First day in...France???

Bonjour tout le monde!**

**Hi everyone!

I am safely arrived and settled in at my host family's house. They are SO very nice and helpful. They call me Kate which is exactly what I was hoping because the vowels don't work out very well in “Katie” in French and anyway there's another girl in the program named Katie (big surprise) so it works out just as well. And as most non-English speakers are, they were confused by the silent e in Katelyn so we had to work that all out.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday we realized that there was no way for me to make my 6:15 flight from Philly to Paris because my plane was delayed and I was going to get to Philly at 5:58. Halfway across the airport. Uh-uh. That was a stressful hour or two. So we went to the airport and they transferred me to a similar United flight series that took me through Chicago. That was lovely because we landed in Chicago just as the sun was setting, and the skyline and the lake and the pinkness—mm, it was just fabulous. I sat next to a businessman on the long flight, which went very smoothly. I basically just wanted them to hurry up and serve me dinner so that I could go to sleep. I was pretty much not conscious from about 3: ...45? to 8:30 (here time) although for good sleep, I think I got about 3 or 4 hours in hour/forty-five minute chunks. Because they didn't serve dinner till like 8:30 or 9 body time. Glad I had a snack before boarding!

So then I got to Paris (the beginnings of the sunset were pretty this morning too, although it was a bit overcast on the ground), got my luggage fine, got myself cleaned up a bit and started trying to find the Sheraton where we were supposed to meet the on-site director. That made me use my French skills (like an eensy beensy bit) asking for directions and then understanding/following them, demanding to be let out on the elevator, etc. But then I found it. And no one just started speaking English to me! Of course, I spoke French to them first... There was a pile of luggage and two girls sitting there when I finally found the Sharaton whom I suspected were part of the Bowling Green program but I was enjoying speaking French too much to go talk to them (they were speaking English, hence my easy identification of them). So I got myself une grille aux pommes (latticey apple tart type thingy) and sat a couple floors down and people watched and sent my fam a fb message on my kindle (and updated my status). Finally at about 11:45 (30 mins before we were supposed to meet the director). I headed back upstairs and watched the rest of the BG group rejoin the two girls (which explained the extreme amounts of luggage) with some food they had foraged. Finally at about 12 I went over and introduced myself. They were nice enough and the director finally joined us to tell us that the train wasn't leaving for another hour (mauvais nouvelles) but that we didn't have anything scheduled for the day (bonnes nouvelles). We have placement testing at 9am tomorrow morning (mixed news) and we have plenty of excursions planned (good news ;). It was funny (and good) when hejust walked up and started speaking French. But then he had to stop because a couple people were beginners, but we talked in line for sandwiches in French about Germany. =) We then took the TGV most of the way to Tours, and I slept, even though I wasn't expecting to, because I was so excited about seeing France, and even though the TGV is very smooth and quiet I still fell asleep quite a bit. Head bobbing and all. haha :) Can I just say that it's a miracle that we managed to get all seven of us's luggage off the TGV in two minutes??? It's a miracle. It was a leetle beet scary for a second there. We took the shuttle from the TGV to Tours itself (again miraculously al getting on and off in addition to like 4 Spanish? Girls whom Mr. Kane suspects will also be studying at the institute. Our host families then picked us up at the station, which some of the other kids didn't know was happening until the director met us (but I did because I messaged them and Madame Isabelle told me =). Isabelle (mom) and Claire (daughter a bit younger than Abby) picked me up and it was a short drive home. I met the dad here and ate pain au chocolat (basically a croissant with Nutella inside) with Claire and unparched myself. haha :) My room is blue-y tealy! It has a big skylightish window! And an enormous desk and a bigger than twin, smaller than double bed! (which will make it the biggest bed I've slept in since I moved to college. And possibly the squishiest too, but we'll see about that. ). Putting my stuff away took like a hundred and fifty two times shorter than packing it. And I have plenty of extra space to fill in over the next weeks. =)P I have the oldest son's old room—he goes to school in the north of France and is like, old enough to be completely moved out.

So far I haven't really had any trouble communicating to my host family in French. It was a little hard to explain the significance of a buckeye (I gave them chocolate for their gifts, which they seemed excited about) but we muddled through it. :) Isabelle made Claire read my family's note to them (which was in English). They were very appreciative and liked the family picture too.

Well, even though the director recommended going to bed about now, I'm feeling pretty OK and dinner's not till 8 anyway. Ok, so I'm a little dizzy but that's just planes and trains and ...the fact that I got like 3 hours of sleep last night. And haven't really eaten much that doesn't fit into the “grains” food group...although I have to say my mozzarella, tomato and lettuce sandwich that was lunch competed with Germany's sandwiches fairly well. *commence random thoughts that have not yet been mentioned* The director just got back from Germany so that's cool. They say they have a country house that we'll probably go to some weekend. I read a bit of one of the kids' old school grammaire books to brush up a bit...and because it amuses me. Literature is too complicated for my current state of mind, grammar just makes sense. Maybe I am exhausted—it's kind of hard to type accurately! Well, and all the French mixed into my brain right now...I'm sure James will have a comment on that.

OK, I think I might really be done now. A tout à l'heure!*

*Until soon

Oh and I think they're catholic judging by the books and tonight we're going to eat la galette aux rois! Or something like that. The Magis' cake? It has a little figurine inside. I feel like I read about this once, but I can't remember. *shrug* Claire's excited, so I'm excited.

Oh and they have a vocabulary building little flippy calendar thingy that Claire says they forget about but I can be in charge of if I want.

Oh and my bathroom has a skylight too. :)

Oh and the park across the street is just as cute as google maps said it would be.

Ok really now the screen is not helping my dizziness.