Bonjour tout le monde!!
I am, as you may already know in France, and have been in France for a few days. I spent a few days in Paris with all of the other AFS kids, and today was my first day with my new family! My host family is amazing, the are super sweet, extremely friendly and just perfect for me. Also, I made some amazing new friends in New York and in Paris and it was really hard having to say goodbye even after a few days of knowing them.
One of the biggest things about being an exchange student is that you are always saying goodbye to the people you meet. What they do tell you, and we agreed that we didn't believe this, that you will become such good friends with the other AFS students and they will be some of the biggest support you will have. I have met some amazing people in the past couple days, most of which are not in my chapter, but I still plan on following their blogs, and keeping in touch to see how they are adjusting to French life. Mes famille français!!!
Now it's time to talk about what happened in the past couple days. First my parents dropped me off in New York and I went into the hotel, just knowing one other person in the hotel from my chapter when I first arrived. It was really early when I did arrive, so only about twenty people were there talking already and making friends. There was a significant amount of students going to France, like Katie, Kinzie, and Annie, all of whom were their when I arrived and welcomed me with an empty seat!
We talked, and as more students showed up, we formed a huge circle group and began doing our own ice breaker activities. The majority of the students in the circle were going to France, but you had the occasional student going to Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, etc. I got to meet new people I have never met before, saw people I already knew, and put faces to names that I have seen on Facebook, but have not met in person.
At 4:30, when the majority of the students have arrived, the orientations started. The group was amazing, which is what made New York so amazing. Sure we had the silly ice breaker activities but I did learn a lot there and felt ready to come to France afterward.
After New York, we headed to the airport along with the students going to Spain and Italy because we were taking the same flight to Zurich and then parting and heading our separate ways there. So we hopped on another plane, and headed to Paris.
Here is a random thought I had while being very sleepless on the plane to Zurich.
I have seen the good side, bad, and in between of every person who is on this plane and I cannot say I've seen or experienced that with some of my friends back home. I don't know what to think of that but I do know that it just makes me feel more comfortable to be whoever I am and it's a great feeling. No one is judging anyone, there are no obnoxious social cliques, because everyone is a friendly outgoing exchange student who wants to make friends and have new experiences just like you. I wish everyone at some point in there lives could experience this feeling, because even in the past 48 hours, I feel different, a more confident human being than the person who was dropped off in New York a few days ago.
I wrote that down in my iPod as fast as I could because I had a very low battery and I wanted to remember that as I thought I would not remember it (and I didn't) in a few days. I had some great times on that plane, watching the sun come up through the clouds way off on the horizon while listening to "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles with Lily, Deia saying "I can have a conversation with a brick wall, and a damn good one at that!" Making me laugh pretty hard, and hearing Harris talk about his screenplay, (it's not a good idea... sorry Harris) as well as so many other things.
Moving on to Paris. The first day we arrived, it was crazy! The Americans were seemingly the first ones to arrive and we were all extremely tired, bored, irritable, and unshowered. We all tried to stay awake but the effort was fruitless. About half of us crashed in our rooms or in someone else's while hanging out with someone else, while the other half managed to hang on until some other countries arrived. We were staying at a hostel in an area of Paris that didn't seem like Paris, so we all agreed we could have just been anywhere and they pulled one over on us.
But we were in Paris so our phrase we always said was "(Shit)! Guys, we're in France!" The shit was optional. The next day we had more orientations which were fine, just like the ones in New York. After lunch following the orientations, we went on a bus tour of Paris, which would have been so much more enjoyable if we were not all exhausted and fell asleep on the bus. I did get a few good pictures of l'arc de triumph and then we got to walk around the Eiffel Tower for about 45 minutes and did some weird dance in the middle of this landing view thing which was weird but fun. Eiffel Tower = Much more beautiful in person, which means its perfect. That was perfect, Paris was perfect, the people were perfect, I was just in awe.
We got back, had dinner, and another really pointless meeting. ALSO, I got to sit with the lady in Paris who works for AFS and accepted all of our applications to France. Her English was PERFECT!! I mean, I thought she was American at first. So she was super cool and along with the other French advisors, at about 10:00 that night, we ended up learning a difficult Australian dance (of course it was Australian), a wacky French dance, tried teaching Cotton Eye Joe, and then had the most competitive game of limbo I had ever participated in. It was Epic!
The next morning, we woke up and said our very sad goodbyes to our fellow AFS'rs and went on our way. We waited in the Paris train station for about 2 hours waiting for our train, it arrived, we boarded, and had an uneventful train ride north.
When we arrived in Lille, all of the host families were on the platform waiting for us. I saw my host mom from out the window and I just got super anxious, along with everyone else meeting their host families. They are all extremely nice and sweet. I have tried doing chores around the house, but each time had someone reject me from doing anything. IT'S GIVING ME ANXIETY!! LET ME DO CHORES!!! PLEEEEAAAASE!!!
Now onto school... DUN DOOON DUUUHHHHNNN!
It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be in terms of people. As for the language... It was worse. I remember people telling me in Paris I would be fine because I had taken French for a few years. Lol! I understood nothing the teachers said, the student needed to repeat things about 10 times very slowly for me to pick out 1 or two words in each sentence, but I managed to make friends which is good, and everyone wanted to try practicing English to my personal dismay. But I had fun all the same.
Then today was so much easier. I had about 3 hours of study (basically a study hall) after getting at school at 9, had a 2 hour lunch, 2 hours of gym, and a class in which the prof told me I didn't really need to pay attention because it was a review class. Talk about simple. Note to self, *Tuesdays are easy*. So I then got home, took a twenty minute nap, got up and helped Jules make quiche lorraine pour dîner.
I hope everyone at home is doing well, and the other exchange students are having fun! A picture post will probably be put up tomorrow of pics from NY, Paris, the plane etc.
Bonne Nuit,
Avec armour,
-Aidan
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