You can tell that it is pre-departure because of my smile... I was too exhausted by the end of my travels to give a big smile like that!! Anyway, you must know that that duffel, in combination with my suitcase weighed in at around 85-90 pounds, meaning they were like 5/6ths of my weight, which definitely added to my exhaustion when I was reaching the end of my 32 hour day (all of which was travel).
In terms of planes, everything went quite smoothly. I caught my train from Dayton to Chicago, and then got on the enormous Boeing 747 from Chicago to Paris. Unfortunately the girl that I was sitting beside was not French, so I didn't have the opportunity to warm-up and practice speaking on the plane, but she was really nice so that was great. Also unfortunately I had an extreme bout of motion sickness which persisted for about 5 hours of this 8 hour flight, meaning I not only was unable to sleep, but that I was also extremely uncomfortable, had difficulty eating, and spent most of my time standing in the back talking with a very kindly stewardess. As soon as might feet were on the ground though I started feeling better and the extreme feeling of excitement overtook me.
After the planes though, that is where I began to run into problems. Nicole and I met up just fine, but we couldn't figure out which train ticket exactly we needed to buy in order to take the RER ligne B into Paris. In fact, we each bought two tickets because we bought the wrong ones in the beginning - but all was well because we actually needed them later at our next switch over - and so off we went toward the trains. I also now know why people in France are not obese, because if they were they wouldn't fit through the train turn styles if they were! Well that is all great because obviously I am not fat but unfortunately for me, my suitcase, especially in combination with my large duffel and purse, were making me rather obese and I had such a time trying to get through ever ticket station it was ridiculous! At one point I even had to insert my ticket twice (they are all reusable for certain types of the same trains for 24 hours) because I and half of my luggage got through but my suitcase got stuck on the other end... quel horreur! After we had taken the train into Paris and the bus to Gare St Lazare, which was under construction that we didn't know about so we exited one stop early and had to walk an extra 15 minutes including a flight of stairs (I encourage you to remember that I was carrying near my weight in baggage), we finally found the train that we needed to take to get to Le Havre. We didn't have time to buy our tickets before the train left because it was going to leave in three minutes or else we had to wait 4 more hours for the next train. Therefore we hurried on knowing that we could buy our tickets while on the train. Of course though we didn't know the procedure so when they came by to ask for tickets I simply asked if I could still buy them and the guy was completely understanding, in fact he was simply elated that I spoke French and I was an American, so he explained that next time I have to ask that of this other man who had walked by earlier. Also, he didn't charge us for first class because we had accidentally entered into a first class cabin, and he gave us a student discount. Anyway, he was just great!
We arrived at Le Havre at about 15:00 local time, which at that point was already 26 hours straight of not only being awake but also of traveling for me, whereupon we were greeted by our tutor, Corentin. Speaking now from a week of knowing him, he is just fantastic and I feel so lucky to have such a fantastic "tutor" to help me during the time of integration into French culture. After arrival we went to meet the university staff in the International Office, then we went and dropped off our stuff at our apartments, then we went and did some shopping (for bed sheets, towels, and food, for example), then we were dropped off back at our apartments knowing that our cours intensif de français started at 9:30 the next morning. I got home, unpacked and organized my stuff into my apartment - from here on referred to as "box" as you will soon know why - and went to bed after literally being awake for 32 hours straight. And oh by the way I live on the troisième étage, which in English corresponds to the fourth floor meaning I get a full 6 flights of stairs to get to my box, and after all that lugging around of suitcases I literally thought I was going to die. As a side note the mattresses are so super hard that I don't even make an indentation and when I woke up in the middle of the night I actually got out of my bed to do some stretches because my muscles were so sore, but also because I was so bent out of shape by the bed. Ok, end of Day 1!
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