Travel Travel Travel

I made it! It was a long journey of airports, extremely heavy luggage and attempting my hand at French (pretty unsuccessfully), but I am here! "Here" is the apartment of the Howards, an American family from Ohio who are temporarily living in Paris. They are friends of a sister of a colleage of my father, which sounds pretty crazy (and it is). They are very nice people, and have offered to house my Union roommate (also studying in Seville with me) until the start of our trimester on January 7th.

After getting off the plane, I found myself amidst what seemed like a 7 mile journey around Charles de Gaulle airport. The airport is designed to make you feel like a little fish in a big pond. Literally. The escalators are like tubes under the ocean and there are jellyfish and bubbles floating everywhere. The beauty of the architechture and design of the whole airport makes Logan look like a prison.

After finding my bags, I needed to board an AirFrance bus to get into downtown Paris. I had a 10 minute conversation of 100% body language with an airport employee who spoke no English. Surprisingly, I was able to find the appropriate terminal, board the bus, and only once attempted to get off at the wrong stop. I sound like a stupid American here, but I was amazed at how few people spoke English. It had only been 1 hour in Paris, and I had to restrain myself from running up to a teenage boy on the bus with an English novel in his hand and saying "YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!? ME TOO!"

I then managed to hail a taxi, and had another gesture-based conversation with the taxi driver. My only French words are "merci" "bonjour" "pardon" "taxi" and "je vouz dre moin livre" (I want my book - from Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus). Somehow, this was sufficient.

The apartment we are staying in is great and furnished 100% in Ikea. The walls are covered in extremely cool posters of Photo-shopped pictures of the 4 daughters, and the toilets and sinks are located in separate bathrooms.

I just took a much needed nap, and still have no concept of when "yesterday" was, exactly. I'll be sure to keep in touch!

Liz