I've been in Paris for a little over 36 hours now, but it still feels like I've just landed. For chrissakes, I still haven't seen the Eiffel Tower, and I think you're not legally in Paris until you've seen it. If I were arrested, I would have to be tried in Nantes.
The main reason it feels like I've only just landed is the fact that I haven't had a lot of time to catch my breath and get my bearings in the city. Here's the breakdown of the last day and a half:
11:00 PM, Paris Time: I board the airplane in the late New Jersey evening, with clear skies and the sun setting. We take off a half hour later, relatively on time.
The flight is uneventful. I read a book, Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut and listen to music. I decide to get a beer to celebrate the 21st when it rolls around. I can choose between French beer, Heineken, and Amstel Light. Obviously I go with the French beer, Kronenbourg, which sounds distinctly German and tastes shockingly similar to Hurricane malt liquor. I'm not complaining. I get a little bit of sleep.
6:00 AM, Paris time: I land in Paris. Customs and baggage goes well, though my phone doesn't work. My driver arrives. He is a small, hyper man from India who speaks good French and bad English in an accent so unintelligible that it doesn't matter which. Parisian drivers are mostly insane, and I swear we almost hit six pedestrians on our way to my dorm. The rules for navigating the streets are similar to New York City's, except everything is five times faster and more aggressive. By the way, Paris is dark in the morning until like 8 am, which was a little weird at first.
8:00 AM: I arrive at my dorm, the Fondation des Etats-Unis, part of la Cite Universitaire, which is an international student housing campus on the southern edge of Paris. The building is old and beautiful and my room is absolutely enormous. This is the only thing I realize before I pass out on my bed.
2:00 PM: When I wake up, I check out the dorm. It's a little old-fashioned, and the showers have only a push button and no temperature control. Other than that, though, it's really nice. I have a single that is bigger than the double I lived in last year, and there are a bunch of nice facilities. Unfortunately, I arrived right in the middle of an internet crisis, so along with my phone not working, I'm in a communication vacuum. I half nap, half read Paris guidebooks until dinner.
10:00 PM: Dinner was nice and tasty, and I got to meet many of the girls on my program. Yet we all have class at 8:30 AM the next morning and no one really wants to go out. I am sad because I still haven't met anyone else and it is my 21st birthday. When I get back to the dorm, though, I run into one of the guys on my hall, who invites me to drink with him and some other people in the basement. Luckily, there is plenty of booze and I meet a bunch of people from Georgia Tech and Uconn, thus saving my 21st.
8:30 AM: Waking up was difficult, and I'm still in a haze when the secretary at La Catho, my school, sends me in alone and late to my first French class in Paris. Despite the jetlag, hangover, and general surprise that I am to start learning already, I make it through until 5 pm, when both class sessions are over.
5:30 PM: When I get back to the dorm, I hit the grocery store, and get some supplies for the room (I have a fridge!). I see that the internet is up, realize how much I've done and haven't done, and write a blog post. Many shenanigans are to come, starting with later tonight, but that is a story for another blog post.
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