An American Girl in Avignon

I kid you not, arriving in France was one of the most exciting moments of my life, even though I was exhausted. I had been dreaming of coming here my entire life, and here I was: an American girl going to live and study in France while hopefully learning to parlez le français meilleur. After eating the nasty toaster pastry gone bad (some flaky, flat, cold thing stuffed with strawberry filling) on the plane avec some café au lait, our group wandered around Charles de Gaulle in search of Shawna, Zoe, Rachel, and Brad. The Charles de Gaulle airport was so strange. There were these moving escalators that were slanted through various clear tubes. I don’t know what the person who designed these was thinking. My luggage was rolling all over the place. Customs was pretty much a joke too. We showed them our passport and walked right through. No paperwork or inspection required. And the terminals are numbered: 2,3,1…connected by a metro, so one has to go to terminal 3 before they go to number 1. The French are different indeed.

Our first crisis at the airport was after we found Rachel and Shawna patiently awaiting in terminal 1, but Zoe and Brad were mysteriously MIA, and we had no way of getting in contact with anyone because no one’s phones worked. Verizon is officially off my Christmas list. My phone is called the Voyager and it’s not global…that’s false advertising if I ever saw it! Since our hotel reservation was at noon, my group left after exchanging money (since the others were staying in a different hotel) and wished the others luck.

Once in Paris, I forgot about my jet lag and just enjoyed the sights. It was beautiful here. Way better than the pictures or the movies: this was reality. Our hotel was located around the St. Paul district, which was very close to Notre Dame. After discovering that we couldn’t check into our room until 3 (even though we had to be there at 12!!), we walked to the famous church. On our way, we saw a mob of angry people protesting something about French universities. We came to find out that all of the universities in France are on strike because the government wants to make college education in France similar to that of the US. In other words, expensive. There is also upheaval about the professors’ pay and qualifications, but this won’t affect us since the program in Avignon is through OU. It is interesting that we are here at such a controversial time though.

Notre Dame was beautiful. Inside, Adam and I lit candles in memory of someone back home, and it was a very moving experience. The church was simply haunting and being inside was indescribable…absolutely incredible. After our visit, it was three on the dot, so we got some much needed rest and SHOWERS (I felt so nasty after that plane ride!) before going out on the town.

Our attempt at going to the Eiffel Tower that night was amusingly an epic fail. We tried to walk there, but we didn’t realize how far away it was and ended up going in the wrong direction about three times. But it was all good; it was an adventure. Plus, we were in Paris, so I didn’t care what we did! We saw the Seine, Paris at night, the Bastille, and ended up in a cozy café with shelves of books for décor. The food was absolutely amazing there, and after our pitiful pizza or nasty Panini-like street food at lunch, we needed something good. This place hit the spot, and the waiter spoke with us entirely in French. I noticed that a lot of the Parisians would start speaking English to us when we attempted to parlez le francais. Maybe that’s because we stick out like sore thumbs with our accents and North Faces…which is pretty much like an American flag slapped to your chest.

After dinner, we walked around the city, before going back to the hotel (where I enjoyed the BEST sleep since before the start of Winter Quarter)!

In all, our first night in Paris was enjoyable and pleasant. I think I am going to like it here…