Bonjour from France!

Dear friends,

Bonjour from France! After a VERY long journey (detailed below), my mom and I arrived in Nevers on the afternoon of Friday the 18th. While our trip was very smooth, it was quite eventful at the same time! We left from Nashville at 6:00 AM on Thursday the 17th, first flying to Charlotte, NC, then on to JFK airport in NYC, before flying to Dublin, and then (finally!) to Paris – our total traveling time was over 24 hours! It was at JFK that one of my life-long dreams was fulfilled at the age of just 21 years old – my suitcase was the first one off the conveyer belt at the baggage claim! Ever since I’ve been flying, I’ve always wanted my suitcase to be the first one off, and this time it was! We had about 6 hours before our flight to Dublin left (which is too early to check in for a flight), so we ended up sitting on the ground in the airport for about an hour and a half, then finally getting checked in so we could check our bags and go through to the departures area. As we were going through security to get to our gate, there was a thin, really pretty girl in front of me in line, and my first thought was, “Wow. She’s pretty – I wonder if she’s a model??” Nope, not a model, just the Miss Ethiopia contestant from the 2009 Miss Universe competition!

After an easy 6.5 hour flight from New York to Dublin, we were ready for the last flight of our journey. Our flight to Paris left Dublin around 7:15 AM, and we were on the ground in Paris by 9:40 (there’s a one-hour time difference). While this flight was short and easy, it still added to our adventure – there was a medical emergency on board! (I actually didn’t realize anything had happened until the stewardess got on the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, as you are aware, there has been a medical emergency on board.”) There was supposed to have been an ambulance waiting for our plane when we landed, but I think that some group critical to that endeavor may have been on strike… Seriously, I heard the stewardess tell one of the French airport officials, “I know there’s a strike, but we need an ambulance here!”

In order to catch our train to Nevers, we had to get into the center of Paris to the Gare de Lyon. Our original plan was to take a train into the subway system and then take the subway to the Gare, but we decided instead to take an Air France charter bus directly from the airport to the Gare de Lyon – it’s much more convenient, and only costs a few euros more. The rules of the road are a little bit different in France – any car coming from the right has the right-of-way (except when at a roundabout). This rule also applies when vehicles are merging onto a freeway. As our bus was merging onto the freeway that goes around Paris, I looked out the window to my left to see a car that was precisely in the way of where our bus was about to be. I thought in my head, “Gosh, I hope the driver sees that car and doesn’t hit it, because it really looks like he’s about to run right into him.” I thought we’d passed the car and gotten safely over, because I few seconds had passed and I figured we would have hit the car by then if we were going to. Wrong. Literally right as I thought, “Well, I guess we’re safe,” I heard a crunch, a good deal of honking, and something shouted in French by our bus driver. He then yelled, in French of course, “The person on the right ALWAYS has the right-of-way!!”

Now, I was under the impression that when you get in an accident, you move the vehicles to the side of the road if there are no injuries and if the vehicles can still move. Wrong again! Rather than pull over or go to the next exit, our bus driver promptly got out of the bus (we are now just stopped in the middle of a busy Parisian freeway) to go talk to the driver of the car. After a few minutes, the police showed up and escorted us off the freeway, where I imagine they took care of insurance and other details. After this little delay, we luckily made it without further hassle to our train station.

The train ride to Nevers was uneventful and easy – almost exactly 2 hours, and no stops before ours. After the train ride, we took a short bus ride to my apartment building, where I finally got my apartment! It’s pretty nice – it’s a T1 Bis, which, translated from French apartment lingo, means that I have a separate bathroom, a separate kitchen, and one room for living space (I have a little nook for my bed). It’s a furnished apartment, which is nice, but I don’t have a kitchen (or any kind of) table! Isn’t that odd? I also don’t have a shower curtain, but that’s not so odd for the French. There’s a big Monoprix-style grocery store about a 10 minute walk from my apartment, which is GREAT. They have all sorts of essentials, so my mom and I have already made 2 trips there to buy things like cups and a pot for cooking (and food, of course!).

We walked into town yesterday after sleeping for a glorious 15 hours (I live about a 20 minute walk outside the centre ville, or main town), and as we were walking in, we saw several ambulances and police cars go past us. I kind of wondered what the emergency was, but then forgot about it and kept walking. Soon enough, however, we came upon the reason all those emergency vehicles had been speeding past us. We can’t figure out exactly what happened, but somehow a motorcyclist had been hit by a city bus and then trapped underneath it! (Maybe I should avoid buses while I’m here??) There were policemen and medics everywhere and they were trying to get him out – I hope the guy is OK!

Well, that’s all for now – I have a meeting this week to sign some papers for my apartment, and then I have an orientation meeting for my job next week – I’m looking forward to meeting some of the other assistants!

Au revoir for now!