Bonjour Paris!

I arrived safe and sound in Paris around 9:00 this morning. Surprisingly, the flight from Philly to Paris went pretty quickly- I slept the entire way which turned out to be a huge blessing. (My flight from Chicago to Philly, on the other hand, was terrifying! It was so windy during take-off that I resorted to Jeanine’s method of relieving stress while flying- repeating the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary several times. Sadly, I was still a tad bit afraid…I almost grabbed the hand of the high school boy next to me! He mentioned my apparent fear during take-off as we were de-boarded the plane- embarrassing.) The seats on Air France were not as large as I had imagined but still fairly comfortable. Mom- you will be sad to know that I was unable to use the "#1 Dad" neck pillow because it was way too large! BUT, I did get to use it on our 5 hour bus ride, so your de-stitching and sewing efforts late Saturday night were not entirely pointless. Really though, after dinner I walked around the plane for about five minutes, sat back in my seat, reclined my chair (the man behind me did not appreciate this as evident in the many comments he made under his breath and the frequent pounding on the back of my seat), put my eye-cover on, turned on some Jack Johnson and passed out. Really, I slept the entire way. It was lovely.

I woke up about thirty minutes before we arrived in Paris. It was so neat to see the Eiffel Tower during our descent! Sure beats the smoke stacks that surround the Philadelphia airport…

We met up with some other Villanova students after getting our luggage. Professor Rigaud was waiting for the last student and sent about eight of us to meet up with the other half of the group who had already made their way to the bus. Note to self: never trust the two guys in the group who know zero French to lead you in the right direction. Especially after they have taken full advantage of the free miny-bottles of wine on the plane…

We ended up finding our group after a short detour. Once the final girl from our group arrived, we left for Rennes. I passed out within ten minutes of getting on the bus…surprise, surprise. We stopped once on the way for lunch. French rest stops are SO much better than American rest stops. Everyone was sitting outside enjoying their baguettes (or for some, “bagooties”) and cheese while soaking in the sunshine. We got back on the road after a nice hour-long lunch and arrived in Rennes about two hours later.

Immediately, we were thrown in a room with a bunch of host families. After a (very) short introduction we found our host families and went our separate ways. My host mom, Patricia Bentitou, is very sweet. (Her face was priceless when she first saw the amount of luggage I have. She thought I only brought a carryon!) She is a single woman- her husband passed away a few years ago and her son does not live at home anymore. Her house is very simple, but quite charming. I am SO close to a beautiful Catholic church- kind of reminds me of St. Thomas of Villanova. Actually, I am sitting in my room right now and can hear the choir rehearsing! I unpacked all of my stuff, ate dinner with her (we talked about Michael Jackson a lot during dinner. haha) and am about to take a shower (I feel so gross after almost 24 hours of travel!)

Tomorrow we have orientation at the University. I am so excited! Much love and peace.