Bienvenue à Paris!

So, I'm in Paris right now for the orientation and its been a very very interesting couple days.

I had a Guiness at 9AM in the airport in Dublin. That was pretty wonderful after a flight with no sleep. The plane had TVs on each seat which was great, but also lead to movie watching and no napping. We (the other girls in the program from Madison) made it to Paris pretty much without a problem.

Paris is where the fun began.

Fun Tip #1: Do not take the métro with 50+ pounds of luggage. You will get stuck in the turn styles and be ridiculed by les parisiens.

Fun Tip #2: Do take the marked métro doorway for people with luggage and strollers. If you do not, see Fun Tip #1.

Lets just say, getting to our hostel was an adventure. AND the hostel had 5 lovely sets of spiraling stairs we had to lug our suitcases up. Whooooo.

Notable event from the first exhausting day...I saw a completely naked hairy Frenchman sitting on a stoop messing with his bojangles.

Since then, things have been a little more relaxed. We've met with our program and the leaders. The head director got his PhD at Madison! And the assistant director is this really nice lady from West Bend who attended UW-Milwaukee when she was younger. Wisco represent! haha. They had us sign contracts saying we would speak French pretty much all the time (which a lot of people in the program haven't really been following...I had a girl ask me if our classes were going to be in English...uh. no.) The people in the program from Madison are really nice and have been great. We're all kind of just freaking out and nervous and excited. Its good to have some people I know I can go to here.

We still don't know our host families...but we will Thursday! I'm very excited to just get to Rennes and settle down. Unpack my suitcase. Meet the people I'm going to be living with for 9 months. Mostly here in Paris I'm just tired and slightly overwhelmed. And scared. And excited. Basically a mess of emotions.

Some Paris highlights:
-Eating the BEST TIRAMISU at a random café with Leah and Larissa (two Madison girls). It was good food too and good conversation (in French, we were practicing :)
-Seeing people's reactions who've never seen the Eiffel Tower sparkle. SO fun.
-Actually finding a water fountain near Notre Dame. It was awesome. Seriously. How are Parisians not dying of dehydration?!

Anyways, I'm probably wearing out my welcome in this McDonalds (the only place with free WiFi that we've discovered). I'll get pictures up at some point and hopefully will have some more exciting news from Rennes soon!!!!!!!