Zut alors!

Hello everyone!

You know, I promised a nice long blog right now with lots of photos and captions and everything, and I don't think I'm going to be able to follow through completely on that promise until later tonight. I am leaving soon to go to dinner with fellow study abroad friends -- the first dinner I will have with friends instead of with my host family.

Speaking of my host family, they are SO nice. It is a mom (Mme de Montsabert) and twin 13-year-old girls (Juliette et Maude). The mother is very warm and welcoming; she keeps telling me "Chez moi, c'est comme chez toi," which is the French equivalent of "mi casa es su casa." The girls are quite chatty and often speak entirely too quickly for me to follow exactly what they are saying -- Juliette is good about slowing down, but she often has to "translate" for mile-a-minute Maude. They are much more childlike than 13-year-olds in the US, which I think is true of many French children. They are into playing and making really goofy jokes, which is way more fun than them being sulky and trying to act "mature."

The reason I haven't been able to blog nearly as much as I've wanted to is that the last few days have been an absolute whirlwind of jet lag combined with a bunch of new experiences. I arrived on Sunday at 8:00 a.m., which as you know is an absolutely ungodly hour for me in the first place. Combine that with very little sleep the night before I left, an entire day spent flying to Philly/hanging out in the Philly airport/boarding my flight to France, and an entire night on a cramped airplane with a screaming infant on board (no exaggeration, he screamed all night), et voila -- le jet lag! It's a good thing there was a fellow EDUCO student sitting right in front of me (Erica), as well as another Emory EDUCO person on the plane (Julia) to help me flag down a taxi and get to the hotel in one piece.

After the taxi ride, we arrived at the hotel and brought our luggage upstairs -- I was very happy to see Julia schlepping at least as much baggage as I was, although apparently she didn't have to pay the $50 overage charges I did (ouch) even though her bag was 10 lbs heavier. Then we browsed one of the many Paris street markets and had a very leisurely lunch at a cafe, which was partly due to soaking in the Paris atmosphere and partly because all of us were so jet-lagged we didn't want to move. After that, my new friend Erica and I explored the area for a little while. We were in the Marais neighborhood, right by the Opera Bastille and Place des Vosges -- lots of cool art galleries and unique, upscale shops. Then we returned to the hotel and Erica and I napped for about 2 hours before our orientation meeting. This is the size of our hotel room (with Erica):




















Imagine that plus one bed squeezed into the other side, plus two girls' luggage for four months and you get the idea. However, the view was tres charmant:















And here is Julia demonstrating how all of us gathered to log in to the Internet and send messages to our families and friends letting them know we're still alive.















Anyway, that's all I have time for, but at least that gets you through the first day. More later!

Bises,

MK