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I arrived in France! The STL-JFK flight was delayed because our plane was “overweight.” I’m sorry that my bag weighed 80lbs! At JFK, I had to lug my bags about 3 miles to the international terminal, I was soaked with sweat. The JFK-Paris flight was long (and the movies were terrible), I was in the second to last row, no legroom, no sleep, you know the drill. We arrived and never went through customs, the officers were like, “you’re American, you don’t need to do anything but claim your luggage.” Eventually we made it back to our hostel where we stay until we meet up with our host families. After we set our luggage down, we had meetings and dinner in the hostel. I went to a metro station and purchased a carte orange (my very first time on my own speaking French to the French to get something) to travel on the subways and busses unlimited for the month. I then passed out due to jetlag. I am living in a room for the moment with three great girls: Katie from Wake Forest, Catherine from William and Mary, and Emily from NYU.

On Thursday, September 1, the roomies and I woke up and had breakfast in the hostel (which consisted of a piece of bread and some coffee) and then headed to the NYU in Paris center for the first time. It’s amazing, right off of a great commercial street. You walk in the door and it’s a large courtyard and then the mansion that houses the classrooms. We were told our housing and that we will meet our “families” later in the day. After the meeting, I headed across the street to my aunt Lili Garel’s (really cousin, but she’s too old and respectable to be called such) apartment (yes, she lives across the street from my school). She made me lunch (beef and green bean salad, it was…interesting). She has 5! Bedrooms and she let me take a nap for a few hours. I then went back to the center for more meetings before going to “TELEPHONE STORE” to buy a cell phone. If you’d like my number, please drop me an email at susaniskiwitch@gmail.com and I’ll pass it along, it does not let me call out of the country at the moment, but I can accept international calls. Following this, I had my first coffee at a café, which I will NEVER do again because 5 euros (about $6 American) bought me 2 sips of a drink. I then met up with Stephanie, who is living with the same host family as myself and we began our 10 minute walk to our family’s apartment. My school and the apartment are both in the 16th arrondissement (a very wealthy area). I walked passed le Trucadero (a park/roundabout area that looks out on the Eiffel Tower), not realizing that this was the neighborhood where I’ll be living. Yes, I have a view of the Eiffel Tower from my apartment and pass it every day on my walk to class…tough life, eh? The family is very nice…I think, but since they only speak French, I was a bumbling idiot. I think they like Stephanie better because she speaks more French. She can’t understand a word of what they say while I understand everything, so I guess it’s even, but the woman seemed to like her more. The apartment has a living room, a music room with a piano, 3 or 4 large bedroom (I have my own that is quite large with a bed, a desk, a large built in dresser with a little tv…and my desk overlooks a balcony that overlooks the streets below), 2 bathrooms (Stephanie and I have our own), and a kitchen. The kitchens in Paris are so small! The fridge is the size of just one half of an American fridge! No dishwashers, all very old appliances. After I met with the family, I took Stephanie and we went to meet up with my friend Lora (a French girl who lived in St. Louis with Aaron’s family last summer) at her apartment. We had to ride the metro across town to get there! She cooked a simple dinner for us and then had some friends over for us to meet. Everyone was SO polite, but EVERYONE smokes! Ick! It was great to meet “real” French students though. And for a student, she lives so well, in her own apartment. Around midnight, we made our way back to the hostel where I went to my room and chilled with the roommates. Tomorrow morning we’re going to get crepes before class in the morning, and tomorrow evening I move into the apartment and have dinner with the host family.

Oh, the past 2 days I’m lugging my huge backpack around, and I am SORE! My first purchase of my own will be a bag/purse that fits all of my stuff but doesn’t kill my back. Also, to anyone who I told that I spoke French, I must have been mistaken, because I feel like an idiot here…I don’t know ANYTHING…I just hope I’ll learn, and fast.