TAKING OFF
Cheap fare, free lodging, perfect Paris

By Irin Carmon, Globe Correspondent, 2/16/2003

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The heat in our dorm rooms isn't working. Outside, the wind chill is 13 below, and it's the last day of exams, but the seven girls living on our floor don't care. Paris, the idea of it, really, is keeping us alive. It has nourished us through cramming chemistry notes and Cold War dates, through analyzing the ayatollah and Roland Barthes. Just one more exam and we'll be on a plane - or three - for the City of Light.

''Do you really think Ashley's parents are going to be happy about eight extra guests in their apartment,'' I keep asking the others. It just seems too good to be true that our suitemate has recently moved to Paris with her family, and that round-trip tickets at STA Travel for January are a mere $350. That the Petersons are willing to put up so many of their daughter's friends for four nights is surely too much to ask.

My fears are unfounded. We are welcomed with astonishing generosity, in a lovely apartment with an Eiffel Tower view - dream come true.

Still, there are other things to worry about. With us we've brought a little bit of Little Rock, Ark.; New York; Corpus Christi, Texas; and Los Angeles; we also have allegiances to Ghana and Israel and Hong Kong, and maybe to Harvard. We are vaguely aware that traveling in a group this large is complicated, that it requires serious compromise, or it means splitting up. Nagging questions are inevitable.

Are we going to sightsee or shop?

Dispersing seems the only answer. One contingent heads to the Louvre, another to Le Bon Marche. It's January, remember, so the shops are full of end-of-season sales, and the museums are relatively uncrowded. For someone who likes to play both games, this is a dilemma. I take solitary trips to the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Musee Carnavalet, and then reconvene to survey boutiques in the Marais.

Other questions are less easily resolved. Will we take a cab or the metro? Will we have crepes on the street or dine at Man Ray?

Money is always a concern, for some of us more than others, despite our sunniest pretenses. Nobody likes talking about it, but everyone has a budget, and they don't exactly match up. There is nothing to do but discuss it before departure and know what is affordable.

The cab/metro question becomes moot around 1 or 2 a.m., when the metro closes and we're obliged to spend dozens of euros on cabs. Fashion Week festivities empty the Champs Elysees of available taxis for hours, and we are utterly helpless. Luckily, another advantage we enjoy is the friendship of the saintly David Huebner, a schoolmate who lives in Paris. After repeated tries on his cellphone, David secures us two cabs that cannot pick up other passengers, despite the devious tactics of desperate Parisians. (For the less fortunate, keeping a phone card and the number of a cab service at hand is essential for such emergencies.)

Having a friendly native at your disposal is useful for more than just transportation. David banters with crotchety waiters and bouncers, and hosts a wine-and-cheese Super Bowl party at his apartment for the football-homesick. He also displays his expertise in amiably fending off the overeager Frenchmen who come our way.

Maybe it's because there are relatively few Americans around, or because so many young women in a group are conspicuous. Maybe it's just culture shock on our part. At any rate, men bark at us, slap our rears, and murmur things David refuses to translate. The bars are full of men who beg us to let them practice their English in exchange for champagne - five minutes only, no obligation, they swear.

''American girls have a bit of a reputation here,'' explains David. He is too polite to elaborate.

''As sluts,'' I suggest.

He is also too polite to argue.

A last question - maybe it should have been the first - Will we plan every day?

No. It seems we've left multitasking in the States, where it belongs. At school, days are booked from dawn till dawn, and stolen free time is fraught with guilt. In Paris, we lose the mornings to nights of dancing, spend hours whispering over thimble-sized coffees, and try on airy, beaded garments we will never buy.

We act our age, if 19 and 20 are turns of self-conscious sophistication, naivete, and frivolity. Look, we can toss around Jean Genet and Modigliani and argue over Disney cartoons in the same breath. We can look suitably bored at the VIP table at Cabaret, and we can walk and spit like llamas in the Latin Quarter when the mood strikes us. We take our cues from the calculated indifference around us and shrug away the questions, at least for this week.

Alternative breaks

More and more students are resisting the allure of fun in the sun when it comes to planning their spring vacation. Alternative spring breaks, as they are known, are not new, but they are proliferating.

Since 1978 Boston College Appalachia Volunteers has sent hundreds of students a year to assist Habitat for Humanity and other community projects. Meanwhile, UMass-Amherst students who make it off a long waiting list take classes on grass-roots development that partner with community organizations. At Harvard, Simmons, and Boston University, among other schools, students can choose from a multitude of service-oriented trips, from rebuilding black churches to environmental cleanup in Florida. While application deadlines may have passed for this year (they vary from about a month ahead of the trip to as early as September), there's always next year.

For those without access to a school program, Habitat for Humanity's Collegiate Challenge has begun an individual registration program, while the nonprofit Break Away (www.alternative

breaks.org) specializes in helping schools and communities start alternative break programs.

Irin Carmon is a student at Harvard University. Taking Off, her column on student travel, appears the third Sunday of the month.