes

Your work week go from 5 days to 3 days or 4 days and then they have what they call a p or Bridges so if you have a holiday on a Thursday for example a lot of yeah a Thursday a lot of people will

Take the Friday off and make it a 4 4 Day weekend so we were going through the PS in May and all of the holidays that Jean has you know because they’re holidays and he has time off work and so we thought we would do we initially

Thought we would do a road trip along the K we were going to rent a van uh to save money so we don’t have to buy hotels airbn restaurants and all that it has a kitchen inside and a fridge and stuff and we probably spent 5 hours

Planning this trip along the kod and so excited I’ve never done the full Cod and I’ve also never had a vacation in a camping car so I was just so excited and by the end of it we estimated that the price of this week-long vacation was going to be

About I don’t know between 2,000 and €2,500 which like realistically is not that much money to spend for a week-long vacation along the Cod it would be 2, 2,500 together so separate like 1,000 1,200 each um but it’s just not in the cards for us this year it’s just not in the budget

This year so we we didn’t end up planning it which is kind of sad but it gave us some good ideas for maybe next year if we if we budget and we have the room in our budget to go on a trip we’d really

Like to do that the thing is in April I think as of most countries April is tax season and typically I don’t really worry about taxes because the French system is much better than I want to say the Canadian system and also the American system from what I understand

Is that there’s no accountants there’s no doing your own accounting the government tells you this is what you earned this is what you should have paid because the TA taxes get deducted straight out of your paycheck but if you didn’t pay the those taxes out of your paycheck for whatever

Reason then the government would tell you okay you owe this much and typically you don’t owe anything because like I said the tax are taken out of your paycheck but there are cases like for example I think one year when I got a promotion at my old job my salary

Increased but they hadn’t changed the percentage of tax to be taken out of my paycheck so by the end of the year I owed something like €900 in taxes that they take out of your bank account over a 3-month period and because last year I was laid

Off I have no idea how that’s going to affect my taxes I don’t know if I’ll owe things I don’t know so I’m like I would rather not spend any money and that way if I have to pay anything extra in taxes then I don’t have to take out a loan to

Pay my taxes you know what I mean so um yeah it’s kind of just I I’m excited to get get through the month of April and to finish tax season and just not have to worry about that anymore but yeah okay that is it that is

All for my topics I don’t know if you guys can hear it I really hope you can’t but the people above me are moving their Furniture it’s very loud it’s very distracting you guys know me as soon as their sound I’m like can’t focus okay questions so the first question is from

Kate she says do you have any good quality natural skincare brand recommendations please Kate Kate I’m sorry to tell you I do not for a couple reasons the first reason is if it’s not broken broken if it’s not broken I don’t look for ways to fix it so generally speaking I think my

Skin is all good you know I I do the basics I have one serum I have one cream and one face wash and sunscreen and that’s what I use and I’m okay with my face and I I don’t want to add products for the sake of adding products I also

Think and I think like this for a lot of things in life like going to the gym for example I don’t want to start buying into something that I can’t maintain for the rest of my life so for the gym for example I don’t want to start going to

The gym and lifting weights six times a week because that’s not going to be sustainable for me if I become a mom if I move to a new country I don’t know life changes that’s not going to be sustainable what is sustainable is my love of sports so I do my physical

Exercise through Sports same goes for skincare I think that accessibility to products um longevity of products products are changing all of the time and cost of products are all three factors you have to consider I think when you’re switching over to sorry the sun just came out it’s so brighten my

Eyes when you’re switching over to a skincare routine because if you look at the prices there’s just no way that currently or in 10 years I can spend a hundred or hundreds of dollars on skinc care so I prefer to not even get into it if I don’t feel like I need

It I also did try the natural root so I used to make my own face cream I think you’d be very surprised at how easy it is to make a face cream because the main ingredient is water I mean it’s easy in terms of ingredients but like getting the mixture and getting

The the texture correct is a whole other story so I actually used to make my own products and I actually at one point wanted to open a open create a 100% natural skincare line I never got around to it because I don’t really have the

Time or money to invest in that yet but maybe in the future so I think you’d be surprised at how easy it is to make your own products I think that’s something you can look into too um but I also did try natural makeup natural skincare and natural Sun creams like mineral Sun

Creams SC Not Sun cream Sun sunscreen and I just didn’t like it I didn’t like the way it looked on my skin especially the mineral sunscreens I tried about 12 12 and it was just so much money trying all these different creams and none of them worked because they

Were either they had either too much color in them so my face would look orange or brown like it wouldn’t match my skin complexion or it would be paper white and no matter how much I massage it into my skin it would just literally

Make me look like a sheet of paper so I yeah it for me I I had I ended up choosing Aesthetics over over natural because I just I didn’t find that the the natural skincare was like was working for me so I unfortunately don’t have a brand to

Suggest to you but I do think if natural skincare is something that you’re interested in then I definitely would take the time to research some recipes truly it was when I was making my own lotions and stuff it was very affordable and very cost-effective so that’s what I would

Suggest um Kareem says Happy Easter thank you happy Easter to you too um do you ever speak in French with a local in France who responds back to you in English woo sometimes sometimes this happens and here’s the thing if I had a thick accent or if I didn’t have a good

Vocabulary I would kind of understand they were trying to be helpful to me but if I talk to a French person in French and my French is almost perfect okay like I it is the language that I have spoken for the past 7 years consistently on a daily basis so my

French is very good and so when I speak to someone in French and they assume I’m a tourist or I’m not French based on my appearance based on who I’m with and they just like switch into English and respond to me in English when I speak to them in French I

Absolutely don’t even acknowledge it I continue speaking in French and I will not respond in English because I think it’s rude I don’t think there’s any reason why someone should switch uh to speaking to me in English but I address them in proper French um

The the times that it does happen I will say like it does happen when I’m by myself don’t get me wrong that does happen sometimes but it’s more rare than when I’m with someone like my sister or a friend and were speaking English and then I turn to whichever French person

I’m talking to and I speak to them in French I think that that is good intention because they hear me speaking in English and they want to make things easier make things comprehensible so they switch to English so that does happen and I do understand that but I I

Always stick with the French I just I don’t know I I don’t know why I feel so passionately about it but yeah I’m in France I speak French all the time like I don’t I don’t feel like I need someone to switch in English for me to cop your

Head but it does happen H most of the time I think it’s well-intentioned the other time I don’t really know why when I’m by myself they to English maybe cuz I look I I don’t look French let’s get that I don’t look French my body type my

Face my clothes like when I wear leggings when I wear leggings people talk to me in English Okay Hilda says how do parisians celebrate Easter um probably in a much different way than Hilda I’m not too sure where you live but definitely in a different way from

The United States or from Canada I want to say North America in Canada at least like I said my childhood was filled with family gatherings and a big Easter dinner and Easter egg hunts and my Grandma bringing us these really special chocolates from the Canadian choler Laura seor

Um uh yeah that’s that’s my memory of Easter that’s what I plan to do with my family when I have a family in the future in France it’s definitely a lot less commercialized you don’t have Easter decorations you don’t have those plastic Easter eggs that you put

Chocolates in and do the Easter egg hunt um people don’t put as much work into the Easter egg hunts I would say there’s no like communal Easter egg hunt for the children you know whereas when I was a kid we would go to Downey’s farm and I

Have I still have m of this of going and seeing the animals and enjoying that day with my family and then a big Easter egg hunt as well and like trying to find the most chocolates possible that is absolutely not how Easter is celebrated in France it’s a long weekend so people

Definitely spend the weekend enjoying their time not necessarily with family like for example Jean I talked about going to see his parents for Easter and he was like I don’t know which just not a big thing in my family um it’s very different from mine like this weekend my

Whole family was at my mom’s house my Italian side of the family they had a huge Easter dinner and um that that type of family dinner is not really how Easter is celebrated here it’s more it’s more like you celebrate it where you’re living maybe with family

And they if they live in the same city and you might have a nice home-cooked dinner but nothing extrav an or extraordinary and again I I I don’t want to speak for all French people like I I’m terrified of someone coming in the comments be like that’s not how I

Celebrate I’m fren like I’m not speaking for all French people but just the reason why I feel like I have a good idea of how Easter is celebrated here is because I’ve studied here I’ve lived here for seven years I’ve you know had two serious boyfriends in France so I’ve

Spent Easter with their families like I think I have a good idea of how Easter is celebrated and like I said they celebrate it in the sense of they’re enjoying the long weekend it’s not necessarily a time for huge family celebrations and like this huge holiday

For the kids like you might have in Canada or North America um Fatima says hi Ariel when is your birthday and how are you planning to celebrate girl I saw this question and I was like oh my gosh sadness sadness so birthdays are a huge deal for

Me I have always made a huge deal my my birthday I don’t know why I don’t know why I think it’s because ever since I turned 18 I have spent my actual birthday away from family and so I think as a protective defense I’m like I need

To be surrounded by people on my birthday and I cannot feel alone that that’s always been how I’ve handled my birthdays and this year I think is the first year sorry my birthday’s in June um this year is the first year that I think I’m going to to

Spend my birthday alone I mean I’m going to spend it with Jaa but I’m not going to have a huge birthday party I’m not going to see my best friend which is so sad cuz her birthday is right before mine I’m not going to see my family I’m

Actually terrified for how my birthday is going to go this year but I don’t know the Vibes have been off this year this The Vibes have just been weird I’ve really been caught up in work caught up in this apartment and transforming it and uh obviously

Like I also have a very serious partner so a lot of my time I spend with Jean and so I haven’t I guess put in as much time and love as I would normally into friendships and again like I always say when you make friends abroad it’s just

So common that people come and go and that’s just how it is so this year I don’t think I’m going to have like a big birthday party a big friend celebration which is a little bit scary to me but I am happy that I get to spend it with Jaa

And we haven’t made any plans yet um we’ll see what we do but it’s definitely looming over my head and I’m I’m definitely a little bit nervous about about my birthday um my best birthday ever was my birthday 2 years ago I had just just

Joined or maybe it was 3 years ago two no it was 2 years ago I it had been one year since I joined my basketball team and I had become so close with everybody on that team it was just like it was insane how close we all

Were and so I invited them all to my birthday party and I had a bunch of other friends as well that I um had made if you remember Nikki panti so I I had this huge birthday party and I really wanted to go bowling so I dragged everybody out to like the far

Outskirts of Paris cuz that’s the only place that has huge bowling alleys and we spent the night bowling and having drinks and then we took the viibes like the bicycles I don’t know we probably rode them for 45 minutes to the bars in Paris cuz we were going from the

Outskirts to downtown Paris and we had to go through this forest and it was just like so funny it was the funniest birthday it was the funnest birthday I felt so loved on that birthday by all the people who had shown up and on top of it the basketball team

Had um they like my friends from the basketball team had pulled their money together and um just got me this amazing Collective gift and I think I cried honestly I I just felt so loved they ended up getting me this sweater that said um basketball princess I don’t know

How to translate like a princess on baset like yeah basketball princess and they got me a certificate to the SP they actually asked my best friend in Canada what I would like for my birthday CU they had met at another point in time and um she was like Ariel has scoliosis

She she has a bad back she love a massage I think I think that’s how that went um uh but yeah um I felt so loved on that birthday honestly and so it won’t be anything like that this year I think but that’s okay you know not every year has to be

Over the top but um yeah I’m nervous I’m definitely nervous for this year uh eie mhof says how are things on your Women’s Basketball team love that you keep playing oh my gosh I swear one day those girls are going to be my my best friends I only just joined

This team like maybe a month and a half ago but I think I’ve said before how supportive how kind how encouraging this group of girls is like I I’m the new girl on the team I came to them three quarters the way through the season they did not have to

Accept me on their team and they accept me with open arms and I could not be more grateful so I am still playing obviously I I practice twice a week and we normally have one game a week and what’s so different about this team is that the coach is also amazing

The players and the coach are all amazing and on the men’s basketball team I was absolutely neglected the coach was not very good not very organized um and he didn’t really help build your set of basketball skills and also because I was a girl on the

Team uh I wasn’t the tallest I wasn’t the strongest I couldn’t jump the highest and I really just got like kind of pushed to the side people I was I was wanted on the team because I have a great team spirit like I added that to

The team that was sort of my main selling point and like I said with my old basketball team we had really Built This Love and friend group but at the same time while that was a positive part of the old basketball team I was pushed the side I didn’t have a role nobody

Worked with me nobody nobody valued what I could bring to a team and I had really fallen out of love I couldn’t understand but I had fallen out of love with basketball um but when I joined This Woman’s team I am the tallest I can jump the highest and so I’m I’m back

To my love for the game that I felt before I joined the men’s team and really feeling like I’m in my element feeling powerful feeling strong feeling like I have something to add to this team so it’s honestly going really well I the last practice we had last week

Actually the coach and a couple girls came up to me they were like you have improved in the past month and a half you’ve improved so much because when I got to the team I was like I was like scared because the boys team nobody passed me the ball I wasn’t allowed to

Have the ball I uh wasn’t allowed to shoot it was like really I was not involved at all in the the game play and so it took me a while to get back into the swing of things and like to get back to my competitive basketball Edge and

Last week I I did really well and a lot of the girls you know told me that I had improved and like were really proud of me and stuff and just I’m telling you give it a year these girls are can be my best friends I can already tell I can already

Tell and I kind of want to link that with the next question which is from um KC r i e yelli KY I’m sorry you guys if you want when you put your questions leave your name that way I I I know your name um but she asks how to

Make new friends in Paris and there’s only one may one one way one way to make friends in Paris and I think this goes for friendships relationships any type of relationship that you value I think you build only one way because I’ve tried everything I’ve tried apps I’ve tried

You know meeting people in real life I’ve tried meetup groups and stuff I’ve I’ve really tried it all the only way to build a solid relationship a solid friendship is to build that with someone where you have a point in common and you have a reason you have something scheduled one or more

Times a week the problem with things like apps or meetup groups is that people have to take time out of their schedule to see you and you don’t you don’t see people consistently so maybe you see someone once every two weeks or once every eight days and it’s like this

Effort that you both have to put in and you have to figure out a meeting point and the problem with that is that it takes a very long time to build to build that relationship to build that friendship to know someone enough and so my my solution the way

That I think the most effective way I think for you to make friends in any new place Paris wherever is to join a sports team join a club volunteer you need to be involved in in something literally it could be anything where you are you have

It in your calendar and you go to that activity you go to that club you go to that event at least once a week and you see the same people minimum once a week and over time you you systematically and automatically build friendships and relationships with these people like

This hasn’t only been the case for me in basketball I mean basketball is where I met my friend group and my boyfriend okay like that is a testament to the effectiveness of team sports but I also do boxing and I’ve been boxing at this

New club for about 3 months now and I go twice a week and I see the same people twice a week and it’s not just the fact that you’re seeing these people it’s that you’re working together so basketball it’s a team sport you you’re learning everyone’s names you’re learning

Everyone’s habits you’re passing the ball and you’re working together for a common goal You’re Building confidence in each other you’re it’s a common goal boxing we’re sparring against each other you’re laughing you’re you know helping each other with technique you’re you’re physically close to each other and just overtime activities like

That build build the relationships and again because it’s something that you paid for or you signed up for and it is an event that reoccurs every single week it’s already in everybody’s calendar there’s no need to work around everybody’s schedule see if they can make it if they can come here if they

Can take the metro here if they want to go for dinner whatever it’s it’s paid for it’s booked in everybody’s calendar and it’s just such a way an easy way to to build connections with people the only other way that I would say this would work aside from joining a club a

Sport a hobby whatever is to have roommates because again roommates you see on a daily basis systematically you know and this can go good or bad like you can have good roommates that you get along with or you can have bad roommates that you really don’t get along with but

Again it’s a strategy for for doing something in life where you see the same people over and over and like the reason I feel so confidently about this is because I really have tried Facebook meetup groups I’ve tried Bumble and all of the girls that I’ve met off of bumble or Facebook

It’s on that they haven’t been nice girls or anything like that it’s just the the ultimate end to those friendships and the problems with those friendships is that it gets to a point where your lives maybe are so chaotic or you have so much going on that you don’t

See each other enough to build a connection and that’s just sort of the Friendship kind of crumbles um so yeah that’s my tip that is my number one tip and there’s so many ways like there’s so many things you can join um if you’re in Paris right now look at

The it’s called the mar the city hall of your AI small they often offer very affordable classes or courses a couple of my friends do dance classes others do sewing classes cooking classes and they’re very affordable and it’s just a really great way to meet French people to meet International

People to meet people as well who have a common trust with you all right that’s enough I need to stop can you tell I feel passionate about that okay last question Zoe Zoey says do an art guide oh man I would love to but I don’t feel confident in my art knowledge

History of Paris Paris activities 100% you you asked me a question I could I could talk to you for hours about the history the architecture all that of Paris but art is just just not a topic that I master it’s never been something that I’ve studied or learned enough about maybe in

The future but I just don’t feel like I have enough knowledge about art to make a guide but I’ll consider it I will consider it because I am trying to figure out guides that aren’t targeted specifically to people who want an itinerary um right now I am building

Three tiers of itinerary so I have beginner first timers um you know second or third time in Paris and then expert level you want to experience Paris like a local so I’m going to have three categories of itineries but then I also do want to itineraries for people who

Like me who live here and who just want to discover new events or new restaurants and maybe art could be one of those ittin as well so thank you for that suggestion if you guys have other itinerary suggestions uh please do let me know because again I want them to be exess

And something that people can enjoy whether it’s their first time or their 100th time in Paris but yeah thank you Zoe for that suggestion and with that this Easter Monday podcast comes to a close and also this Easter long weekend I can’t lie I can’t lie I’m excited

I maybe I’ll call my mom actually maybe I’ll call my mom and get the the tea on how the family party went but yeah thank you guys so much for tuning in to this week’s podcast I hope you guys enjoyed it and I look forward if you guys have

Time please leave me some comments down below it’s I I was thinking about it this morning how like I was going through in my head what I wanted to talk to you guys about and I it just like I say this all the time it’s like a broken

Record but I get so excited to make these podcasts I love um um I love connecting with you guys on a more personal and intimate level but uh yeah all right that’s it that’s it I’m hungry I want to go make lunch I will see you guys in my next one

Probably o probably on Saturday and it’s a good one it’s a good one make sure you tune in Saturday I think I think you’ll enjoy okay that’s it Bye