The Good Life: Bienvenue à Paris!

Well it’s official.

I’m in PARIS!!!!!

The flight wasn’t horrible but it was so hard to sleep on the plane. I’m pretty sure I was out for less than an hour. With no way of sleeping, I entertained myself by watching random pieces of movies they had playing on (my personal) TV and switching between the country and Broadway radio stations. Sounds like a blast, I know! We were served dinner and breakfast while onboard. Dinner was some nasty chicken and rice thing with salad, a roll, and a brownie and breakfast was really good yogurt and a pastry.

Paul and I on the plane to PARIS!!!!

We (Paul and I) landed in Paris at CDG airport a little bit after 6:00am and headed through to customs. It was super painless and took maybe 5 minutes to get through and head out to the baggage claim. That was painless too! We both had all of our bags within 10 minutes of leaving customs. They have those baggage carts (the ones that cost like $3 per cart in the U.S.) for free so we loaded all of our stuff onto there.

We headed out to the waiting area in hopes of meeting our shuttle driver who would take us to our hotel in Paris. After 3 drivers saying our shuttle was coming and 2 hours of waiting, our driver arrived. Jet lag definitely started to kick in while we were on the highway into Paris. That quickly ended with the shuttle driver’s way of driving. He was treating his giant van shuttle like a moped the way he weaved in and out of traffic! It was kind of impressive/terrifying!

Paul and I were the first ones to be dropped off at “L’Étas Hotel” around 9:00am but we couldn’t check in until 3:00pm, so we left our luggage in a security room and we were off exploring Paris for the afternoon!

First we stopped at a Boulangerie for some breakfast. We both ordered pain au chocolat and jus d’orange and it was fabulous! AND the lady didn’t question our nationality so that was a relief. After food, we decided to try the Metro and headed to downtown Paris to see some famous sights. The weather was rainy and cold and just plain wet but it’s PARIS so we couldn’t complain. We wondered around Paris until around noon and then went back to the hotel to see if anyone else had arrived. Kayla was in the lobby! It was good to see a familiar face and not long after we started talking, the others from our group started arriving at the hotel.

We were finally assigned rooms and Amy (my lovely roommate) and I settled into our little European hotel room before meeting the group at 3:30pm to hit up the town. Paul and I had already figured out the metro and all of that jazz but it was fun to see everyone’s faces when they saw all of the famous, beautiful landmarks that Paris is famous for.

Our W.C.!

Our crazy IKEA-esque room

Dr. Olivier showed us the institute building where church would be every Sunday and where we would have class each week. It’s in a GORGEOUS 17^th century building that’s just...amazing. I’ll make sure and take pictures when I go back! (I didn’t have time today). Oh and random fact - the church institute building is smack dab in the middle of the gay and Jewish neighborhoods. Yay for minorities sticking together! After the tour of where we’d have school, Dr. Olivier took us on a boat ride up and down the Seine River where I proceeded to take 18973489 pictures. Not really, but I went kinda crazy!

Finally, we ended our first day in Paris with dinner at a random French café somewhere in the Quartier Latin. I had a “sandwich Charlemagne” which had lettuce, tomato, hard-boiled egg, and butter on a baguette. It was delish!!!! Unfortunately, I had my first negative encounter with the French woman working there. There were three of us ordering and I guess we just suck at saying “Charlemagne” en Français (can you blame us...you try it!) and she was very frustrated that we couldn’t pronounce it correctly. In the end, she pointed to a sandwich, we said oui or non, and we were on our starving yet merry way.

So there you have it! Day one in Paris complete! Holy moly, it went by fast! After having to take a horrible mug shot looking picture for my Metro pass, not sleeping for over 30 hours, and walking all day long, I’m ready for bed! Bonne nuit everyone! Until tomorrow!

Oh and while you’re at it, enjoy some snapshots of my day today. (They're not edited or anything yet, I'll post edited ones later)

Notre Dame de Paris