oh, mon dieu! (oh, my god!) i cannot believe i'm here. i'm in france. i'm sitting in a comfy chair with a skylight right over my head, and i don't care that it's overcast outside. i'm here. and although i am still nervous and scared, i am also relieved. especially now that the nightmare of traveling is over!
so, last night i went to my roommate grace's going away party (she came to france today, too. same school, same program as me) so i could see some of my friends before i left. didn't stay there for too long because i still had some last-minute packing to do. so i took my lovely man elliot home with me so we could spend as much time together as possible before this 4 month long separation. i'm so glad i did; it was really nice to have company because i did not get one wink of sleep. when morning came i was ready to go, all packed up, and as we were driving to the airport i realized i had forgotten my toothbrush. of all things, my toothbrush. damn it! i was hoping that it wasn't a bad omen on what was to come that day. but, i think it was...
the flights all went really well, and grace and i got our luggage okay, but when we went downstairs in the airport to buy our train tickets to angers, it was literally below freezing point in there. we could see those clouds of mist as we breathed out. not cool. and the train didn't leave for another hour and a half. i was dying. if you know me, you know that if there's one thing i hate, it's being cold for long periods of time. finally, the train came... and here goes the results of the bad omen... grace and i didn't know that there was such a thing as attaching one train to another, even though the two are eventually going to separate places. so we were standing on one end of the train that said it was going to rennes. so we thought, oh, there must be another train coming riiiight after this one. nope. but then we were skeptical and asked one of the ladies who worked there where the train to nantes was (angers was one of the stops on this train to nantes) and she gasped and said, "mbalidsfa;ae asflkmb alksdnig adsnfasdkfasm!!!!" which stands for some french sentence that i don't know, but we understood that it was THIS train that was seconds from leaving on which we were supposed to be. so she scooted us onto the train, and with that we had to make other people scoot farther in, and it was a huge mess with a lot of luggage clutter and frantic people and i was like, dear.. lord.. in heaven. this is nuts. so the french lady told us that at the next stop, we had to get out of the car that we just went in because it wasn't our car and go walk down to the car we were supposed to be in. well, little did anyone know, the car we were supposed to be in felt like it was a mile away. it was almost at the very ass-end of the train. so, as we were speed-walking, luggage in tow (keep in mind that grace's luggage is an old suitcase with tiny wheels, so it falls over with any smidgen of a tilt,) and we see the train doors whoosh close and its wheels start to move. grrreat. stupid toothbrush.
yep, missed our train. and when we went to talk to the lady at the ticket counter, she didn't understand why we said that we missed our train when we weren't at the beginning location that our tickets said we were. and we were hoping to just get a small fee for changing our tickets, but nope, we had to buy new tickets for the full price. that's 90 euros in one day on train tickets. holy moses. think about it this way: i changed $200 into 121 euros. that's only 31 euros difference of what i just paid. thus, that's almost $200. what. the. fuzz. france. once again, NOT COOL. i started to wonder, am i actually going to enjoy this? not being able to communicate with people effectively, not being able to express my frustration and anger adequately because i'm too busy thinking of the french words to say?
what's worse still is that grace and i have no way to get ahold of her host mom, who was picking us up, to tell her that we would be about an hour and a half late. and how would we let her know even after we got there? we hoped to god that she was still waiting (which would probably be the nicest french person in the world. i mean, in france.) but like any other sane person, she was nowhere to be found when grace and i got to angers. we tried to read this crazy pay phone's instructions that didn't accept any form of cash/change, sat down for awhile, racked our brains, then finally grace got the energy/nerve to get up and ask someone how to use the phone. and luckily the little store inside the train station sold the cards that you have to put in the phone to call someone. so we called her host mom (her name is marie-helene, for future reference) and she was happy to come get us and simply thankful that we were okay. what a relief! so, we went to marie-helene's house, called our parents, and ate some chicken and steamed broccoli with wine. ahh, my first day and i'm already drinking alcohol. fabulous! that made up for some of the stress of the recent events. after that, we went upstairs and i skyped my main squeeze. elliot. <3 oh, how lovely it was to see his studly face. (and just for your information, i stopped writing this at about this time, when i fell asleep and when my computer started to morbidly die... so the rest of this post is being written the next night.) at about 6 o' clock, i fell asleep... and didn't wake up until 8 in the morning. yay for 14 hours of sleep! kickin' jet lag's butt for sure.
so this morning, at 11 o' clock, my host mom (her name is colette) came to get me. and boy, did she make me speak french and sound dumb. she doesn't speak a lot of english... really, she doesn't speak any english. just a few vocab words here and there, and only when she's trying to explain something that my french skills (and lack thereof) missed. but, it was good! she tried really hard to use common language with me and we didn't get into anything too deep. we went back to her house, she showed me around and i picked out which bedroom i wanted and unpacked my stuff. we had coffee together and chatted for a bit about where i'm from, about my family, and just random things. at 2, it was time to go get karen, another exchange student living with colette and me. and get this awesome-ness: karen is so cool! we have so much in common, except that she's from juneau, alaska and also speaks espagnol (for all of you ruh-tards, that's spanish.) we talked the whole time she was unpacking, and i'm pretty stoked that we're living together for the next 4 months. :)
then, colette, karen, and i walked to the university, which is like 12 minutes away. she showed us around a little bit, at least enough for us to know where to go on our first day. after that, colette took us to the store so i could get shampoo and conditioner, envelopes, an umbrella, and whatnot. this crap is so much more expensive here for less of the product. lamesauce. after that, we came home, chilled for an hour or so, and finally colette yelled up the stairs that dinner was ready. thank god; i thought my digestive system was eating itself. we had awesome bread and soup that was made from turnips, leeks, carrots, and celery all mashed and blended together, which really wasn't too bad if you put a lot of salt and pepper on it. karen and i ate a lot of it because we thought that was all we were having. but oh, were we wrong. colette then brought out salad, ham, and seasoned potato cubes. delicious. except for the salad, i'm not a huge vinaigrette fan. i inconspicuously swallowed it down with some potatoes though, no problem. once again, karen and i thought we were done. yeah, right! colette brought out a plate of goat cheese and told us that now we drink wine, with the goat cheese. so we had some wine. very.. strong.. wine. last but not least, colette whipped out the fruit bowl. i had a kiwi. kiwis are one of my favorite fruits, but i mostly picked it because it was the smallest thing in there. i mean, holy moses, i just ate enough for jesus and his twelve disciples! and that was the last supper.... i mean, the last course.
i helped colette take the dishes into the kitchen and get things washed and tidied up, then told her i was going to take a shower. i really did need to take a shower, but honestly, my brain felt like melted french cheese from being so exhausted of translating all day. i skyped elliot again, cried this time, and then he had to leave to go to class. so here i am, writing this novel of a post. which, if you've read it this far, kudos to you, friend. you are one super trooper. alas, i am tired and ready to catch some z's, as i have already accustomed myself to the time change. go me! to all my friends and family back in kansas/new york, have a lovely rest of your day. i am going to bed. bon soir!
