The bell for the last hour of the day rings and Spring Break begins.  You exit the class, grab your suitcase, head to the airport with your classmates, and board a plane destined for Paris.  Just 10 ten hours later, you find yourself on a boat tour of Pairs and are about to meet your French family for the week.  You are on the Prospect High School exchange to Paris.

The Prospect exchange to Sèvres, France, is an opportunity to experience life in the suburbs of Paris with a French high school student and their family.  On the weekends, our students are the guests of their hosts as they tour the Château de Versailles, visit Paris by night, or simply hang out with French teens.  This is a student’s unique opportunity to practice their language skills while developing friendships and experiencing life, not only as a tourist, but also as a Parisian.

Of course, no trip to Paris is complete without a bit of tourism.  Our Prospect French students spend a week visiting the major sites of Pairs that include the Musée du Louvre with the Mona Lisa, the Musée D’Orsay with it’s works by Monet and the other impressionist painters, the Île de la Cité with Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, the Eiffel Tower, and much more.  However, the most memorable moments often appear in the memory of a simple baguette from the boulangerie or a sunny lunch on the banks of the Seine. 

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the exchange occurs when our students return to Prospect.  Back at Prospect high school, our students have the opportunity to rediscover the uniqueness of their own community as they share the great city of Chicago with their correspondents from France.  For one week, students from France live with their hosts while barbequing and visiting the mall, attend classes while riding large yellow buses and storing things in “lockers,” and tour the museums, skyscrapers, and shops of Chicago.