I'm here!

I guess since I have a blog and my father told like 600 people about it, I should probably update.

So…I’m in France. I flew into Paris from Chicago yesterday, after being delayed for 3 hours for mechanical problems. Went through customs with no problem, collected my baggage, and then tried to gracefully race over to the train station. After aimlessly wandering around there for a while, I realized where the ticket counter was and exchanged my train ticket, since the plane delay messed that up.

The TGV is a beautiful thing. You’re assigned a seat in a specific car. All along the platform, are signs every few meters that have a letter on them. Just before the train arrives, a board shows you where along the platform each numbered car will arrive so you don’t have to run with all of your luggage through the crowds (the train stops for less than five minutes). For example, the diagram showed car 16 arriving right in front of the letter F, so I walked down the platform and it was right on the money. Leaving Paris, the train tracks were so numerous that they resembled several freeway interchanges.

There was no lack of scenery during my 3.5 hr ride. Lots of green pastures speckled with white cows and adorable farm houses. All of the sudden, the train goes past a small set of mountains and the environment changes completely. Different plants, lots of rocks, lots of mountains, different crops. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fields of sunflowers. The train goes about 180 mph but it didn’t feel like it. Very smooth ride. After a bit of a taxi ride, I was at my hotel with the rest of the kids in my program.

There’s about 20 of us, one girl from the University of Michigan, and then a bunch from the University of Indiana, and the rest from the University of Wisconsin. We have a faculty director who oversees us for the year who is a head of the French dept in Indiana, and two assistants who are French. We got our schedule for the next couple days and got to meet each other. We’re a pretty cool group.

Today, we got a tour of the city from a woman with the Tourist Bureau. Lots of history. I won’t type it out. Maybe you should google Aix-en-Provence. Lots of tiny, tiny streets full of little shops. I even got to see a group of youth pickpockets! Don’t worry, they didn’t get me. I know how to avoid these things. After that, we stopped by the cell phone store. I have a French number now, I can receive phone calls and text messages for free. If you’d like the number, let me know and I can get that to you.

Then, we walked outside of the center of town to the University of Provence, where the majority of the students are taking their classes (but not me). We took a French placement test so they know what to go over during our 2 week intensive course, then had a meeting with just a bunch of information. Walked back, and the two girls I share the hotel room with stopped at the grocery store around the corner. We’re very lucky, not only are we very close to a “hypermarché” (supermarket), our hotel has a kitchenette with a stove and all the dishes for cooking and eating. So we’re set for tonight. Wine is cheap here. Really cheap. A 3 euro bottle of wine is still good. It’s crazy.

So yeah, that’s all I have to update as of yet. Many more things in the days to come…