paris is prettier than i remembered.

but maybe i didn't remember too well. i arrived at 7:30am in charles de gaulle airport, got my luggage and went to wait on the never-ending taxi line. i took an ambient before takeoff and was pretty much knocked out for the rest of the flight, which was nice. i woke up for long enough to take a few groggy bites of whatever dinner was and had a croissant at breakfast time.

leaving ny was sad, although as soon as i'd gotten on the airplane, a man was helping a girl up with her bag, and her water bottle fell and hit me smack in the eye. that was all it took for me to feel ready to depart for the city of lights.

once i got in a cab, my driver didn't know where rue de chevreuse, which is where reid hall is, was. he looked at the map a lot while driving, which of course made me extremely nervous. the taxi ride was about an hour long and i slept much of the way. by the time i'd gotten my keys and such, it was time for orientati0n, so i didn't make it back to my apartment. in fact, right now i'm still at reid hall waiting for erica to finish so she can help me move my bags up the vicious 5 flights of stairs we'll have to face at our apartment on rue du regard.

today we were oriented with why it's important to get insurance, to the area surrounding reid hall (montparnasse, near jardin du luxemberg), and a bit to each other. so far the people seem nice. i've spotted one or two pretty cool looking people, and have talked to one or two in particular i see myself getting along with, but it's true that these things never go the way one expects them to. so the people i'm befriending now are likely to not be the same people i call my closest friends by the time i leave. i'm ok with that.

at this point, my goal is to really familiarize myself with paris, to speak french as much as possible, and to meet some french people. immersion.