Welcome Back!

Hello my faithful readers!

                Sorry for the long absence, but nothing of note (study abroad wise) happened over the last month or so. I had a couple of weeks at home, and then it was back to school for January Short Term. I basically had tons of super-awesome-fun times with my amazing hall-mates and friends! You know typical college life only without the stress of homework or exams. I had a bit of trouble with my visa, but it got sorted out eventually. I drove home on Wednesday and did laundry and packed and then drove to St. Louis this (Saturday) morning.

                The adventures have started already, namely I almost lost my passport and boarding passes. I put them in the bin at security and in the rush to get out of the way, I left them there. A frantic search of my pockets, purse, and backpack turned up nothing, but a very nice security guard looked through the bins with me and we found it eventually. About five feet after that, I dropped my scarf and didn’t notice until I was at my gate, and an announcement was made over the PA system that I scarf had been found. So, I got to run all the way back and claim it. Thankfully I didn’t lose the matching hat, so claiming was easy. The flight was okay, a bit turbulent, but short.

I’m currently in Dallas/Fort Worth airport waiting for my flight to Paris to board. Another girl from Hollins is joining me on this flight. It’s nice to have a friendly face. This place is HUGE! I got to take a fun little train from the terminal I landed in to the terminal where my flight departs. Inside this terminal there are tons of restaurants and shops and over 40 gates! I’ve got another hour or so until boarding time, so I’m going to go read something. See you in Paris!

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                The flight to Paris was pretty uneventful, except for some turbulence, but nothing really bad. Sarah and I got through a passport check and baggage claim, which apparently serves as customs, easily and fairly quickly. We ran into the rest of our group outside of arrivals and made our way to the AirFrance bus, which took us to meet our host families.

                Madame Emanuely, my over-sixty host mom, is nice and I think we’ll work out pretty well. After a brief stop to leave my bags at her apartment, we went through the route to the school. Then we walked around that neighborhood a bit, which included Le Jardin de Luxembourg, very pretty place that I will have to walk through again as it is huge and we didn’t see a quarter of it. Next on the agenda was lunch at what to me seemed like quite a nice restaurant, but what other Parisian restaurant to I have to compare it to? None. Yet. I had Endives au jambon gratinees (something wrapped in ham) and Pomme au four “Maison” (Apple and sweet things, like at home, which turned out to be a steamed apple with sugar, some sort of caramel sauce, and ice cream). All of it was very good, except the Pepsi, which I got to try and wake me up. It was too sweet and kind of flat, though it came in this cool glass bottle and they popped the lid off for you right at the table.

                Then there was even more walking and we saw a bunch of stuff, but I was fading by that time and I’ll have to walk through it again when I’m more awake. Not that I have any idea where we were really. We did visit a museum dedicated to Delacroix, which was pretty neat. Finally we made it back to the apartment, where I got a lesson on how to lock and unlock the doors-two separate codes to get into the courtyard and then into her section of the apartments, and then two keys for the door. This is going t o be fun! I unpacked while she made dinner-green soup which was made by blending every vegetable you’ve ever heard of together (okay not really, but that’s what the list sounded like), bread, lettuce in some sort of light sauce, and prunes. The soup was really good, and the salad dressing wasn’t too bad. The prunes were alright, you know, for prunes, but they’re not really my cup of tea.

                Then I took a shower and now I’m going to bed, even though it’s only 8pm. But I’m tired and my body has been up since 7:30am Saturday! So goodnight.