J'arrivait en France!

So, although it has been several days that I've been in France, this update might be a small one, as the majority of what I have been doing is combating jet lag. Which isn't as easy as it sounds, believe it or not!


Wednesday afternoon my best friend Stefanie from high school picked me up at my house and, being the best best friend a girl could ask for, helped me put my super heavy luggage in her car and drove me to the airport. I had a few minor problems checking in for my flight, but nothing major. Certainly nothing enough to delay me and make me miss my flight. (If you've been to the Birmingham airport, you're probably very aware of how absolutely tiny it is. If you get there an hour before your flight, it's almost impossible to miss your flight. And I got there two hours in advance. Just in case, you know). I said a very sad goodbye to Stefanie and then scooted my butt on through the security check point with my backpack and carry on suitcase, which was in the carry on size guidelines, but still seemed to be extremely massive to me. I waited a long time at my gate, and then I boarded my tiny flight to Chicago O'Hare International Airport where I was to catch my connecting flight to Munich, Germany. The plane to Chicago was tiny-- the kind where you have to plane side check your carry on bag and where if you sit in row A you have a window seat and an aisle seat to yourself, because there is only row A on that side of the plane!


Once I was in Chicago I found where my next flight was going to be and decided to get some food. I stopped at Johnny Rockets in the airport and got the last hamburger I'll probably have for a long time! It was yummy. :) Then I had a short wait at the gate, and I boarded my Lufthansa flight to Munich. Which, for the record, Lufthansa planes are really nice. I mean, for a plane that is. And the food is still airplane food. But the plane itself was much newer than the two planes I took over the Atlantic with United. The seat was more comfortable, the video displays all worked. The movie selection was really good. And they didn't just play the movies on a continuous loop, each on a certain channel, like I was used to. There was a movie menu and you could pause and fast forward and rewind! I was excited. So I watched (500) Days of Summer and Fame and part of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Then I decided to stretch out and take a nap. I was sitting in the middle of the middle, the 2nd out of 4 seats, but luckily, no one else was in my row! So I was able to stretch out and sleep. Which was nice. I only slept for like 2 or 3 hours though because I wanted to be throughly tired when I got to France so I could sleep that night and adjust to the schedule as much as I possibly could.


We landed in Munich and I got somewhat lost and confused in the airport, but I figured it out and got through Border Control and to the correct gate for my next flight. Where I waited for what seemed like ages, but realistically was only like an hour and a half. Then I took a Lufthansa Regional jet, again small, to Marseille, France where I was met at the airport by lovely boyfriend who had been thoughtful enough to bring me a danish and some really gorgeous pink tulips. :) He even took care of my big bag for me! We waited outside in the cold for a while for the bus, then we took the bus for 30ish minutes to Aix en Provence. Then we went to the apartment and I unpacked and got all settled in and everything. It was quite nice. 


Friday evening I went over to our friends Topher and Ameilie's house where a bunch of us met up and Roberto cooked us some good Mexican food. None of which was very spicy. Roberto and I lamented the fact that the French don't do spice well, and that the English aren't much better at it! (They are considerably better at eating spices than the French, but in comparison with Mexican and Cajun food, they handle it abysmally). It was a lot of fun getting to see so many of our friends and catching up with them, albeit a bit overwhelming all at once. Especially speaking with them in French. All of their French has improved a whole lot while I was away while mine deteriorated! The disparity between our two levels was really intimidating. But it ended up okay.


Saturday Chaz and I cooked a roast beef with potatoes and carrots and something that supposedly vaguely resembled a Yorkshire pudding. It was really yummy though. Then I went out and met Maman (my host mom from last year) for a crepe and an Orangina (basically carbonated, processed, pulpless orange juice). It was a lot of fun catching up with her! Then Chaz and I met up with our friends Tyge, Roberto, and Mint for a pint at the Brigand.  On Sunday I just cleaned the apartment up some and did some laundry. 


Today I got up early and got ready, then I went out to the school to finish my registration and student file and to pay the rest of my tuition fee and everything. So I go up there and do all the paperwork, but apparently to pay I have to go to exact opposite end of town to pay. The lady in the office gave me a map, an office number, and a name, telling me to come back with a receipt. So I follow the map and go down to the area of town where the office is supposed to be in and I got completely confused as to where the office was. I walked up and down this one street like three times looking for Avenue Richard Schumel because the building was on that road, and I just couldn't find the turn off anywhere. Eventually I realized that I was already on Schumel. Agh! Then I finally found the house number, which turned out to be the house number for an entire small campus! I read the signs, which were particularly unhelpful, and eventually figured out by guess work which building this lady that I had to pay worked in. Finally I made it up there and I paid her and got the receipt and then went back to my school on the other side of town, where I have the lady the receipt and then I had MORE paperwork to fill out! But it all worked out in the end. I had a nice conversation with her about how I had lived with my host mom last year and that my host mom had asked me to pick up her second boarding student and take her to the house if she showed up this afternoon as Maman has to be out of town. So the lady, Annie, decided to call Maman just to make sure I wasn't some crazy person trying to kidnap some poor little study abroad student. After she talked to Maman and realized that I was telling the truth, she asked for my phone number. Which is like 10 numbers. I have trouble remembering it in English and saying it, let alone in French! So that was embarrassing. Alls well that ends well, I guess.


So other than that there isn't much news. It appears this post is much longer than I originally thought it would be! Hope all is well with you guys back home!!