Getting Here

On less than 4 hours of sleep I groggily followed the steps at the American Airlines self-service station and only narrowly avoided the threat of a $10,000 fine for misread a 6 as 5. After navigating through security, I took advantage of the Sunport’s free WiFi and to my delight found Emily C. online, sitting comfortably in her hot family’s home in Nantes. Relieved and excited that one of us had already made it across the Atlantic, I was ready to start my own adventure.

The excitement faded quickly after the reality of having another 3 hours of sitting at O’hare after an already long first 2 hours. A girl about my age had asked me to keep an eye on her luggage for 2 minutes. Assuming that she was making a quick trip to the restroom or grabbing a drink at Starbuck’s, I happily agreed. Thirty minutes and one annoyed text message to a friendly face later, she finally reappeared with only a quick thanks. Desperately needing to stretch my legs, I went to buy a smoothie, what a disappointment! I could only stand a couple of sips before I threw it out and headed for Starbuck’s to make up for it. As I took a sip of my first (and quite possibly my only) Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season I spotted my fellow traveling companions from UPS: Abbey and Brad.

Time passed much faster after that between discussing living arrangements, telephone calls to friends and trying to figure out how to surf the web. Just as our flight was supposed to begin boarding we were told we were changing gates and our flight was delayed over an hour because of mechanical difficulties. After slight confusion and a minor detour we made it to our new gate and eventually on the plane.

The flight itself was non-eventful, I guess as one would hope a transatlantic flight to be. The highlight was when the pilot got on the intercom and said to look out the left side of the plane because you could see the Northern Lights!! All of the passengers jumped up and or leaned over so quickly I wouldn’t be surprised if the pilot had to readjust his steering because of a change in weight balance. The sky was gorgeous!! Shades of green in three layers reaching high into the night sky.

After landing, going through customs and collecting my baggage I proceeded to wait for my shuttle for 45 minutes after the lady had told me only 15, but oh well what can you do. I had a lady from NJ and two 20 somethings from Toronto on my shuttle and got quite the driving tour of Paris while dropping them off at hotels and apartments. Finally we made it to my apartment building, which is very cute from the outside (pictures to come soon). My suitcases and I barely fit in the elevator together and I thought for sure I was going to knock something over walking to my room with everything I was carrying. My room is small but nice, it has a wall of book shelves and a decent sized closet which easily hold all of my clothes (the hanging rack isn’t quite long enough for my dresses though). I have a small wood desk/ table. My host mother and I share a bathroom and the toilet is across the apartment and doesn’t have a sink with it.

My host mother made us lunch which included a gallette (think darker, bigger crepe) with somewhat cooked eggs in it and shredded carrot and tomato salad. She also offered my yogurt or fruit or coffee afterwards but I couldn’t fit another bite. Despite the fact that I was really only hungry enough to eat about half of my lunch, I worked hard to almost clean my plate and she later told her friend on the phone that I had a very small appetite. We then set up her internet on my computer so I could get WiFi and she left me to unpack. After unpacking I took a short walking tour of the neighborhood just to make it to Monoprix to buy some shampoo and bodywash and then to the cell phone store to buy my new phone! I was so tired from only getting 7 hours of sleep in the last 48 that I was hoping I wouldn’t faint in Monoprix. There was guy wearing a kippah in the cell phone store and I almost asked him where I should go to synagogue but I was too tired to get into a conversation.

After getting back I caplopped on my bed and talked to my mom and surfed the web until dinner. For dinner we had chicken thigh/ leg from a new butcher and potatoes au gratin that had the most wonderfully cheesy sauce (I thought of you Dad! ;) ) and a tomato, lettuce and avocado salad. Marie-Claire made me eat two helpings of the potatoes even though one was quite enough and then again tried to get my to eat yogurt or fruit or coffee!! What happened to moderate French portion sizes?! She said something to me like you should eat lots of this now because you don’t get to eat every meal with me. I guess she’s afraid I’m going to starve myself when I have to make my own food? I went to bed almost right after dinner, about 8 o’clock and slept until 6ish so I guess that’s not to bad, I would have preferred 12 hours, but what can you do? Ok that’s way too much for now, I’ll write again when I have something more relevant than my trip here to write about, and I’ll try to take some pictures soon! Love to all!