nous sommes tous hors de NORMAL

Pic: View out microstudio window. 6th floor. Looking out to something. i'll let you know as soon as i figure it out. it says Galerie Gaite if that means anything. And now to the post:

Its a cold, rainy, overcast day but I am safely in my hotel room which will forever be referred to as the "micro studio" (MUCH MUCH smaller than seen on the interwebs) and alive. My baggage even made it. I was shocked at how together my bags were when they rode down the baggage belt thing at the airport. One after the other in a very nice and neat line. Of course me trying to lift and carry all four of them off the belt and onto the airport cart required some fast and tricky skills. No one was injured thankfully.

Some memorable moments on the plane, my favorte line was from the PILOT himself as we approached Paris "Well apparently we are now landing, so buckle up" as if he was just simply a stray passenger!

I will say that flying American Airlines has every bit of stigma you can imagine. It might as well have been a flight to Cleveland...they barely spoke french, even the french was spoken with as little effort as possible. There was very little sleep due to excitment/nervousness/etc. I had fully anticipated my bags to be headed to Bangladesh and I would never see my belongings again.

Of course, the one carry on I had was so stuffed with my life that it took three men to shove it into an overhead bin and just as many to get it out. I almost broke the plane. lol.

And then there was the key moment when you are ready to exit customs and enter the world of france when RIGHT in the doorway of this opening (with everyone watching), I slammed the cart into the side and 1 of my 4 giant bags went FLYING out into France!!! haha. It was hilarious. And embarrasing and all that good kinda stuff.

My driver Dominique was awesome, and even though I was terribly sleep deprived, I appreciated him driving me all over Paris on a mini tour before going to my hotel. He spoke English but REALLY fast english so I had to use this super non-sleep power to concentrate on his words and understand him. He drove me by the grand palace, the champs, the arc de triumph, Sarkozys house, the Musee de Orsay, Louvre, a few squares, embassy's and finally made his way to the hotel. I gave him a nice tip.

Ok so then skipping thru the naps, internet set up, showers, etc, I then ventured out for food and walked into this corner bistro thing and holy crap were there about a BILLION hot french men. It was like an ad for Abercrombie. I swear I thought I had walked into the wrong place and it was totally one of those music stops everyone turns moments. I didnt know what to do. I walked back to the smoking section and the bartender (also hot) leaned in, I could only say "Je n'pas parle francais" to which he very sincerely said "of course you can speak english". So there you go, first encounter and they were nice. So far though, I have had two encounters which predict many more where by I start out in my premeditated french and the return is this long and fast french response of which I cannot even come close to understanding. haha.

The day is still cold.

I just skyped my mom and now chichi. Love the skype. Gotta have the skype. Ps. for those of you not in the know....skype is this free internet service where you can essentially video (if you have a webcam) or not video call anyone else in the world who also has skype for free. So within 4 hours of landing in Paris, i was starring at my mom and stepdad in the background in their little southern MAISON chatting about the flight. Very very cool especially considering I dont have a phone yet. I was going to hunt around for one today but its too cold and windy.

I really want to get food. I'm going to hunt down the grocery store. I think there is one close by.

More soon!!!

Posted in: on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at at 5:14 AM