Finalement, France.

After two haphazard plane rides and arduous treks through the Parisian Metro, I made it to my hotel. I think that it is totally impossible to not get hopelessly lost in any subway-like system when you first use it, or for me, many times after first using it. We were able to check in with the friendly hotel proprietor in French and were taken to our rooms. They were beautiful as far as city hotel rooms go, although there were a couple of mysterious burn marks on the walls. We bravely decided to get up at 8 am in order to see the Paris essentials, the tour d’efille and the like, confident of our abilities to navigate the immense foreign city. Little did we know, we would be foiled before even getting out of bed. None of us took the European 24 hour clock into account when setting our alarms on our 90’s-esque phones. Un faux pas.
But we woke up in time to check out, brave the metro maze again with enough luggage to count as 3 extra people strapped to our backs, and wander around la gare looking for our train. I have to admit that I couldn’t help but think of Harry Potter as a first year, wandering around Kings Cross Station, bewildered and trying to follow other people in order to make some sense of his ticket. I loved the TGV, mostly because it was a chance to actually sit down and partly because I was amused by the people with dogs that I saw walking down the aisles. When it came time to get off the train, we had to stand by the door and wait because the French think that 30 seconds is ample time for numerous people to hull 80 pounds of luggage out of the two-foot wide door. I felt like a racehorse, my leg muscles tensed and my eyes fixed on the unopened door. But, after a lot of clumsy rushing, we all managed to make it off the train before we were lost to the French countryside forever and we were finally in Avignon.
I have to admit, at first, I couldn’t have cared less what the city looked like unless it was constructed entirely of bottles of water and immense beds. But, grudgingly, I forced myself to observe my surroundings like an adult. I was glad I made the effort. Avignon is beautiful. Everything seems to be stone and terra cotta tile.
After collapsing in my hotel bed for an hour, I went to the only thing that could lure me from sleep. Dinner.
All twenty of us ate in a cozy restaurant and we had a traditional French dinner, complete with an apparatif. For dessert, of course I had a crème brulee. But I was surprised to realize that I preferred the raspberry crème brulee that I ordered at Zoe in Athens, Ohio. I sat by Christophe and Katie, the directors of the program, which meant I couldn’t get away with whispering English. But they were patient and humored my eclectic combination of English and French.
Sometimes I feel completely lost and can’t even seem to remember English words and other times I feel like I know exactly what I’m doing, which I know is not at all true. All I know is, my French better improve miraculously overnight so that I can actually communicate with my host family. And a disclaimer: I cannot spell. I try, but to no avail. If you find any spelling errors, just think of them as my…creative expression. Merci.