WAY back on Thursday, my parents and I left for the airport around 11:45 am, got there by 3pm (after having to drive around the airport twice to get into the proper parking area for my terminal, number 8), and I easily went through ticketing and bag-check (although I was nervous to say au revoir to my immense orange suitcase--I always get anxious about checking luggage), unfortunately found out that there was no place to eat lunch with my parents before the security check-in, so we got coffee and stood around with a few other students and parents from the group, until we had to say a somewhat awkward (for me) and a somewhat tearful (for the mothers) farewell, and then we were hurried through security and somehow ended up on the other side, at gate 35, waiting for our flight to Paris. The whole group was on the group flight but we didn't have seats together, so I spent my flight next to a blond woman who had the exact same copy of the New Yorker that I was reading. About seven very uncomfortable hours later (I was fine at first, of course, but after dinner I tried to sleep, which necessitated my curling up into the fetal position upright in the airplane seat, and when I was just about to drop off, they came around with coffee and breakfast.) we arrived at 7am at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. I exchanged $200 in traveler's cheques and received a pitiful 125 Euro, then we met Frederique, a mad French woman who works at the Skidmore Center, who informed us that we would be taken by shuttle to the Center. After lighting her cigarette (I am always prepared...), I waited around with the group (it was raining, which, in Paris, means awful traffic) for the shuttle, we loaded our piles and piles of luggage into the shuttle when it arrived, and we reached the Skidmore Center in one piece. The place is actually pretty cool, with windows in the classrooms looking out over the street with all sorts of foliage, and a computer room with funny French keyboards on all the computers (I felt like an idiot trying to type!). From there (where Frederique gave us quite a long talk about navigating the Paris subways and the various forms of transportation, while we all tried our hardest not to fall asleep--we had all been up for far too long!) we went with Frederique to a cafe and we each had two cups of coffee (un noisette et un cafe au lait pour moi) to try to wake up. Afterwards, we had a beautiful lunch with Frederique, Sandy (another lovely French woman who works at the Center), and Linda Simon, my advisor and the director of the program. Tomato and mozzarella salad, vegetables gratin, and chocolat fondant... I was entirely stuffed. Then we had a bit of orientation at the Center, an introduction to the program and a basic French class where we learned some phrases to say to our host-families. We had a bit of a break then, in which a few girls took a nap, and then we were off again. We went with Sandy to get transportation passes (metro cards that we can use in the subway, on buses, and on RER trains) and international cell phones and SIM cards (this took an absolute ETERNITY!). At last, we returned to the Center to meet our host families and go HOME to our new home-stays. I was so thrilled to see my apartment! It's all light-colored rugs, glass and stainless steel furniture, big windows, and modern art... SO beautiful. We had a lovely, simple dinner of tomato salad with basil (my host-mom buys only organic tomatoes and in-season produce... could I be in a more perfect family?), penne with tomato sauce, wonderful French bread (which I had been looking forward to), delicious wine (one glass did me in, I was so exhausted from the flight and the long day of orientation), and the traditional cheese and fruit after dinner (again, the cheese was even better than what I had hoped for! Real Roquefort, Gruyere, and something delicious that started with a c... amazing), after which I was simply exhausted, but ended up not getting into bed until after 11pm, which Frederique said was the best way to get over jet-lag: just stay up until it's a normal time to go to bed, and when you wake up you'll be fine.
On Saturday, by which time I was mostly awake but still not fully recovered, my host-mom (her name is Geraldine, by the way, and her husband is called Jean--they're both lovely people) drove me to the metro station, to which I will normally take the bus, and I was off to meet Frederique at the Center. I was there over a half-hour early (the metro took barely 20 minutes), and so had time to attempt to use the computers once more before everyone else arrived. We got our reduced lunch stipends (fees for insurance and textbooks were deducted), then headed off to the Marais to meet Linda and her husband for lunch at Chez Marianne, a Middle-Eastern restaurant with wonderful bread (think fresh pita, onion rolls, and fresh slices of rye) and plates of assorted Middle-Eastern appetizers to put on the bread--everything from liver pate to eggplant to tzatziki sauce. After lunch, we saw a lovely courtyard-garden where we waited to meet our "Awesome Guide," who would show us the Musee Carnavalet (a museum of French history). Our little guide arrived, and gave us an incredibly rapid tour of French history, bringing us all the way from the original tribe, the Parisi, to the French Revolution, Restoration, and modern France. We followed him out to a royal park, built for Louis XIII, he showed us the house of Victor Hugo, and then we parted ways. Linda took us to a lovely tea-shop where you can smell the tea before buying it, and then to a little cafe for some coffee. At this point, Linda and her husband left us, and our free time began. First, we had to find cell-phones for a few people who had brought phones from other countries and couldn't get them to work. We took care of this and by then it was time to head home for dinner. I took the metro easily, but didn't realize that, on the bus, one cannot exit through the door at the front, and ended up missing my stop and having to wait for another bus in the opposite direction! C'est la vie, I got home, and had a lovely dinner (Geraldine made Ratatouille with fresh, local, seasonal veggies) before heading out again to meet the group for our first night on the town.
We had planned to walk on the Champs Elysees, but while waiting for everyone to arrive we decided to stop into a cafe for drinks, and after a bottle of wine (the most cost-effective option, we found) and some individual drinks (outrageously overpriced), we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower instead. Mon dieu, the tower is breathtaking at night! It was all lit up with gold lights, and at 1am it sparkled like mad, with silver lights flashing all up and down the scaffolding. It's also ENORMOUS when you get close to it, and I just couldn't stop gawking up at it--what a tourist! Then, we decided it was time go home. And the adventure began. A few girls took a taxi immediately, but the rest of us (since the metro was closed by now) went to look for the "Noctilien" (the night bus line) about which Frederique had briefly told us. I had a Noctilien map, and we tried in vain to find a single bus stop with a Noctilien sign. We asked a zillion people, none of whom seemed to know anything about a night bus and one of whom was a waiter who gestured off to the left, where we found no Noctilien stop, and we ended up wandering in circles all over Paris, checking every bus stop and, finally, getting taxis when one French woman seemed concerned for our safety (it was, by this time, 2:30 am...). Liz and I took a taxi to the Pont de Neuilly, a metro stop from which I knew my way home, and after a relatively pleasant walk (it's a safe, well-lit neighborhood), I was at last home (well, actually, I went the wrong way down the street at first, and had to turn around when I realized that the address numbers were going down and not up...) and thanked the Gods that I remembered the code into the apartment, since I'd left the slip of paper with the code on it on my desk in my room. Finally, at 3:30 am, I got gratefully into bed, and fell right to sleep.
The next day, we didn't have to meet Linda until noon, although I ended up getting up around 9:30am anyway... I took the lovely walk to Pont de Neuilly station (much nicer in the morning than at 3am), took the metro and then the RER to St. Michel-Notre Dame station, from which I easily found the Fontaine San Michel, where we were to meet Linda and her husband. Once we had all arrived, we went to the Creperie des Arts (a lovely crepe cafe with Greco-Roman decor, rustic dishware, faux-stone alcoves for the tables, and ceramic busts placed randomly all over the place) where we got delicious crepes (mine with Chevre, Bleue, Emmental, Noix (walnuts), salad, and sliced tomatoes--the blue cheese was so strong it literally made me sweat. I love this city) and then headed off for dessert: ice cream at Glacier Berthillon, the oldest ice-cream maker in Paris. This was truly amazing ice cream. I got une grande corne avec frais et chocolat et creme de chantilly (whipped cream). The whipped cream was incredibly fresh, the strawberry tasted like pure strawberry, and the chocolate was super-intense--like frozen mousse. With our ice-cream cones, we walked to the Cathedral Notre Dame for a very crowded tour (it was Sunday, after all), before which I foolishly used the public toilettes, for which there was an obscenely huge line and a bathroom attendant who banged on the stall doors shouting "pee-pee express! pee-pee express!" (actually, that part was pretty amusing). The Cathedral was lovely (of course my camera batteries died at this point) but horribly hot and crowded, so I was glad to get out in the open air as we walked to the RER station to go to the boat-dock for our reservation on a "Bateau Mouche" (tour boat). The boat went up and down the Seine, past the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Parliament building, and various other sites that I missed since, with the lovely breeze over the river and the warm sun up above, I fell asleep on the tour! Alas... but it was quite a nice nap. After that, we were thinking of getting drinks, but after stopping in one overpriced cafe (we'd wandered into a very ritzy area) I was simply too exhausted to continue and headed back to my apartment on metro line 1, which dropped me off at Pont de Nieully again, from which I took a lovely early-evening stroll, smelling the early-fall air and stopping at the two boulangeries/patisseries on the way to check prices (I still have yet to buy a French croissant...), and then had just enough time to e-mail my parents before yet another wonderful dinner: gazpacho, omelettes (with some ratatouille left over from last night), fresh bread, marvelous wine, cheese, and a ripe nectarine. Ooh la la! Then I had a shower in my tiny French bathroom (really, the shower-stall is closet sized! I'm sure I'll get used to it soon though), and gratefully got into bed.
Well now it is Monday morning and we start classes today at 10am. I just had a nice little breakfast of yogurt and meusli with a banana (yes, they keep all of my favorite things in this household...), as well as a strong espresso with milk (in addition to the tea--I'm still a bit jet-lagged and require the caffeine). Soon I will have to get on the bus that takes me to Porte de Chatallet, the metro station from which I can take line 3 right to the Skidmore Center. I have loads of pictures already, which I will post when I get home, but I wouldn't want to be late for my first day of classes, so au revoir!
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