So Much For Witty Titles

I got to my homestay a couple hours ago, and I'm pretty much settled in. My host mom, Nicole, is originally from Tunisia, and very nice. To those of you who suggested she might be a cougar, she most definitely is not. She's divorced, and apparently with a boyfriend, although I'm not exactly sure what his official status is. Anyway, I'm living in a house (!) just outside of Paris in the Boulogne district. Apparently I'm the only person who's living in a house, which is pretty nice. I guess it's not exactly the quintessential Parisian experience, but I'm still living in Paris, which is pretty awesome. Anyway, I'm going to pick up where I left off, then probably take a nap until dinner.

Right. So I finally got on my flight from Heathrow to CDG, which was pretty uneventful. I slept for maybe a half hour, then they said we were landing and I had to wake up. So we landed and all that and I got out of the plane and wondered why I hadn't had to fill out any kind of customs paperwork like you do when you're flying into the US, and I went to go through customs, which (at the point between the terminal and baggage claim) consisted of a guy looking at my passport and waving me through. It was about 5:30 at this point, and I was supposed to have arrived almost four hours earlier, met with the housing lady, and been at a "Welcome Cocktail Party" which I later found out consisted of barely-alcoholic apple cider and snacks. Anyway, I was upset about it at the time. Then I went to the baggage claim to get my bags, and waited for a really long time (which was probably only like fifteen minutes, but it seemed like an eternity) and worried about not getting my bags, but then thinking that it might actually be nice to not get my bags because I was wearing enough clothes and could've metro-ed into Paris much more cheaply and easily if I didn't have to deal with my bags.

So it came to be that my duffle bag took a really long time to get out of the plane, but it eventually came out. My other bag had apparently been sitting in a pile of other people's baggage next to the baggage claim the entire time, since it arrived earlier than I did and got diverted to that baggage claim to wait for me. I waited for it to come out for like five minutes after my first bag came out before I realized that it might be in that pile, and sure enough, it was there.

So off-topic, I feel like I'm writing really poorly right now because I'm pretty tired and have a lot to write about (of which a lot of is probably insignificant and boring, but I'm writing about it anyway). I apologize for the lack of structure and amusement. I'll try to improve upon this as I get back to a normal sleeping schedule and begin to filter what I write about.

Anyway, I took my bags through customs, which consisted of a guy asking me where I was coming from, what I was was doing in Paris, and if I had more than $10,000 of stuff with me. I said no. Which was true. Then I tried to figure out how I was going to get into Paris, and ended up taking my parent's advice and taking the bus into Paris then taxiing to my hostel where we were staying for orientation weekend. It ended up costing a total of about 20 € (I think that's the Euro sign) rather than the 60-80 € it would've cost to taxi all the way from the airport. Good deal. But it took forever. I didn't get off the bus until about 7:30. Also, the cabby didn't know where the place was, and my pronunciation of the street name was so bad that I had to spell it out for him to put it into the GPS to get to the hostel. Kind of embarrassing, but my French is pretty bad, so I don't really blame him.

Also off-topic, I seem to start all of my paragraphs with either "So" or "Anyway." It bothers me, because it's repetitive and a poor writing practice. However, it reflects how I normally talk, so I'm not really sure if I want to keep doing it or forcing myself to stop. Damn it all.

Alors, (that's my temporary solution,) as I got out of the taxi, the cabby m'a dit, ‹‹Attention,›› mais je n'ai pas lui écouté, donc I a passing car almost took off the car door as I opened it. Then the cabby started yelling at me and I was embarrassed again because I thought that he thought that I was stupid. It was bad. Then as soon as I unloaded my bags, he sped off. So not the greatest start to my trip, if you can tell.

ANYWAY, (yes, I'm reverting to my old ways,) the hostel, called MIJE, had one of those door buzzers that let you in, and I pushed the button to have them buzz me in, then the door buzzed, and I pulled on the handle, and nothing happened. You can probably tell where this is going. I was pretty fatigué, and it seemed perfectly logical at the time that the door should open outward, because the handle looked like you should pull on it and the massive doors hinged outward. Duh.

So I figured that I just pulled on the handle too late, like in Pineapple Express when Seth Rogen can't get into What's-his-name's apartment because he has one of those buzzer things too. So I pressed the button again, and was ready to pull when the buzzer went, then the door buzzed and I pulled, yet again to no avail. I continued this for at least two minutes, horribly confused. It was rather embarrassing. Once again, not a good start to my trip. Eventually I realized that the door was one of those doors that are like a door within a door, and there was a threshold and all that that you had to walk over, and it was actually a push door. I'm not stupid or anything.

So finally I make it into the courtyard and go to the concierge, where I'm terribly embarrassed (once again) that I've been buzzing the door for the last couple minutes while he was talking to someone on the phone and probably having a laugh on my behalf. He tells me that I'm not actually staying there and I have to walk around the corner to the other part of the hostel, and I'm like, "Great, that's exactly what I want to do right now," except I didn't actually say that because it was rude, then he gave me an envelope that I didn't bother opening, and then he told me that I could go get dinner in the cafeteria, which was actually good news, since I was pretty starved by that point. So I go to the cafeteria and find it flooded with small French children. Not exactly what I wanted to see, but whatever. I still don't know what they were doing at a youth hostel in Paris. That just doesn't really make sense to me. There was like a hundred of them. Anyway, I got my food, which was boeuf bourginon (pardon the spelling), much like what I had eaten on my way from SFO to Heathrow, but of even lower quality. Anyway I was hungry so I ate it.

As it turns out, there were still a few Stanford people left in the cafeteria who hadn't yet gone to bed (it was just after 8 at this point), so they hung around while I ate and we talked and lamented about being tired and such. Then we went to the hostel where we were actually staying and I went to sleep pretty immediately.

This is getting really long. I'm going to start glossing over things, because I'm not actually going to get a chance to nap before dinner if I don't.

So I get up the next day, (Friday,) after a semi-restful and much-interrupted night of sleep, and go down to breakfast to be greeted by several people who wondered where I had been and when I had gotten in and such. Breakfast was a hunk of baguette with butter and jam, a croissant au chocolat, un café au lait, and a cup of orange juice. It was pretty good. Anyway it was nice to see people I knew. I had also not talked been on the internet for a full day, which must've been the first time I'd been without internet in over a year. It was insane. So anyway I went back up to my room, which lacked towels, and took a shower after which I had to dry myself off with my tshirt. It was kind of weak, but whatever. It worked.

So we had orientation stuff all morning and the first part of the afternoon, which involved us learning about Parisian life and such, and getting around, and opening bank accounts (!), etc. There was a lunch break in the middle which consisted of various salad-type things, (grated carrots, sliced cucumber and such), rice pilaf, severely overcooked broccoli and a McDonald's-style filet o' fish. It was pretty mediocre. After orientation, we did a shortened version of a scavenger hunt (jeu de piste) that consisted of one clue. My group won, because we were the first group to get our question, and it took about 5 minutes to complete.

The rest of the afternoon (a couple hours) was spent running errands like buying plug adapters and charging our Navigo cards (for le Metro). I also got a couple minutes of internet on someone else's computer, and emailed my parents and checked my facebook. It was very satisfying.

Dinner was great. One of the girls (Ali Holliday, a junior in Theta) found a place in her Zagat book that she wanted to try. We all met in the lobby of the MIJE at 7 and went out. It turned out that pretty much the whole group (minus three people) came to dinner, even though the Bing people organizing orientation didn't organize a dinner for us because they thought we wouldn't want to go explore on our own. Totally didn't happen. Anyway, the restaurant, which I never actually caught the name of, was pretty good. It was a little place on a square on the rue de Rivoli near l'Hôtel de Ville, and when we got there (about 7:30), there was nobody else there. We got a big table in the basement which was kind of depressing because we were sequestered away from the rest of the restaurant, but we would've filled up the entire restaurant anyway so I guess it didn't really matter.

The food itself was for the most part pretty mediocre. I had le soupe à l'oignon and le cassoulet. We also had several bottles of the cheapest wine they had, which was 17,50€ per bottle. So not that cheap. Also not that great for a $24 bottle of wine. The soup was decent, but by no means amazing, (although Ali said it was the best soup she'd ever had,) but the cassoulet was absolutely perfect. The duck was tender and they put a slice of thick-cut bacon on top before they put the whole thing in the oven and it got all crisp on the top, and the beans were salty and amazing and totally delicious.

Anyway we finished dinner at about 11, then about half of us went back to the hotel while the rest went to a dance club or something. A few of us troopers hung out a little while longer and played never have I ever and finished part of a bottle of gin that a girl's dad had gotten for her. Good times.

After another night of fitful sleep, (better than the first night but I still woke up,) and another shower with tshirt-drying, and another breakfast of baguette and café au lait etc. we had more orientation stuff where they told us about our Bing activities, which pretty much sound like the best things ever. Seriously. I'll tell you about them when they happen, but just so you know, I'm super excited for all of them.

Anyway, after we finished our orientation stuff this morning at about noon, we all went off to our homestays. As I already said, I'm out in Boulogne, which is technically a banlieu (suburb) of Paris, but I really don't see any difference. Except that it's far away. Like half an hour on the metro to the center (Stanford center, not Paris center). Kind of weak, but I guess that's the cost of living somewhere nice and quiet. Also in a house, which is pretty cool. It reminds me a little bit of home, because one of the first things my host mom told me is to be careful not to scratch up the floor and all that, and there're cherry cabinets in the kitchen and lots of stainless steel appliances and such. It's a pretty nice house, except for the bathroom which could use some retiling and such.

So far so good at the host family, I think. If the first meal was any indication of meals to come, I'm not going to have any problems living here.

Fishsticks and Metro Passes

It's almost seven on Friday night and we're going to go out to dinner. I'm probably going to finish this post later. Anyway, this is a brief summary of my last twenty-eight hours or so, then I'll go into detail if I feel like it.

After I finished writing my last post, I watched the first two episodes of the third season of Weeds, which is an excellent show. Then I went and spent my five pound coupon on a really bad smoothie and a stale croissant. Then I walked around Heathrow terminal 5, which looks a lot like a mall, until my flight was assigned a gate. Then, when my flight was assigned a gate, I went to the gate. Bah. I have to go to dinner. I'll finish tomorrow.

Sheep, Short Connections and Five Pound Coupons

I'm sitting in Heathrow right now. By the time this is published I'll probably be in Paris proper, since I don't have internet here. Theoretically I should be on a plane on my way to CDG right now, but my flight from SFO was twenty minutes late and I missed my connection, which was boarding as I got off the plane. If it were as simple as walking from gate to gate, I probably would've made my connection, but I had to take a tram between terminals and go through a second security checkpoint and stuff. It was stupid.

Anyway, I got a five pound coupon from British Airways to buy myself a snack while I wait. I guess they think that five pounds is a sufficient apology for delaying my trip by three hours. I should be arriving in Paris in twenty minutes from now. Yeesh.

Since I don't have anything else to do for the next two hours, I'm going to write. Here's a summary of my trip thus far. I got to SFO at about 2:15 for my 4:15 flight. Everything was normal. Checked in and went through security without incident. There wasn't actually ever any kind of incident, except my flight being a little late. Anyway, I went to the gate and there was this cool sculpture of a bunch of saxophones attached to a wall, and some faux-musical notation above and below them. I liked it. Anyway I sat around at the gate and listened to music and played iPhone games until I boarded shortly before 4:00. This is the photo.



The flight itself was uneventful. I got an aisle seat next to some large American guy who complained about my backpack taking up his foot-space. Didn't talk to him besides acknowledging his complaint. Anyway, I spent the first six or so hours watching movies. I saw Eagle Eye, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Cars. All pretty enjoyable. Dinner came around about halfway into the first movie. I had beef and mashed potatoes (versus chicken and pasta). It came with a little iceberg salad and a slice of apple pie. It was pretty good. Anyway, I went to sleep for the next couple hours after Cars ended. Didn't sleep long enough because now I'm groggy and have a headache. Which is understandable because it's about 4:40am at home right now.

Anyway, now I'm going to miss my meeting with our housing lady and the orientation cocktail party. Hopefully I'll make it in time for dinner. Really at this point all I want to do is sleep though. Maybe I'll spend my five pounds on something caffeinated.

On another note, (I'm just writing now because I don't really have much else to do,) airport security makes me feel like a sheep, or some other sort of livestock that gets led through a gauntlet on the way to slaughter. Except in airport security, you're getting led though a gauntlet to make sure you don't slaughter anybody. It's kind of funny like that.

I'm gonna watch an episode or two of weeds now. For a time reference (as opposed to the time that I post this), I wrote this sentence at 12:50pm GMT, or 4:50 PST. I should have arrived at CDG five minutes ago. I hate short connections.

Wooooo I'm leaving!

So my I've checked in online and my bags are packed and ready to go. I've got the third season of Weeds to watch on the airplane if the movies are bad, and some Benadryl in my backpack if I get so bored I just want to sleep. For all of you I didn't see before I'm leaving, goodbye. To everyone, I'll miss you as much as Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor. If you didn't get that reference, you suck.

Much love to everyone, and I'll see you in March (or at least be back here if I don't see you).