La Paris!

I am in Paris!!

On the morning of the 28th (Friday), my parents and I loaded up my very stuffed full suitcase and backpack into the car, and we were off to Oklahoma City.  In the airport I checked my bag, and then met my travel buddy, Ashley.  After many hugs and goodbyes, we went through security, and then I got lunch at Schlotsky's in the airport.  Before too long our plane boarded, and we began a non-eventful flight to Houston, which took less than an hour.  Once we landed, we knew we wouldn't have much time to get from terminal A to terminal E on the far end of the airport, so we asked directions to the terminalink, which is the train that runs between terminals.  We took that, and once in the right terminal, we preceeded to walk all the way to gate 20, where our boarding passes told us to go, knowing we would arrive with almost no time to spare.  Much to our surprise, the flight leaving from gate 20 was headed to London Heathrow! After checking a monitor, we realized that our flight had been moved to gate 2, and we had to race all the way across the terminal, and we made it right when the last rows were boarding.

That flight was probably the longest I've ever been on.  It was nine hours from Houston to Paris.  We were served supper, and then I tried to sleep, but I didn't succeed for very long, maybe just a couple hours.  But finally, FINALLY, after my neighbor's movie had repeated itself about four times, and after we were all very sore, they served us breakfast of un croissant et des fruits, et du jus d'orange et cafe.  I thought it was pretty yummy.

Then we landed in Charles De Gaulle airport.  That airport was a fiasco.  Customs was actually not so bad; the line was pretty short, and we didn't wait too long.  They just looked at our passports, gave us stamps, and waved us on through.  Then we tried to find the shuttle we had reserved to take us from the airport to our hotel.  So we asked the lady at the information desk, and she just rolled her eyes and said "I hate these things, you always have to call them to come and get you."  And she pointed at the payphone.  So, we went to the payphone, which was quite different from an American payphone, and there were many buttons with symbols that we had no idea what they meant.  So we just started putting coins in whatever looked like it might be a coin slot, and dialing the number, and pushing various buttons.  After multiple tries and just feeling silly, we finally gave up and decided to use a cell phone and just pay for the call.  The lady who answered struggled to understand my English, and I struggled to understand her French.  Eventually, I thought I understood enough of what she said to be able to make a more educated guess as to where the shuttle driver would meet us.  So we wend down a level and went to the exit where we thought we should go and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  After asking a few people who were standing there, someone told us we should probably go up a level, so we did, and went to the exit with the same number.  Unfortunately, it was closed because of construction, as were many of the exits nearby.  While we were wandering around the airport trying to figure out what to do, several people with thick accents kept approaching us, asking us if we wanted a taxi.  Of course, we knew better than to accept, even though we were starting to think about taking a taxi rather than keeping searching for this shuttle.  Eventually we went back to the information desk, and they pointed us to where we could get an official airport taxi.  We went there, and showed the address of our hotel to both the lady in charge and the taxi driver, who spoke Arabic to each other trying to figure out where it was.  Once they seemed agreed, we got in, and the taxi driver proceeded to take us to the wrong hotel, which we didn't realize until he had already left.  Then we had to talk to the people at the apartment/hotel where he had dropped us off, get a map, and have them call us another taxi.  The taxi they called was called a blue taxi, but it was in fact silver.  Once we realized it was there, it didn't take us long to get to our hotel, where we dropped off our luggage (since we couldn't check in for a few more hours).

top of Eiffel Tower

We spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon walking around the area.  It's a very nice part of town; not very touristy, and of course every thing is very old.  It's actually very near the Eiffel Tower; we can even see the top of it from one corner.  There were lots and lots of boulangeries (bakeries), and we kept seeing people wheeling around these little grocery carts full of baguettes and other groceries, and we wondered where they were coming from.  The baguettes, of course, could have come from any number of the boulangeries, but we eventually discovered un marché, or a market about the size of a small grocery store.  We went in looking for batteries and came out with cookies :D. I've almost eaten all of mine.

Then we were getting cold and hungry, but it was a long time yet until we could check into our hotel, so we started looking for a place to eat.  Eventually, we decided on a small Japanese place.  It turned out to be a little family-owned place with very excellent food.  Ashley and I liked it quite a lot.

Ashley enjoying Japanese food

After a while, we headed back to the hotel to check in, but no one was there, so we went to a little church across the street so we could stay warm.  After standing around and reading the announcements posted in French, we eventually went back to the hotel and checked in.  We were too tired to do much after that, so we just got settled in, watched some TV in French, checked in with our parents, and went to bed around 5pm our time.

This morning, being Sunday the 30th, we slept in a bit and then got pastries at the boulangerie on the corner for breakfast.  After that, we went to an 11 am mass at the little Catholic church across the street.  It was very interesting; being all in French, I struggled to understand everything, but I got some of it.  I believe the sermon was about the Beatitudes.  After church we came back to the hotel to plan what to do, and once we decided to go to the Louvre, we had to figure out the metro so we could get there.  To be honest, the hardest part was probably getting to the first metro station from our hotel; the rest was pretty easy.  We bought tickets, changed twice, and we were there!

Ashley and I in front of the Louvre

  Let me tell you, the Louvre is incredible!  I can't post all 146 pictures I took, but if you look at my Picassa account, you can see them by clicking here  Anyway, we spent a couple hours there, but then it started to close, so we had to leave.

front view of the Louvre and the glass pyramid

Venus de Milo

 

The Mona Lisa

It's almost time to go!

So my plane will take off tomorrow!  The plan is to fly from Oklahoma City to Houston, and from there to Paris.  After a couple days in Paris, I get to see three hours worth of French countryside through a train window all the way to Clermont-Ferrand, where the school is.  I'll be traveling with a friend of mine from a French class a couple semesters ago.  I think it's a great idea to have a travel buddy, and between the two of us, hopefully we can remember all the right French words and get ourselves to all the right gates and train stations.

my new shoes; do you like them?

Right now I am packing my bags.  I have a couple new sweater dresses, which, thanks to the observations of my sister's boyfriend on his recent trip to Paris, are very popular there right now, especially worn with leggings and boots.  I also have some new blue converse, which I am sure look very American, but I love them anyway.  Besides, they'll last forever.

I won't be packing much; just one rolling suitcase, a backpack, and of course my ukulele.  I'll buy more clothes and all my consumables when I get there.  Also, I'll get a local prepaid cell phone when I get to Clermont-Ferrand, but I'll use mainly skype to call the US.  If any of you want my contact info (address, skype, etc) send me an email or facebook message and I'll give it to you. 

Earlier today I made my first French phone call to a real French-speaking French person!  Considering my irrational fear of talking on the phone to strangers and my unpracticed French, it was a bit nerve-wracking.  But I had to call the hotel and ask if we could drop off our luggage in the morning, since we can't technically check in until the afternoon, so I finally mustered up the courage to press call.  I managed to ask him, in French, if he spoke English, and luckily he did.  Whew!

So, as I make my final arrangements, and get my things together, my departure draws nearer by the hour.  Everything feels so surreal; I'm finally going to France!  Wish me luck!

P.S.  I will try to post on facebook whenever I update my blog, but remember if you don't want to have to look for it on facebook, you can always subscribe directly to the blog.  And you can comment either directly on the blog or on my facebook post, I'll see either one.

Today California, Tomorrow the World!

As my departure for France draws ever near, I'm taking this last opportunity to go with my parents on one of their many trips to La Verne, California.  The GPS on my camera says the hotel is in Pomona, but technically La Verne is where my dad is teaching and my mom is taking classes to get her doctorate degree.  Mostly the classes are online, but my parents still have to fly out west every now and then for real face-to-face classes, and this time I came with them.  It is my first time to California, and the weather is absolutely perfect!  It's about 75-80º, sunny, and just humid enough for me.  Of course, I'm not sure how much the way I feel about this place is affected by the fact that I'm still taking very strong pain relievers from my wisdom teeth extraction.  But the agonizing pain of dry socket is finally starting to fade, and I'm enjoying my time here despite the pain and difficulty eating anything very chewy.

The view from our hotel window

I have slept late every morning I've been here, which is very nice.  The hotel where we're staying feels very luxurious to me.  And because the University of La Verne puts my dad in this same hotel every time he comes, we get breakfast for free, and it's a nice breakfast; they take you to a table and sit you down, and give you coffee and orange juice, and then you help yourself to a hot buffet.  Then I usually spend the morning lounging in the room reading on my kindle which used to be my dad's (many happy faces :D :D), and later daddy picks me up for lunch in the bright blue Ford Focus we rented. 

After lunch, I usually sit with my mom in her classroom reading my kindle again while they do things like the hokey pokey, personality tests where they put shapes in certain orders, and figure out what colors their auras are.  Later in the afternoon, my dad goes back to the hotel to grade papers or to go to a meeting, and I go with him.  Once I sat in on a faculty meeting where they sat on a balcony overlooking L.A. at night and ate champagne and cheese and discussed the marketability of goat mugshots.  I had root beer instead of champagne.

All in all, my visit to La Verne has been very nice so far.  Hopefully I will be able to visit some graduate schools here; weather-wise this would be a wonderful place to stay, although I hear the cost of living is quite high.  There are some good schools around here though.  But California is my first in a long series of new places I shall visit this semester. 

Le visa: Le Premier Pas (The Visa: The First Step)

Hello! Welcome to my blog, which I have not written in since last summer, and am remodeling to use for my trip to France.  What do you think?

One of my bad habits is that I have a tendency to start many things and follow through to the end with very few of them.  That frequently applies to writing.  But hopefully, by having a central theme to write about (my trip to France), and that central theme being something which will occupy my every waking hour for the next five months, I will have a lot to say.  And I have decided to get started as soon as possible.

The French Consulate

On Monday, I made my first big step towards leaving for France.  I flew down to Houston to do a little interview to get my visa approved.  In order to do so, I had to collect a very hefts folder full of documents, including various forms filled out in English and French, my acceptance letter from L'Université de Blaise Pascal, proof of my enrollment at OU, and a letter from my parents saying they promise to give me loads of money while I'm in France (yay!).  I spent lots of time collecting and stressing over these documents.  Then, I flew all the way to Houston (my first solo trip by air, but certainly not my last) and took a shuttle to the French consulate where they collected my documents and got my finger prints and my picture, and that was that.  All in all, it took about 10 minutes once I got there.  It was rather anticlimactic.

Then I spent the rest of the morning waiting for my cousin to finish his dentist appointment (his dentist was running behind, for shame), and in the mean time I ate a late breakfast at McD's down the street and read from Sophie's World.  Sophie's World is a very interesting novel about philosophy.  I haven't read more than a few chapters, so I can't tell you much, but it is a very fascinating read for anyone who enjoys pondering the meaning of life, such as myself.

Then, when my cousin's dentist appointment was finished, he, his sister, and dad came and picked my up and we had late lunch/early dinner at the Galleria Mall.  All in all, it was a lovely afternoon, despite how tired I was from getting up so early for my flight!  We visited several very fancy stores, including the Chanel store, where we encountered some dresses that were almost $5000, and many other things that were in glass cases.  It felt somewhat like a museum.  Then we went to Saks-Fifth Avenue, a much larger but not less expensive clothing store.  We came across some dresses that were really quite strange, and still quite expensive, and some that were quite lovely and definitely not in our price range.  We also came across a space alien.  You might actually be surprised how many wealthy extraterrestrials enjoy doing their shopping at the Galleria in Houston.  She was a lovely alien; mostly humanoid, quite tall, with skin the lovely shade of avocado peel, and her eyes were amber colored.  She was admiring a very interestingly-designed dress on a mannequin, a long, flowing dress covered in silver sequins.  Honestly, it would have looked quite nice on her, except I'm sure she would have had to get it altered to be long enough.  We merely exchanged pleasantries; none of us really had any idea what to say to a space alien.
After spending lots of time in Saks-Fifth Avenue, it was time to head back to the airport.  Since I didn't have any luggage to check, I printed out my boarding pass at the little computer, and went through security.  The flight back home was rather pleasant; I sat next to a man with his red-haired daughter, who was perhaps 10.  Across the aisle from me was a man who played Tetris on his i-phone, and he was very good; so good, in fact, that he kept playing the same game almost the entire flight from Houston to Tulsa.  It was mesmerizing.

And now, on Thursday the sixth, my passport has arrived in the mail, with a visa for France stamped on page 2.  It was faster than I expected, but that's a good thing.