What is it about studying abroad that places students in a weird limbo?Are we instantaneously integrated into the social fabric of our new countries? Definitely not. Are we perceived as tourists? Hopefully not. We are American liberal arts students trying our best to absorb as much of the local culture as humanly possible while feeling understandably out of place. We cling to our laptops and minimal language skills, trying to create some semblance of normalcy and comfort in wonderful, yet terrifying, new surroundings.

And through all of this, we’re trying to appear not foreign to those we go to school with, and live with, and hang out with. One can only dream.

I’ve been in Paris for just a short time, but my feet already hurt from walking the Parisian streets. Specifically, one of my feet is swollen, ravaged by a thirsty French insect. My objective: a long walk, followed by picnic in the sunset. Location: the Eiffel Tower.

I guess sore feet and itchiness are just punishments for partaking in the most embarrassingly cliché activity in Paris. Though it was definitely worth it, the most cliché—and thoroughly enjoyable—Parisian activities can only facilitate my endeavor at assimilation up to a point. Long-term foreigners can’t immediately live like locals—we just don’t know how—nor can we unabashedly participate in the guilty pleasures of short-term tourists without feeling a sting, an itch, of embarrassment.

After a two-week-long, summer-campesque orientation in Bordeaux with the Vassar-Wesleyan Program in France, I am now finally in Paris. But I somehow feel as if I have nothing to do. I guess this is what happens when orientation ends and you suddenly realize that you are, well, abroad. With only two classes per week—the courses at the French university I am attending do not start until October—I’m suddenly inundated with a massive amount of free time. Yes, endless walking is good, and everyone knows that “that’s how you get to know a city”—but endless walking ends in blisters, and cranky Americans.

What else do American liberal arts students do while abroad? Visit all of the important sights on the perfunctory to do list? Check. Have dinner over forced conversation with your host family before scurrying back to your room and throwing open your computer, hopefully finding familiar faces on Skype or Facebook chat? Check. Make too many checklists? Check. So after that—after the initial excitement, jet lag, and butterflies have worn off—what do we do?

I’ve been walking—walking to familiarize myself, and walking just to figure out where I am. The Metro is very handy, but zooming around underground doesn’t exactly lend itself well to acquiring spatial awareness. Walking through crowds, walking alone (always paranoid at night, with my pepper-spray at the ready), walking in zigzags to avoid dog poop (Many French citizens believe it’s the government’s job to clean up after their dogs. I say, “Rock-on socialists—but not that hard….”).

But when can you stop walking and find yourself simultaneously abroad and at home? Is it when you stop consciously wandering and just walk to get from place to place? A place is only familiar once you know where you’re walking, and it’s mundane when you stop wandering.

Thankfully, four months does not provide nearly enough time to get bored of Paris. A week is plenty of time to wear out the touristy areas, but four months will barely scratch the surface of these serpentine cobblestone streets.

I’ve realized it’s necessary to embrace clichés. It’s nearly impossible to describe this city without using those well-worn phrases—serpentine cobblestone streets, rose-colored glasses, fresh baguettes, smoky sidewalk cafés, omnipresent accordion music—so why bother avoiding these quintessentially French images?

I’m willing to bury my ironic, overly self-aware pride and endlessly wander these streets until I become a true Parisian cliché.

So, what’s next on the to do list? Buy some Band-Aids.