Weekend in Paris #1
My new flat, getting set up for success, and quelling new-expat anxiety.
Weekend in Paris is a bonus series for paid subscribers—it’s one part recap of my off-duty fun as a baking school student, one part dishing about (temporary) expat life. This post is now unlocked for all readers to enjoy. Bienvenue!
After I’d dragged my suitcases up the narrow, winding hallway to my new home base, I had three and a half days to get situated in France before school started.
So my first order of business wasn’t sightseeing (I still haven’t seen the Eiffel Tower from the ground) or eating my weight in macarons, but rather setting up an entire new life in a foreign language.
As you might imagine, I was more than a bit intimidated!
In today’s letter—my first Sunday bonus for paid subscribers this season—you’ll read about what that process looked like:
🏠 Opening the door to my new Parisian flat,
🛠️ Everything else I’ve done to get set up for success,
🍇 The French grocery store finds that made do a double-take, and
😬 My hard-won tips and tricks for quelling new-expat anxiety.
I had to pass through three doors to reach my apartment in the 6th arrondissement, but contrary to my fears, it actually exists. (Phew!)
The first two doors require keypad access; they’re nestled in a hallway running between a flower shop and an upscale pizzeria. That hallway delivers you into a quaint courtyard that leads to the third door and a steep set of stairs.
My new place is at the very top. Come on in!
The slant of the roofline means I have to bend over to wash the dishes. The shower, bathroom sink, and countertop oven (!) are positively doll-sized.
And yet the setup offers everything I need. After five years of relatively sprawling American-style homeownership, the quirky simplicity of European city living feels—dare I say?—refreshing.
My first order of (jetlagged) business was unpacking my four bags and putting each item in its new home.
My second order of business? Grabbing something—anything—to eat. I was starving, and my empty mini-fridge wasn’t helping matters.
I found Secco, a boulangerie a few blocks away from my flat. (Later, I learned Ina Garten goes there when she’s in town.) I was able to order a baguette in my limited French, so I subsisted on bread until I worked up the courage to go grocery shopping. More on that soon!
Next on my to-do list: signing up for a gym—because squats and deadlifts will help me work up an appetite and lift heavy bags of flour. I finally found one in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood that didn’t require me to have a European bank account.
And finally, there were necessary errands like attending the obligatory doctor’s visit for all expat students in France. There, I learned that if you need a vaccine booster for your medical attestation, you have to go to a pharmacy and order the shot yourself. The more you know!
Back in the States, feeding myself was a mere afterthought, but grocery shopping in France is a different beast.
First, there’s the cadence. Remember those doll-sized appliances? My mini-fridge means I’ll be shopping more frequently and buying smaller quantities of food.
And instead of hitting up one supermarket for everything, Parisians patronize multiple shops for their specialties: the open-air marché for fruits and vegetables; épiceries like Monoprix for staples; and the boulangerie, boucherie, fromagerie, and poissonerie for bread, meat, cheese, and fish.
These were cultural shifts I was happy to make—but as a new arrival, it also meant learning the etiquette and norms of many different spaces all at once, and multiplied the number of shop owners I’d have to converse with in broken French.
As I fumbled my way through grocery shopping, I picked up a few pointers:
A little etiquette goes a long way. It’s customary to greet a shopkeeper as you enter their store (“Bonjour!”) and formally close the interaction (“Bonne journée!”) as you leave.
At open-air markets, most vendors will pick your produce for you—in which case, no touching! Depending on when you want to use your ingredients, they’ll identify fruits and veggies (and even some cheeses) at the ideal state of ripeness.
They also offer delicious prepared foods that aren’t typically found at American farmer’s markets, from whole rotisserie chickens to grain and vegetable salads. When it comes to your grocery shopping, you could almost make the marché a one-stop shop.
When buying produce at the supermarket, you have to weigh and price it before heading to the checkout line.
Many boulangeries have morning and afternoon bake shifts so you can pick up a warm baguette around dinnertime.
Even if you know that milk and eggs are stored on unrefrigerated shelves in France, if you’re an American, you’ll still do a double-take the first time you see it.
After my marché and specialty store trips, I hiked over to the nearest Monoprix for my staples. I wheeled one of their adorable, practical carts through the aisles—picture a rolling suitcase, but it’s a basket for collecting groceries—and delighted in the new-to-me products on offer.
Catisfactions are the French version of Temptations cat treats, presumably because the French don’t have American-style hangups about purity culture, even when it comes to their pets.
Peanut butter was stored next to protein powder—I can only assume the logic is “weird things Americans eat.”
The Sleepytime tea I drink on cold winter nights has a French twin called Night Fairy.
And I’ll never tire of knowing that there’s a sugar brand named Daddy.
This may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but that didn’t stop my journey from starting with some serious anxiety.
That’s because I’m not a tourist per se—I’m a new, albeit temporary, resident. So my focus wasn’t on having seven dinners at fabulous restaurants (with English-speaking servers) before flying home, but rather learning to do lots of practical things in a new cultural context and language.
Reminding myself that “I’m a resident, not a tourist” is my first secret to quelling FOMO right now. Yes, I’ve stockpiled restaurant, bakery, and sightseeing recommendations galore, but it’s soothing to remember that they aren’t Priority #1…and that a tourist’s pace would be unsustainable for three months, anyway.
Here are the other tips that calmed my frayed nerves during my first days in Paris.
Take care of your basic needs first. There’s a reason I devoted an entire section of this newsletter to grocery shopping. With clothing and shelter taken care of, food was my last unmet foundational need. I’m so glad I learned where to buy staples (and how to use my European cooking appliances) before anything else.
Tackle tasks slowly and deliberately, leaving as much margin as possible. My settling-in tasks took longer than expected—sometimes because I needed time to work up the courage to try something new. So it was important not to overstuff my schedule each day.
Learn key phrases and etiquette. Attempting to use the native language instead of defaulting to English garners respect from locals. Yes, even if you flail! Plus, trial and error is the best way to pick up new grammar and vocabulary.
Sometimes, you just need to pop in a pair of AirPods. I was careful about my surroundings, of course, but noise-reducing headphones really helped as I walked between high-stress errands.
Learn from a fellow fish out of water. The audiobook beaming through my AirPods: Jane Bertch’s memoir The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time. As I walked along the Seine, I learned about her own painful first attempts at acclimating to life in Paris, many of which mirrored my own! When she said “I didn’t even have the courage to seek out a grocery store,” I felt seen. And I took notes when she talked about learning moxie from the French—how to stand her ground instead of wilting when dismissed or challenged. I returned to my apartment feeling like I’d commiserated with (and gleaned wisdom from) a new friend.
An evergreen reminder: exercise is always the best outlet. Even when I wanted to stay under the covers, setting out for a brisk stroll, jog, or gym session always made me feel more capable and confident. The best option: movements that made me feel powerful (lifting heavy weights) to a soundtrack matching my aspirational state of mind.
Adapt your routine in ways that feel fun and natural. Changing my typical evening to include a boulangerie stop for a warm baguette wasn’t exactly a heavy lift—and it was an easy way to feel integrated into Parisian life.
Don’t change routines that are calming or grounding. I’ve always eaten a very American breakfast: oatmeal with maple syrup, peanut butter and fruit. And to wind down before bed, I love a mug of herbal tea with a rom-com on the side. Giving up those daily bookends in favor of “more French” activities would’ve been counterproductive for my mental health.
Get comfortable asking stupid questions. When my doctor glossed over the instructions for our next visit, I asked detailed questions, even though I felt like an idiot. But if I hadn’t, I would’ve missed new-to-me details (like fulfilling my vaccine prescription on my own time) that the French take for granted.
Don’t spiral after awkward interactions. Those first few days, I had two uncomfortable conversations—one language-related and one cultural—plus one thwarted attempt at filling my vaccine prescription. My default reaction has always been to replay these kinds of failures on repeat, but I decided to squelch that impulse during my expat experience.
Get back on the horse. After each awkward interaction, I revisited “the scene of the crime” to try my hand at a better outcome, and I succeeded each time. Avoidance would’ve let the problem fester or grow.
Now that I’m (mostly) set up, my weekends can largely be spent on more delightful pursuits. But I’m taking one final anxiety-battling reminder into this next phase: I won’t be able to make “perfect” use of my time here. Inevitably, I’ll leave Paris with scores of sights, shops, cafés, bistros, brasseries, and bakeries unvisited. That just means my appetite will remain whetted for the next visit.
With a hat tip to Oliver Burkeman for this last piece of advice: every Paris recommendation I’ve received is part of a menu, not a to-do list. And it’s going to be a delicious menu indeed.
With that, it’s on to the (fabulous) grind. I’ll be back with my first baking school recap on Friday!
Warmly,
Maddie
Breakfast Club is a newsletter about pastries with a side of personal growth, from an ex-financial planner turned baker. If you savored this edition, click the ❤️ (or share with a friend!) to help new readers discover it—and subscribe to get each letter fresh from the oven.
I'm so proud of you! And living vicariously through you. So happy you took this step.
I took French on Duolingo a couple years ago and this makes me want to pick it back up.
Loved this, Maddie! Thank you for sharing your "setting the foundations" experience with us - it sounds like you are being thoughtful and bad-ass at the same time!