Paris

On my first day in Paris, I got lost. I was on a run and knew next to nothing about where I was or what I could expect. At first it is all so overwhelming; you are hit with an onslaught of towering, balconied buildings, careening traffic and a million different shopfronts, boucheries and brasseries, laveries and literies and everything in between. It is cacophony of awe-inspiring monuments, long-stretching avenues and people letting out streams of French that you frustratingly just can’t quite make out. If I can’t even find the nearest metro station entrance, how could I ever call this place home? 

Thankfully though, running is the perfect connector of people and cities. So pretty much every day I laced up my trainers and dived head-first into the bustling terrasses and limestone façades until, little by little, Paris started to make sense. I found I could take the right road to reach the majestic Luxembourg gardens without picking at random and hoping for the best. I got familiar with each bridge over the Seine. Having gained confidence, I started to branch out, setting landmarks on the map as targets to run to: from ‘let’s find the highest point in Paris!’ (the colourful, swooping heights of Belleville) to ‘today is a la Défense kind of day’ (the gleaming skyscrapers of the financial district). “Hey, I’ve been here before!” I’d tell my friends excitedly as we admired the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand’s vast expanse of wooden planks. Every day and every run became a chance to see something new, a beautiful church or a striking building or statue. Paris is a treasure trove of delights and I greedily dug my way through.  

Through running I learned of the city’s development, how its arrondissements spiral outwards in a snail shape, how Haussmann replaced the narrow medieval alleys with great boulevards and squares, how poorer, often immigrant communities are pushed out of the sophisticated centre into the run-down banlieues to the north and east. Its street names taught me about figures important to French culture: René Coty is a former president, Falguière was a sculptor. Sport is often seen as simply a way to keep fit, but for me, on my year abroad, it was so much more; running enabled me to get to know Paris, to make it mine.  

I tried to replicate this process for my next year abroad location: a small town nestled in the hills and valleys of southwest Germany called Tübingen. Running there was beautiful, but didn’t bring me closer to Germany in quite the same way. This instead happened more unintentionally, in the form of the European football championships – hosted on home turf, no less! I’d heard about it in the news, although not normally being much of a football fan, this was a kind of okay-how-interesting piece of information.  

But fast-forward to the first match of the tournament: it’s a Friday, and the normally sleepy town is gearing up for Germany – Scotland. Every pub, bar and café has commandeered their small street with rows of chairs and appropriated the quaint medieval walls with giant projectors. Crowds gather in excitement, beers and Aperol spritzes in hand, a glorious July sun beating down. I’m too intrigued not to join. I am swept along by the crowd’s waves of cheers and disappointed sighs, and feel the collective will for Germany to do well grip us all. 

This sense of togetherness stays with us as the weeks and matches progress; people who normally don’t make eye contact cheerfully bring up Musiala’s goal, whilst signs of “Public Viewing” adorn the alleyways. When my friends and I travel to one of the host cities of Stuttgart for the final we find it thronging with anticipation and excitement. We are engulfed by cries and boos and “jetzt schieß doch!”. We gasp and shout and jump up and down with everybody else, and as the sky above the crowd turns from watery blue to glowing orange to velvety purple to black, I feel so lucky to have been a part of it all. 

Once the Euros are over, the excitement subsides, but traces remain, Schwarz-Rot-Gold still dangles from windows. In the ensuing calm I have time to reflect and realise just how important sport, intended or not, has been on my year abroad. It helped me find a home in the city of lights, and allowed me to see a side of Germany more dazzling than I ever imagined. Through sport, I experienced my countries in unexpected and thrilling ways, and I wouldn’t change this for a second.