From 03 Septembre 07

Unbelievable. I am so amazed at how good this feels. I am so filled with excitement and joy. So here it is…

It started with an icky plane ride…though I loved the huge plane, my seat was smaller than I expected, and I just couldn’t get comfortable. I had a Starbuck’s six hours before I left, and I thought it wouldn’t effect me, but I guess it did. I could not fall asleep, and I couldn’t get comfortable, and that was frustrating. I think I got about 2 hours of actual sleep, and a lot of time shutting my eyes and trying to count backwards from 100 to fall asleep, which didn’t really work. There was a lot of noise, especially at first, and they didn’t turn the plane lights low until pretty late. I fell asleep about 5am France time, and woke up to breakfast in front of me at 7am. Yikes. Oh well…I was pretty excited.

I met Kristin in the airport before we left. She goes to my school and is in my program, so we agreed to meet so we could find our way around the airport. When we got to Paris, it was really cold outside, which was unexpected. We got off the airplane and got on a little bus that took us to customs. Little did I know all customs is in Paris is a line. Then you show them your passport and they scan it and you walk away. Since I didn’t even know I was going through customs, I didn’t ask the guy to stamp my passport, and he didn’t. He stamped Kristin’s, but I think that was because she had an older one, and I think mine has some sort of computer chip in it. But I wasn’t too upset, because the stamp was not really interesting. Maybe I can get one on the way out or something. Then we met another girl, who asked if we were part of CIEE, named Keisha. We all went to the baggage area and waited in line for awhile and then got our bags. I was a little embarrassed about my two fairly large bags when I saw that they both had one huge back each. But, c’est ne pas grave (no big deal).

We walked out of the baggage area and found the spot where we were to meet the group. We were early, but soon people arrived, and we met more and more people from our program, which was fun. Finally we met Loren Ringer, the program director. He is a schnazzy sharp good-looking man with a calm and peaceful energy about him. He was very sweet and made us feel comfortable. We also met Stacy, the coordinatrice d’etudiants (student coordinator), who was also very nice. Both of them spoke French slowly and carefully, but never said a word in English. I was happy, though, because I really understood everything they were saying.

Loren gave us each 45 euros, metro tickets, a map, and a schedule of activities for our time in Paris. He took attendance, making sure to get everyone’s name exactly the way they wanted it. He is very organized, and I knew right away that I liked him. When everyone arrived, we went outside (in the rain) and put our bags on a big bus. Then, we took the bus into central Paris. We arrived at our hostel, and checked in. However, our rooms weren’t ready so everyone stuffed their luggage into a tiny room. After a talk with Loren, everybody was off to lunch in a different hostel right next to us (I think it’s a chain of some sort). While in line, Loren asked for the vegetarian told me to ask for an omelet. The food was ok – it was basically cafeteria food, and I think everyone would have preferred my omelet to their funky-looking hotdog-like beef sticks. But the Pistachio pudding was pretty good. After lunch, we had some time, so I tagged along with a group of people who were going for a walk. I met some nice people, although all of them have been to Paris before except for me. This made it easy to navigate, but hard for me to take it all in. I found myself in complete awe of the architecture. I whipped out my camera even though no one else did and we were walking very quickly. But I did manage to get a few pretty good photos, even though it was cloudy.









I definitely plan on going for walks around Paris, either in these few days or when I return. Then we went to buy phone cards, which was an interesting experience because we were speaking in French to the cashiers…well, mostly Kristin did the talking, but I was learning and getting my confidence up for the next time. ;) Then it was time to go back to the hostel and get into our rooms. Our room has six beds but it’s a really cool shape and is quite comfortable, and has two showers. I got placed with some of the gals I was talking and hanging out with, so I was happy about that. We took showers and relaxed for a bit, and then we went to a café because we were all so tired. That was a super awesome experience. The people at the café were so nice and we were practicing our French with them and then we sat down and were getting to know each other. I started to like a lot of the people, so that made me happy.



After our petit café, we went back to the hostel to meet the rest of the group before diner. As a group, we finally all introduced ourselves and we met our moniteur (Nicolas – pronounced Nick-o-la) and our monitrice (oops, I forgot her name). They are students at the Universite de Rennes and will be meeting with us and helping us get accustomed to Rennes and what we can do for fun.

Then, Loren gave us the low-down on speaking French. Pretty much the whole day everyone was speaking English with each other, but of course Loren and Stacy were speaking French with us and us with them. So he talked about the purpose of the program, and all these reasons to speak French with each other whenever possible. It was not a lecture – it made total sense, and I was hoping that everyone would follow it. Then he read us the contract we were going to sign, which basically gives all the circumstances in which we must speak French (with each other as much as possible, with our host family, with our mointeur/monitrice, etc). The idea is: please parler francais toujours (speak French always). Then he passed the contract out, and we signed it.

Then, we were off to dinner. Finally, there was better light, and I was in complete awe of how beautiful this city is. I mean, every single building is AMAZING. I love how so many of the buildings have petit balconies that aren’t really balconies and just have beautiful flowers on them. I snapped some more photos, even though once again I was the only one, and we were walking fast (geez people!)







Then, it started getting really fun, because we all started speaking French to each other. And my fear of speaking French pretty much completely melted away. Why? Because I realized that I’m at pretty much the same level as everybody else, and everybody makes the same mistakes, and if you just blurt out French the best you can, then people actually understand what you’re saying, even if it isn’t top notch grammar. I was on a French-speaking high. I met a really nice girl named Caroline, and ended up sitting with her when we got to the restaurant, and talked with her and some others a lot. My vegetarian meal was a pile of lots of different vegetables, while everyone else had pasta and chicken. I would have preferred some vegetables and some pasta, but c’est ne pas grave. I think that a lot of people just think “legumes” (vegetables) when they think of vegetarians. They forget that we can have, for example, pasta. But, alas, we got wine and yummy dessert too. I had a lot of fun. After dinner, we were free to do whatever we wanted, and after running around from group to group, I decided to go with the group that was going with the French students. It ended up being pretty fun, because we went to a café/bar and got drinks (I got tea) and just talked and had fun with the French students. I really like them – they are very friendly and have bright, vibrant energies (especially Nicolas). I learned a lot, and we spoke French the entire time. I was feeling really comfortable speaking French…it was basically amazing. After that, we walked home, speaking in French the whole time. Again, I was on a French-speaking high. What a great feeling – to be able to express yourself with others in an entirely different language – awesome. We took a photo outside the Hotel de Ville – apparently it’s where Nicolas Sarkozy (French president) works.



That was it for the night, but what a day. Amazing how fast I got comfortable, and how much I love it here. I love the architecture, I love the people, I love being totally surrounded by a foreign language that I actually know, I love all the new experiences, and breathing it all in. This is truly a gift and a blessing in my life, and I’m going to savor every minute of it.

Bonne nuit, mes amours.