Everyone loves the convenience of a quick grocery store run. I, too, once lived that life of luxury. Living a mere two-minute walk from Carrefour, I thought I had made it. I could roll out of bed, grab a pain au chocolat and be back before my coffee cooled.

You can analyze political theory and debate international policy, but nothing in the Sciences Po curriculum prepares you for the true test of intellect and will: surviving your own apartment. I learned this the hard way, one domestic disaster at a time.

Shortly after arriving in Menton this August, I got the sense that the town’s older residents are not particularly fond of Sciences Pistes. For many students, this might not come as such a shock. After Integration Week, complaints echoed through the Old Town. As one woman eloquently put it, “Sciences Po drove us crazy until 3 in the morning !” The objections vary in subtlety, from frustrated sighs and muttered grievances to water-pouring incidents on the heads of unsuspecting Le Rétro-goers.

Everyone loves to brag about how they can roll out of bed five minutes before class and still make it to class on time. (Good for you, king. May your alarm never betray you.) Meanwhile, some of us are out here having our own daily Olympic event—a 20-30 minute trek to campus. Every. Single. Day. Character-building, they say. Trauma, I reply.

Yet, for much of my first few days, the town seemed quite impersonal to me: I felt disconnected. Because for all its beauty, I felt as if Menton always found a way to avoid intimacy. It pushed me to ask, what does it mean to be a part of this town anyways?

I have always felt that way because “home”, to me, has always been a patchwork. There’s the place you were born, the one you grew up in, the countries tied to your heritage, and now a campus far away from everything you ever knew. Each one of them feels like “home,” but then again none of them quite do. They overlap and argue with each other—they coexist like siblings fighting over the bigger room.

When you search Menton on the internet, you’re greeted with pictures of lemon trees, sparkling blue water, and beautiful multi-colored buildings dotting the coast. It seems like a no-brainer when choosing your Sciences Po campus – who wouldn’t want to live in one of the most beautiful towns in the world? But as students arrived in August, they began to realize that living in Menton might not be as pleasant as it seems online.

Accepting that “leaving one place does not mean that I leave my problems behind” is the biggest lesson this place has, accidentally or not, taught me. Being content where one is is a choice, although not an easy one. Life can be a lot of work, even when living on the Riviera.

As we 2As prepare for our departure, I wonder what my biased memory will frame my time in Menton to be. Is living in the Côte D’Azur really as luxe as Instagram stories sell-it to be? This is my little reflection to remember the highs and the lows while they're still fresh in my memory. Here are ten lessons (from the 100s) from Menton

At first glance, Menton appears to be a quaint and peaceful town on the French Riviera—a place of leisure, history, and, of course, lemons. But is Menton truly as fruity as it seems?

Though they are both great, one has to be better, right? Is being a Lion superior to being a Golden Bear? Are the views of the Bay more attractive than the sights of the Big Apple?

If you were to explain this idea to a person living in the era of the Iron Curtain, they would probably see it as unrealistic humor. But does Schengen truly live up to this utopic practice? Rising concerns about national security are now testing Schengen’s limits. What is the current reality of a borderless Europe and is it truly borderless?