Je suis arrive à Paris à 8h ce matin.

A little overview:
I said goodbye to my family at the secutity checkpoint a little before 5, and I was in the air at 6 :05, right on time. The flight to Heathrow was only 5 ½ hours long. I sat next to a teenage boy from the UK. Unfourtunatly, he didn’t take his headphones off the whole time. I was desperate for conversation, and there was none to be had. So, to keep myself busy, after take-off, I read the letter’s Jimmy and Molly had written to me to read on the plane. Let me tell you, they made me the happiest. Thanks pals. I tried to sleep, but I ended up reading Everything Is Illuminated (the best going away gift ever from Megan).

Flying over the Atlantic away from the sun was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. The sunset was the most gorgeous color red and once we were in the middle of the Atlantic, the starts were as brilliant as they possibly could be.

When I landed at Charles de Gaulle at 4:30 AM local time, I ended up meeting a girl in my program at the terminal. It was perfection to know someone, because once we caught out connecting flight to Charles de Gaulle, things were semi crazy. The flight was good though, it was only 45 minutes, but I sat next to the sweetest gal from Australia on “holiday” with her boyfriend.

At the Charles de Gaulle, I met up with several other girls (there’s only one boy) from my program and we were shuttled through the city to our hotel.

Ok. Best part.

I got up to the room, which is a beaut, and met a couple girls who were already there. One’s name was Walsh and we immediately started talking about how we both have Eurail passes, we both want to go to Oktoberfest and how we want to go explore. So we did. She already knows the Metro pretty well, so she took me to where we’ll be living for the rest of our stay at the Cité Universitaire of the Université de Paris.
It was gorgeous…as you can see. Then, we walked to a café and sat and had a drink until we walked over to a little market selling fruit and wine. The man there told us we were pretty and said “Vous etes americaines? J’ai pensé que tous les filles d’Etats Unis sont grosses!” Some what of a compliment, right ?
We got a bottle of wine each and a few pieces of fruit to picnic on the lawn of the Eiffel Tower tonight. I’m so happy I met someone who wants to do things, and it’s only the first day. Whew. I’ve been in Paris for less than 8 hours, and I’m in love with it here, and I can’t wait to really enjoy the city more.

Hugs,
Erica