First Day!

I arrived in Paris at 5:45 am on January 7th - an hour earlier than expected, and the group was met by 2 Air France buses that took us to Aerogare des Invalides. Since there was no traffic, we got there about 2 hours earlier than expected, so everyone just sat on the ground and waited for the families to arrive.

My host mom, Chantrel (? - I can't really read her handwriting) Benier picked me up around 9:30, and took me back to the apartment, in the 15th arrondissement. We live on the ground floor, and next to the metro line - the metro can be pretty loud, but I guess it's a good thing it stops running at 1am.

My host mom is 55, and she does not work. Her husband, Bernard, is an engineer for Citroen (a French car company). They have 4 children, but only their youngest, Pauline, lives at home. She is 21, and is studying medicine in Paris. 2 other children live in Paris - their daughter Caroline is already married, and has 2 young kids, with another on the way - he/she is expected at the end of February! Their daughter Constance also lives in Paris, and she is getting married in September, so plans are already underway for the ceremony. Their son, Francois Xavier (they call him Fa-Fou), lives in Princeton, NJ, and works for a company called Thompson (sp?). I guess it's some kind of consulting firm - he was originally sent there by the French government, but then the company asked him to stay, so he's in the process of moving in.

After showing me around the apartment, Mme Benier and I bonded over our love for very strong coffee (Mom & Dad, if you ever come here, you will definitely be in your element). I met her husband, Bernard, who seems very nice, but pretty quiet. Mme wanted to show me around the neighborhood, and to show me where other Sweet Briar students live, so we walked over to her friend's apartment. Another girl was staying there for a few days because her host family was in Thailand, but Mme Benier had the key to their apartment, so we moved the girl's luggage over to her permanent apartment.

From there, Mme took me to the boulangerie (there are 2 right next to the house, but she only likes one of them :o) ). We bought a galette des rois, because yesterday was Epiphanie. Madame had made one herself, but it had fallen apart when she took it out of the cake pan, and she wanted to have a presentable one.

After our walk around the area, the family had lunch - salad, chicken curry, and the galette. Pauline wanted to sample the 2 galettes, because she was convinced that her mom's was better, so we did a taste test, and confirmed that Mme was, in fact, a better baker than the boulangerie.

Mme invited me on a walk, pour "prendre l'air." She showed me several parks that I could run in, and we walked to la tour Eiffel, along the Seine, and past Place des Invalides. She was very sweet, and we both love art museums and especially medieval art, so we got along pretty well. Her family has a country home (by country home, I mean huge mansion/house that was originally built in the 4th century, and has additions from the 10th and 15th centuries) in Auvergne, and she invited me to spend a weekend with them there, so that we could visit the medieval cloisters and castles!

My jet lag started to really hit me at this point, so I took a nap until 4:30. When I woke up, I found the family in the living room - Monsieur watching footbal, Madame knitting, and Pauline painting picture frames. I sat down, and immediately Madame took out two picture books of Auvergne, and told me stories about every castle in the book (they seem pretty obsessed with this place in Auvergne - they have posters up of beautiful panoramas of Auvergne, and lots of framed sketches of their house in Auvergne, and of their house in the South of France). I also gave them the picture book of Chicago, and Madame loved it. We went through every picture, and I explained all the different buildings, and what Chicago is like. The family really likes the U.S. - they went there last year to visit Fa-Fou, and went to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and NYC (Madame, like me, especially loves the Frick Museum).

Pauline's boyfriend came by, and everyone hung out for an hour or so. The apartment is small, so the living room is pretty much the place to be. Pauline and her boyfriend left to watch Desperate Housewives at a friend's house - aparently French teenagers are obsessed with U.S. TV shows, especially Desperate Housewives and Prison Break. She told me that she and her friends are always watching DH, and that I am always invited to join them. I guess I'll have to get a little more involved in the show...

Madame made an early dinner (which means 8:15pm instead of 8:30...) so that I could go to sleep. I went to bed by 9:30, and woke up this morning at 9, feeling 1,000 times better.

So far things have been pretty overwhelming. It was really intense to come off the plane so early in the morning, without having slept, and then immediately speak French. My host mom keeps telling me that she is very impressed by my French, and that she can understand everything I say (she keeps talking about the girl they had last semester who couldn't form sentences or pronounce words, so they had to ask her to write down what she was saying). I actually have been surprised with myself - I can understand everything Madame and Monsieur say, and while Pauline speaks very quickly, when she addresses me she usually speaks a little slower so that I can understand. After almost 12 hours of sleep, I feel much better, and my friend Darcy (from Williams) and I are going to go on a walk to explore this area a bit before lunch & our first orientation meeting at Sweet Briar.