Final Thoughts on Paris – Philip’s Summer of Adventure

After nearly twelve weeks in Paris, it is hard to believe that my stay here is almost over. In all, I have had a great experience, full of excitement, adventure, and free of any major mishaps. I have spent a lot of time traveling in the second half of this summer (4 out of the last 6 weekends) and have had the chance to see what Europe is really like beyond Paris. 

At the end of June, I spent a weekend in Rome, which is barely enough time to being exploring the wealth of history that is there. In my day and a half that I was actually in the city (due to some unfortunate delays in getting there), I had to rush around to see Vatican City Saturday afternoon and the ancient part of the city on Sunday. 

Rome

 

A couple weeks later, I found myself in London in the company of my good friends Josh, Sachin, and Camden. One comfort in this was being back in a country where I could completely understand the language (my understanding of French has improved this summer, but I am nowhere near fluent). After spending most of Saturday in the British Museum, we attended a midnight showing of Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Globe, standing as “groundlings” in the yard.

The following work week was short, as July 14 was Bastille Day. For the French, this entails a huge festival with celebrations spread out all around Paris (and the rest of the country). Trying to experience as much as possible, I went to an annual military parade on the Champs-Élysées  in the morning, part of a concert on the Champ de Mars (the park by the Eiffel Tower), and ended the day watching fireworks from the banks of the Seine. 

Tour de France

Bastille Day Celebrations

Bastille Day Fireworks

That weekend I jumped on a train again to travel to Caen, in the Normandy region. My main motivation for this trip was to visit the Caen Memorial, a World War II museum focusing on the impact of the war in France. My ticket included a bus trip to visit some important D-day sites along the coast. Under gray, rainy skies (similar, we were told, to what the D-day troops were fighting in), we drove out to Pointe du Hoc to see bunkers and pillboxes built by the Germans as part of the Atlantic Wall to protect against attack from Britain. The landscape was covered in huge craters left by the extensive bombing carried out in the days prior to the landing. From here, we visited Omaha Beach, which has unfortunately been built up so there are houses along the road.  However, we were able to better understand the obstacles that this operation faced, as our guide pointed out the German bunkers built into the bluffs making them difficult to see and attack. Additionally, we visited an American cemetery where thousands of soldiers were buried (and this was U.S. soil, so I was technically back in the U.S. for about an hour) and Arromanches, where we could see the remains of an artificial harbor built by the British to bring supplies to the Allied troops until one of the real harbors along the coast could be captured.

Caen Memorial

My second day in Caen was cut short by the rain. In the morning I walked to some of the older historic sites in the city, including the remains of a castle that was built by William the Conqueror and expanded by his successors. However, by the early afternoon, it was raining too much and I had to pass the rest of my time at the train station.

The weekend after that I spent in Paris as a last chance to see anything I had missed and because the Tour de France finished that weekend. On Sunday, I again trekked over to the Champs-Élysées, where the Tour de France riders make several loops to finish out the race. I was able to find a spot right next to the road, so I had a really good view of the riders as they sped by. 

My final trip was to Avignon this past weekend to see a little bit of southern France.  In contrast to the weather in Normandy, it was sunny and warm in Avignon – perfect weather to walk around and be outside in. Aside from the Palais des Papes, built in the 14^th century when the Papacy was run out of Rome, I had no planned activities, leaving me free to explore. 

Avignon Palais des Papes

Of course, in the time between all of my travels, I have been continuing my research.  This is proceeding at an almost frantic pace as my departure quickly approaches. After some analysis of data we took at the beginning of the summer, we have had new samples prepared and only recently been able to start doing our experiments on them. Added to this is the construction at the university, preventing us from being able to take any data during the day and forcing us to work during the evenings instead. Despite the odd hours I am now working, I am excited to see the results and hopeful that these last couple days of experiments will be a success. 

Overall, this summer was exciting and eye-opening. I have been able to see and experience the differences in lifestyle between France and the U.S. While I may not be able to do all of the experiments I had hoped to finish before leaving Paris, I have learned a lot from my research. Additionally, my opportunity to travel provided me with time to relax and enjoy the history and culture of Europe.

Apeksha's Final Thoughts on Her European Experience

It doesn't seem like it was too long ago that I flew into Europe to start my study abroad experience, but now it's almost time to leave. On a whole, these six weeks have been absolutely amazing since I've been able to study a subject of great interest to me and have traveled to places like Paris, Ireland, Venice, Cambridge, London, Longleat, Stonehenge, and more.

Medical Ethics
I didn't really know what to expect when I came to the UK to study medical ethics as a one-on-one course with an Oxford professor. I had already been in contact with my professor, Dr. Paula Boddington (5th picture), before leaving UTD and was definitely a bit nervous since I was coming from more of a research related background than an ethics related one. However, that's exactly why I chose to study this. It was to become more aware of issues that I don't necessarily come across in my science heavy curriculum. A look into the topic of consent to treatment allowed me to examine patient autonomy and circumstances in which patients may not be competent enough to consent to treatment themselves. Although consent in research (my next topic), was in some ways similar to consent to treatment, it also involved another dimension which went beyond the scope of just participant autonomy since different forms of research involve their own unique set of ethical concerns. In genomics research, for example, advancement of technology makes it harder to determine whether principles such as broad consent are more acceptable since the original terms under which consent was obtained may not apply to other possible future uses of the data. The third topic, which was probably my favorite subject this summer, was decision making in medical ethics since I looked into the importance of ethical reasoning and use of emotions in moral arguments in medicine. There was a great emphasis on aligning one's moral responses with his/her moral principles and beliefs. The final topic I chose to write about was resource allocation in healthcare which allowed me to look into an array of interesting questions when deciding how to fairly distribute scarce medical resources in a society. For example, to what extent should individuals be held responsible for the conditions they're suffering from such as lung cancer due to smoking or liver failure due to alcoholism? Should this affect resource allocation? Overall, this course really gave me the chance to look into a variety of issues concerning four main values in medical ethics including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Travels
Apart from the course, the best thing about studying abroad was being able to travel to places within and outside of the UK with friends. I traveled to Cambridge and London with other students in the program (the program organized these two trips for us). Maybe it's just because I've been studying at Oxford, but I must say that I liked Oxford more than I liked Cambridge (although Cambridge was just gorgeous). Along with these trips, a group of the girls and I made plans to travel to Paris from June 3rd to June 5th. The weather was great and it was a good bit warmer in Paris than in Oxford which was definitely a nice change. We visited the Eiffel Tower (went to the top), Arc de Triomphe, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and the Louvre. Since we really spent only one whole day in Paris (June 4th) and walked around a great deal, we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day. After dinner, some of us decided to take a walk so we could see the Eiffel Tower at night from afar but we ended up walking straight up to it (grabbing delicious macaroons on the way of course). The tower would sparkle every hour (I think) so we were able to see it sparkle at midnight and then at 1...beautiful would be the right word to describe it. On our way there, it started raining pretty heavily so we were soaked by the time we got back but since it was warm, it was actually a nice walk in the rain. Completely exhausted but content with our day in Paris, we fell asleep as soon as we got back to the Westin in Paris. After coming back and submitting my third paper on decision making in medicine, my next trip was to Ireland from June 11th to June 14th. Once again, this trip was similar to the trip to Paris, in that a bunch of the girls and I planned it just a few days before leaving. We stayed near Dublin and were able to check out the coast, the city itself, Glendalough (a glacial valley in Wicklow), and Dollymount Beach. Although Dublin itself was nice, my favorite part of the trip to Ireland was taking a four hour hike around Glendalough since the scenery was breathtaking. Also, our trip to the valley itself was amazing since while on the train, we could see a beautiful view of the water on one side and a great view of Ireland's massive green hills on the other side. Definitely a much more relaxing trip than the one to Paris (since we were there longer), Ireland was a different experience for me and I'm glad to have visited. Unfortunately, we weren't able to travel to the Cliffs of Moher but I guess that'll have to be for another time. After gettting back from Ireland, I worked on and submitted my final paper about resource allocation in medicine and enjoyed my time at Oxford with the other girls since they were unfortunately going back to the U.S. in the next few days. Meanwhile though, I was getting ready for my next trip (which unlike the rest of my trips, was actually planned before I came to study abroad) to Venice from June 22nd to June 26th. I was especially excited about this trip because not only would it be my first time in Venice but I would also see a bunch of familiar faces. Over the course of my stay in Venice I was able to see Anna, Sachin, Josh, Grace, Kayla, Lauren W., Matt, John, Ben, Greg, and Monica (since they were all studying abroad in a castle in Italy and took a trip to Venice from the 22nd to the 26th as well). Like in the case of Paris, it was much warmer in Venice than it was in Oxford so I was fairly pleased with the weather. On our first actual day there, we visited the Rialto Bridge, the Basilica, and the Doge's Palace (the prisons were actually pretty cool) at San Marco and then Anna and I visited La Fenice (the opera house) where we were able to see a choir rehearsal. We ended the day with a really nice Vivaldi concert (Four Seasons) and headed back to our hotel. The next day, we went to the islands of Murano, Burano, Torcello (definitely my favorite), San Michele, and Lido (where we watched a beautiful sunset). The last day was also fairly relaxed since we checked out the Biennale, a contemporary art exhibit in Venice that occurs every two years, and then chilled for much of the rest of the day (of course, we went back to Lido to watch the sunset again since it was so beautiful the first time around). It was a great trip to Venice and I'll definitely miss the time that I spent taking rides on the Vaporreto, navigating through the city and it's narrow alleyways, and just having a good time relaxing with people I already knew from UTD. When I came back to Oxford, I spent the rest of the week checking out various museums on campus (including the Ashmolean, Natural History Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Museum of the History of Science), visiting the botanical gardens, and going punting with my friends (which was a pretty awesome experience).

Reflections
When I look back at my study abroad experience, I just keep wondering how I was able to take a medical ethics course at Oxford and travel so much in a span of just six weeks. It has been an intense six weeks mainly because there was always something to do but I absolutely loved it! I was asked whether I've been through any change of persepective after studying abroad and quite honestly, I don't think I'll completely know until I'm back in the states. In some ways, I've been able to take a step back, take a look at the big picture, and be a lot more calm and relaxed about things than I usually am which is nice. Although I wanted to be able to meet up with familiar faces while abroad (and I'm glad that I did in Venice), I knew that I wanted my study abroad experience to be fairly independent on the whole and it worked out nicely for me. I was lucky enough to make friends with a group of girls I was comfortable enough with to make trips to Paris and Ireland. It's been a great study abroad experience for me and I hope that all the other scholars are having a great time abroad as well. The amount of time that I've spent at Europe seems just right -- I'm very satisfied with what I've learned and seen here, but I'm equally ready to go back home and start shadowing a doctor in pediatric emergency. Then I shall see everyone when I'm back in Texas!

Sammy's twinkling memories in the City of Light

The lovely thing about Paris is that it is everything you expect it to be. The buildings are a study in weathered beauty. Their cafes have excellent food, and dogs prowl the aisles for scraps and affection. Sacre Ceour, Notre Dame, the Eiffel tower and countless other monuments surpass the description of magnificent. The language has a multifaceted lyrical quality. And the entire town teems with a complex history that is never far from sight. Suffice to say that I have loved Paris and believe I will never stop.
The lovely thing about my trip in Paris is that it was nothing I expected it to be. My host mom was not only sweet and helpful but also the proud owner of a parrot named Roberto. Paris served not only as a lesson in French but as a refresher course in Spanish as well. And Parisians are warmer than I expected, at least when an attempt at French is made. I learned more quickly at the school than I expected. And music is omnipresent in Paris. There are street musicians near most all of the major attractions that border on professional. There are free concerts in the churches that border on breathtaking. And the greenery of Paris gives it a gentler feeling than I have ever seen matched in a city of its size.
And then there is the Louvre. The Louvre was more resplendent than I could ever have guessed. The fact that I am only contributing one paragraph to the Louvre shows great personal restraint on my part. Admittedly I am aided by the fact that finding the appropriate words for my experience at the Louvre is difficult. I'll start by saying I went seven times and saw all of it. I went through every single room. And the amount of art in any one room is simply staggering. They have sculpture after sculpture, artifact after artifact, painting after painting. Twenty, thirty, forty paintings squeezed into one room. And they have dozens of paintings that I grew up knowing and loving my entire life. Seeing them in person bordered on a religious experience. And they have rooms, rooms as in plural, of Rubens, van Dyck, and Botticelli. And it's not just about classical paintings and statues at the Louvre. Sometimes you'll turn the corner and find a twenty five foot, astoundingly well preserved pillar from an eighth century temple. Not to mention the fact that they have an entire medieval moat on their basement floor. A moat! I cannot stress to you what a strange revelation that was. I can honestly say that if their security was lax, I would have taken up permanent residence and never come home.
Unfortunately not all surprises are good. In addition to being sweet and helpful my host mom was a smoker, and seemed to have difficulties with my house mate's request for vegetarian faire. It seems despite taking dietary and health requests, the information is not passed along to the host families. Also the neighborhood that my host mom lived in didn't feel particularly safe after sunset. And the school was touch and go as far as their teachers. The teacher I had for the first two weeks was très magnifique. But then for my last week I had a different teacher. He was by no means bad, just a little frustrating. He refused to use any English at all, because he thought it would help us. The problem was that included asking him how to say something. This resulted in some quite interesting pantomime. In general I just felt there were some communication issues with Accord. And as a side note, there are no books, but lots of worksheets. Which was fine with me, but it frustrated some of the other students. However, as I said, I do feel like I learned a lot of French very quickly.
Overall, every day in Paris felt like a dream from which I never wanted to wake up. For every wonderful thing I wrote about, there were ten more that didn't make it into my blog. There was the Musée d'Orsay, Rodin, and Moreau. There was the cafe that, if cafes were people, I would have married in a heartbeat. There was the excitement of using the IPA I had learned at UTD, for my own pronunciation guides. There was the joy of my weekly phonetics class. There were countless evenings spent wandering along the Seine and down picturesque Parisian streets. There were a million twinkling memories I made in the city of light that I will doubtful ever forget.

Philip’s European Travels

The last two and a half weeks have been quite an adventure. From stepping out of the metro into the middle of an unfamiliar city with only a sheet of directions about where to go and only the most basic grasp of their language to a nanotechnology conference, they have been full of excitement.

My apartment is in an excellent location-almost all of the famous tourist attractions are nearby. The Eiffel Tower is about 10 minutes away by foot. Between my apartment and the lab, I can walk by: Invalides (a military hospital), the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, and the National Assembly (plus countless other awesome buildings that look important, but I haven’t quite figured out what they are yet). Add to this that no matter what, I have to walk by Notre Dame to get to work, as it is between the metro stop and the university. Also, the Bastille is somewhere nearby, but I haven’t taken a walk to go find it yet.

Having been able to spend time in both Paris and Budapest, one of the most amazing things about European cities is the amount of history and culture that can be found just by wandering the city. I can walk for hours and not tire of seeing the incredible buildings. Almost all of them look regal and of great historical important, but upon getting close to I often realize that they did not actually play such a significant part in history.

And of course, I must add a note about science, since that is what most of my waking hours are devoted to. As a continuation of my work in Dallas, this has really helped keep me grounded. With stepping into a drastically different culture and environment, it has been reassuring to have my work as something understandable (at least in some sense) and as a place where I can make real contributions even though I am still working to grasp and adjust to the cultural differences.

I have just returned to Paris today after being in Budapest since Saturday for a nanotechnology conference. While some of the details of the projects went over my head, I was happy that I could grasp everything at a basic level and follow the majority of the presentations that I saw. Besides being in a great city to explore and allowing me the opportunity to travel outside of France, the conference was good for expanding my awareness of what is being done in nanotechnology, as well as understanding the ties that a lot of these projects have to industry.

The wonder and excitement of these past few weeks leave no doubt in my mind that the remainder of my summer here will be awesome. As my French improves, I hope to be able to further delve into the French culture and make this a worthwhile experience culturally as well as scientifically.