“Mille. Ville. Tranquille.” I sat in diction class, pronouncing and memorizing this French mantra (of “–ille” words where the “L” is pronounced like an “L” in English, instead of a “J”-glide); but my mind was far away. “Mille”—yes, thousands of miles away from here. “Ville”—in the city of cities, the city of lights. “Tranquille”—sitting outside a café on the Seine, sipping a café crème and eating a warm croissant, my lips pursed as I converse in the language of lovers: “Mille, ville, tranquille.”
I was certainly no stranger to the travel bug, but I had never lived in another country. At this point, though, it seemed like an obvious move. It was my senior year of college, and teachers and colleagues presented me
just two options: Try to get into a good grad school and be in debt for the rest of my life, or get a full-time office job to pay formy lessons and coachings while I do the audition circuit of young artists’ programs and local performance opportunities.
Most young singers go through some degree of a crisis at this point: graduating college, not yet ready for a full-time career as a singer. The next move is not always clear. It was for me, though.
The way I saw it, I would have to spend the next few years in some lame day job. I would also have to work on my foreign languages. So why not put two and two together, and move somewhere where I could work a day job while speaking a foreign language? Assuming I’d find a way to pull it off, I just had to choose a place to go.
Why Paris? It’s beautiful, artistic, cultural, musical—it’s Paris!—the perfect setting for the next phase of my career, I decided. So I got to work.
The first thing I did was tell everyone I knew about my idea. You’d be surprised how many people you know have friends in Paris! I collected all the contacts I could, and bombarded my new Parisian friends with my questions and concerns. Everyone was very kind and helpful; even complete strangers were happy to give advice.
At the same time, I started trying to learn French. I’d only had a year in college; I knew I really had to cram! I set about translating my life into French. I papered my walls and furniture with post-it notes of French vocabulary. Visitors always came out of my bathroom amused that they now knew French words for “toothpaste” and “toilet paper.” I set my Hotmail account to French. I slowly but surely made my way through the children’s classic, “Le Petit Prince.”
I also resorted to more orthodox forms of language learning. I went to the library and checked out French tapes. I posted a notice at the Alliance Française, offering language exchange: you teach me French, I teach you English. This paid off, giving me the occasional private lesson I needed to practice my conversation skills.
Now it was time to start getting practical. I needed a visa, a job, and a place to live. From the reading I’d done, it seemed like the only way to get a work visa was to have a company hire you in advance and sponsor a visa for you. How in the world was I going to pull that off? This became a source of great stress until one day, I ran smack into a billboard that proclaimed: “ARE YOU TIRED OF BORING DESK JOBS? BECOME AN ENGLISH TEACHER ABROAD!” I wasted no time, and by the end of the day I was signed up for the 1-month full-time TEFL course. It ran me about $2,500, but I was hired locally as an ESL teacher almost as soon as I finished the course. This is a wonderful day job. It pays enough to allow you to work only 20-25 hours a week but still earn a decent living.
Getting a French language school to fly me over, however, was not as simple as I had expected. The system varies from country to country, but in Paris, they have enough native English speakers already. They don’t want to sponsor a stranger to come over, they want you to be there and be legal already!
So I took the advice of several of my wise Parisian counselors: “Go on a student visa,” they said. “You can go to a French conservatory, which grants you legal status to live and work part-time, and can run you as little as $500 a year! This includes a year’s worth of voice lessons, and sometimes other classes, such as sight-reading and acting for singers.”
So Plan B was on, and I applied to L’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, a reputable conservatory. Interestingly enough, there was very little to the application process: I sent them a tape and they sent me an acceptance letter so that I could get my visa. You see, for French conservatories, as opposed to American ones, the hard part isn’t getting accepted, it’s getting into a good level and passing the final exams. They’ll admit anyone halfway decent into the school; they’ll just put them in a low level.
Once I had the pre-enrollment letter, I applied for my visa. It was my first experience with the infamous French administration, and the rumors are true: they do give you a hard time. By now, I’ve learned to expect criticism and problems, but I’ve also learned that “no” doesn’t always mean “no.” You have to be very polite and ask the person behind the counter to do their job as if you were requesting a personal favor. It took a few tries, but once I completed the application process, I had my visa in a matter of days.
The next step was to find a living arrangement. Paris isn’t the cheapest city in the world, but it was better than Boston, where I was living at the time. Small studios start at 500 Euros, and most decent one-bedroom apartments I’ve seen run around 800-900 Euros.
I decided that the best way for me to learn French would be to live with French people. The host family idea didn’t really appeal to me, but having a roommate did. A real French apartment with a real French roommate to show me around—how perfect would that be?
I found a website of roommate-wanted ads, and responded to every one that could possibly work. I had no luck, until at the last minute, a grad student who had not yet found an apartment asked if I wanted to live with him when he did eventually find a place. He was my only hope, so in a flurry of faxes, phone calls, and money-wiring, I had a roommate and a place to live for 425 Euros a month. (I was surprised when I got there to see that it was only a 1-bedroom! My roommate slept on the couch, but everything was common space between us and it was no fun not to have privacy.)
A few weeks later, I got on the plane and landed in the City of Lights. I had only been there once before—just for two nights, and that four years ago—but it was just like I remembered: Beautiful buildings, tiny streets filled with bars that open out onto the sidewalk, bakeries tempting you at every turn with fresh pastries, the smell of hot crêpes in the air.
I’m afraid things went downhill from there. My roommate and I didn’t get along, which is a chance you take when living with someone you’ve never met, and it caused huge amounts of stress and various small crises. I found a job teaching business English, but hated the company I was working for: a lot of unpaid travel time going from office to office, frequent last-minute schedule changes, and an all-around very stiff and formal atmosphere that didn’t fit my style at all. I ended up quitting before the end of the year and getting money transfers from home. What’s more, I wasn’t happy with my voice lessons. My teacher was a very kind and intelligent woman, but did very little work on technique, which is what I needed.
All these things added more and more pressure to my culture-shocked life until finally, in the spring, I couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to give. I had wanted—and still wanted—to stay in Paris for two years. I was making great progress in the language, but I still had so much to learn about the culture, and Paris was so wonderful. I decided I just needed a break, and a change. I would spend the entire summer at home, then come back and start everything anew: new apartment, new roommate, new school, new job.
An American friend living here in Paris recommended that I transfer to her school, the Conservatoire Nationale de Région Boulogne-Billancourt, a public school, meaning it was cheaper (around $500, as opposed to the previous school, which was around $2,000) and with more resources. (I’d had quite a rude awakening when I discovered that my first conservatory here not only had no library, but also you had to rent the practice rooms by the hour!) I found a new roommate and apartment the same way I found the first one, except this time with much happier results! (I even have my own room!) As for work, I’ve started singing at The American Cathedral, which has a wonderful, high-level choir.
It took me a year of trial-and-error, but at last I’m starting to make my way. My French is coming along wonderfully. I make plenty of grammatical errors (since I learned mostly by speaking, not by studying), but I can carry on a conversation no problem, understand my teachers, and watch movies without subtitles. I’m finally getting gigs, thanks to my work at the American Cathedral, and my roommate, who works in audio-visual, is trying to get me started on a side-career in voice acting!
I have a great new teacher at a nice school, and I have plenty of friends. I’m reading the novels that my favorite operas were based on, in the original language! And if I’m ever feeling sad and homesick, I can walk down the block and get a Nutella crêpe—that makes everything OK!
