Je suis arrivée!

Life feels surreal. But as the 10 1/2 hour delayed flight came to an end, I found myself
unsure, unprepared, and my heart was threatening to abandon my body, unwilling to take one for the team. The flight itself was a reality check, because not only did every passenger in my vicinity speak in French, so did the attendants. "Quiche ou boudin, mademoiselle? Et à boire?" All I could do was whisper so softly that they strained to hear my unpracticed & dreadful accent over the white noise. I began to think in French. I reminded myself of what to say should I ever have to retaliate to an amourous Frenchman. I couldn't think of how to say "You should be ashamed of yourself, assh*le." It was then that I became slightly, no, actually, extremely nauseous. We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at around 9:10 am on September 20th. The oblong airplane windows were foggy -- a telltale sign of the Parisian weather I had become so familiar with. I was 5,661 miles away from home, but all I could think about was which freakin' line I had to get in for the immigration checkpoint. The uniformed man behind the interrogation glass was amiable as I timidly greeted him "Bonjour, monsieur." Flipping through my passport, he paused at my visa. "Étudiante?"
"...oui."
"Bienvenue."
Then he did one of those authoritative stamps, you know, those ones that only uniformed men can really perform. The ones where it seems like it takes the entire strength of their arm just to push it down. Then it makes one of those satisfying I-always-have-the-final-say sounds, it's really quite indescribable. But at any rate, this is besides the point. I found may way to the baggage claim and also to the meeting point of my ISA director all by myself, which I was fairly proud of. Crystal (pronounced, kriss-tah-luh) greeted me with a gaudy laminated ISA sign and a packet with my apartment information. Unsurprisingly the rest of the students who were also being picked up were all, yes, girls. Everyone was tired and moody, so we got by with as little small talk as we could afford. After about half an hour, the misery was curtailed when we set off in a van with our quintessentially French driver, Antoine, but not before I readily conversed with both of them in my once again, pathetic French. I was the first to be dropped off & met by Gabriel, who was extremely kind, but who forgot my key and left me outside the door for about half an hour to wait for my roommates to return. When they eventually got back, I was ready to fall on my face from fatigue, but when I stepped into our apartment, all I could do was gawk. Oh yes, and take photographs. Lots and lots of photographs.

It's beautiful, and perfect, and lovely, and wonderful, and marvelous, and spacious, and and and. . . I just wish you could see it. I settled in (it worked out that because I was the last to arrive, I also had the leftovers) with my roommate Caitlin and the other girl, Cassie had the larger single room. But I really don't mind because the entire place is just so perfect. Our window sees out into a quiet courtyard with a park and traces of French conversation float through the air as residents walk through with their children and their baguettes. (No, really.) Our neighborhood is unlike what I expected. It's quiet and quaint, with lots of families and boulangeries down the street. There are scarcely any tourists because we're so far from any major typical Parisian landmark, which is nice.

After taking a guiltless catnap, I decided to be semi-social, so Caitlin and I decided to explore the neighborhood a bit and we walked a few blocks down to see the local eateries and people. We stopped at a boulangerie, and I, of course, got myself a macaron d'amande and Caitlin, a pain chocolat. We stopped at the park to savor our goods and on the way back stopped at the 8 à huit to do a little grocery shopping. Our refrigerator being virtually empty, it seemed a necessity. Afterwards we celebrated with some wine & cheese (a total of 5 euro, thank you VERY much) in the courtyard outside our apartment. It was a nice homecoming.

I feel so at ease here, any trepidation just melted away as the streets of Paris entered my soul. Oh no, I don't mean to sound dramatic, but there really is something about this city that just captures your heart and runs away with it.

Tomorrow is an entire day of orientation, so I expect to have less time to update (at least in such grave detail), but at any rate, à bientôt! :)

Living room

Closet space

Kitchen! So cute :)

The courtyard

The neighborhood

pastry

mmmmmm

Courtyard at night

foliage & smoke