Joan of Arc and the Dentist Office?

As UChicago’s winter quarter began, instead of giving myself the usual pep talk about how -10° F isn’t “that bad” and waving goodbye to the sun for the foreseeable future, I found myself facing a new challenge. On New Year’s Day, I boarded a plane with three suitcases and a whole lot of adventurous spirit to set off for Paris to study abroad. So many women of pop culture have found their way here: Carrie Bradshaw, Blair Waldorf, and, most recently, this summer I watched Belly Conklin stop terrorizing those poor brothers for five seconds to find herself in the City of Lights. 

This “Paris effect” was something I longed to experience and worked to fulfill as I meticulously planned how to maximize my short time as a “citizen of the world” in the months leading up. After I arrived, though, I found that my preparations were no match for the unexpected serendipity this city had to offer. Living in a foreign country taught me a lot (other than the fact that I really miss Dr. Pepper, good Mexican food, and polite Americans). Through my study abroad program, we took a trip to the city of Rouen, located outside of Paris. This was a place of history—where Joan of Arc was held prisoner before she was eventually burned at the stake in 1431. 

In Rouen, and more broadly across Europe, I slowly came to realize I did not fully internalize that, despite the events of these historical sites being frozen in textbooks and literature, time continued its forward march without pause. While part of my feeling may simply be because Europe is much older than America and therefore has more historical events that come to mind when browsing its streets, there is still something to be said about how people in these places continue their daily lives quite literally within the same history that tourists like myself are frozen in awe by. The most jarring example of this for me was seeing a dentist’s office entrance conjoined amongst the foundations of the tower that Joan of Arc was imprisoned in before her execution. We entered the space to solemnly view the place where this brave young lady spent her last days on Earth as a middle-aged man squeezed by us, fluoride coating his teeth. It truthfully bewildered me how the residents of Rouen adapted their lives to run in line with the history that happened in their town. Some of the residents seemed to simply brush by the idea that sacred history occurred in the very place they got their teeth cleaned and root canals done, others seemed to view the history as a way to turn a profit by creating plushie versions of the teenage saint, and a select few quietly acknowledged the weight of history as they worked at the front desk of the cathedral dedicated to her. 

Each of these residents came to terms with the fact that they were living within history as the world continued to spin. This seems to be a commonality among Europe as a whole. Just a few examples that I have come across in my travels in Europe was the pancake restaurant next to Anne Frank’s house, the steep price of it costing 35 euros to see the Tower of London (a place where so many people met their demise), and the modern graffiti covering what is left of the Berlin Wall. In the US, I feel that we treat historical sights very differently from how they do in Europe. I’m not sure if it has to do with a cultural difference in how much we value the distinction between historical sites and modern times, but what I saw in Europe was definitely a new experience for me. 

As my time in Europe comes to an end, I look forward to returning to the normalcy that the United States has to offer. I crave the sweet relief of cheeseburgers, football, and country music, but I am also forever grateful for the adventures that led me to an unexpected brush with cavities and cavalry.