On February 20th, 2026, I returned from France with the Pioneer High School French class. Despite transferring to Community three weeks before departure, I still joined the trip as an honorary Pioneer student. Unbeknownst to me, in the next eight days, I would see world-class artwork, eat delicious food and discover a sense of independence I had never felt before.
Students were told to meet at the airport at 7:00 PM, two hours before our flight took off. Everyone slowly started filing in, until we were all waiting at the gate. I couldn’t hold in my excitement; I was practically shaking.
The flight took off, and I knew it was finally happening; it was real. I was going to Paris. The flight was nine hours long, and we landed in Paris at 11:00 AM. Immediately, we took a one-hour bus ride to our hostel. When we arrived, we put our bags down and jumped right into our itinerary.
First, we went to the Latin Quarter, a few metro stops away from where we were staying, and were given an hour to eat. I had the most delicious croissant ever; I could taste the authenticity. We toured Notre Dame before going to the Musée Cluny, a two-story medieval museum. I was amazed by the variety of artifacts on display, but I couldn’t fully appreciate it as I was tired from the long plane ride. After a delicious dinner in the Latin Quarter, our eternal day finally came to an end.
The next few days all seemed the same, following a tight schedule: eat a baguette and yogurt for breakfast, go to two museums, lunch, three more museums, then dinner. The days were long, and the sleep was short.
However, the monotony proved to be mundane for some members of the trip, resulting in school rules being broken, a short hospital stay and two flights booked back to DTW.
By this point, everyone was longing for our free day — the day before we flew back home. When the free day finally arrived, I was eager for freedom. Some people went to the Eiffel Tower, others went to the Pantheon, but most people went shopping at Galeries Lafayette — a seven-story mall with all you could imagine. Its contents ranged from shoes to clothes to chocolate and everything in between. I only spent two hours there, finding the prices too astronomical to even consider. I landed on walking around Paris a bit before stumbling upon a hidden gem of a thrift store.
That night, the group finally came together after a long day and a long week, sat down, and gobbled up a three-course meal. It was a bittersweet moment — after seven days in Paris, we would be departing the next morning, leaving all of our memories behind us.
We woke up the next morning, packed all of our belongings, and headed off to the airport, where we then had a 10-hour flight back to Detroit.
Although aspects of this trip didn’t go according to plan, it was still an amazing experience and one that I’ll never forget. It taught me how to deal with hardships without my support system and proved to me that I can handle uncertainty even in a foreign land.
