30 Juin
Our plane landed in Charles de Gaulle Airport at noon on Monday only two hours off schedule. Needless to say, that didn't matter because I needed to get to Lille by 5 pm.
Easy. Not quite. Stressful. Yes, quite.
I felt like I was plopped into a dream world and it didn't help that my body was wondering what the heck I was doing walking around at three in the morning (Santa Rosa time) with still half a day to go. I found my way off the plane, got through customs *sigh of relief*, got my baggage *bigger sigh of relief*, hopped on the shuttle and went to buy a ticket for the train. All the trains were at least 20 minutes behind so I think France and I will get along just fine; we can both be a little late to things and no one really cares.
The train was empty for the most part so I sat in the window seat with the most leg space (11 hour flights do a restless girl no good) while being careful not to wake up the sleeping, scraggly, French kid across from me. The ride was an hour long and within 10 minutes the sky went from blue to cloudy to overcast.
 |
| The train station at Charles de Gaulle |
Lille welcomed me with a grey sky and a light sprinkle. Almost like good ol' SF. I found my group, said a couple hellos, and was escorted to my dorm to unpack (12th floor what what!) and then headed downstairs to meet the group.
 |
| My room for the next month. |
The program consists of students from all over the world, most not knowing French. Some students that came from Taiwan only knew a little French and some understandable yet choppy English. My close group consists of 5 other girls, all from around the US and out of the six, three of us are in the engineering program here. Pauline, our pseudo-mom/older sister, gave us all the tips and tricks for getting around Lille: how to be safe, what fun things to explore, who to call (and how), and just to enjoy the trip. We walked to dinner and quickly realized that the cobblestone sidewalks were no match for anything but good shoes or sandals. Yet somehow a few ladies of Lille were managing to effortlessly walk around in heels. I think we had found the meaning of "marry your heels". At dinner, after we were done stuffing our faces (not literally stuffing our faces, Mom), we got to know each other and realized that we weren't alone in thinking "Will I even make it to Lille??", "I can't tell if the guys here are gay or just dress nice"and the most urgent "I haven't seen one Starbucks. What the heck?!". After bonding over the cliché (but true) "This is going to be awesome", we bustled our way back through the Lille-ians (?), over the stones, past the large Fontaine de la Gare de Lille Flandres (Fountain in front of the Lille Flandres train station) and back to our rooms for some desperately needed sleep.
 |
| View from my window at 10 pm (still light out!) |
Hey, aren't transAtlantic flights great! And isn't it amazing how long it stays light in the evening, because, of course, you are much further north than you are used to being. (Down side is that it gets dark much earlier in the winter.)(Second down side is that the sunrise is much earlier also.) Fizix teacher speaking here. Hope you have a great time and your Français gets better. ( Check out the ç. I learned how to do all those symbols while I was in Poland last year. �� )
ReplyDeleteHave a blast Rianna! Keep posting love following along
ReplyDelete