Chapter 3 annnnd everything inbetween

Where to begin? So much has happened since I have last written anything for the blog. It really is crazy how quickly time passes by when one is having fun . . . or a nervous wreck. The day we landed in Paris involved much waiting. Waiting in the airport, waiting outside of the airport, waiting in the bus, waiting near the hostil, etc. There are 50 Americans going to France and 150 kids going to France in total. So, at the hostile, we were met by every single possible accent. It was amazing to listen to. I was, and still am completely envious that I don't have a mysterious, foreign accent. Maybe I will fake it when I get home and speak English with a French accent. Perfect! Back at the hostile I had, or I should say we, we had our first terrifying French experience. At the cafeteria. We had no idea how anything worked and all got yelled at in French multiple times. Live and burn. And we did, we never ever made the same mistake twice.

I always forget how beautiful Paris truly is. Pictures don't do it any justice. (speaking of pictures, I will try to upload some after I finish writing) Every single detail is beautiful. The cobblestone streets, lovely. The details of the sculptures and corners of every building are gorgeous. I couldn't help but be in awe every time I turned my head. Le Tour Eiffel still amazes me after multiple times of seeing it.

Le jour prochain, I woke up at the early time of 545am, but ironically I couldn't sleep anyway, so I didn't even need an alarm clock. A group of us left for the airport around 7 and you will never believe what we did at the train station. We waited! Finally, a small portion of our group was called to walk through the station and board the train that would bring us to our new homes. My name was not called, so I stayed behind with a few others. One of these people was Anna, from Budapest. We started talking and bonded over the fact that in French our names were the same. Half an hour later my liason rushed up to me and asked which family I was staying with. I quickly replied "Beuchene" and she immediately turned sheet white. "your train leaves in one minute" she said in a thick French accent. Shit. So, we ran, and I mean ran through the airport with my two extraordinarily heavy suitcases. I haven't worked out, well to be honest, in a long, long time. I though i was going to fall over. My legs felt like jello. All I wanted to do was walk and then POOF, my train magically appeared, Harry Potter style (ish). I jumped on as quickly as I could and before I could even say uncle, we were moving.

According to my infamous name tag, I was in car 4. I had hoped onto car 1, so I lugged, with much difficulties and many 'excuse-moi monsieur et madame's my suitcases, which at this pointed, I wanted to throw out of the train, to car 4. I saw my friends and waved hello asking for my passport and train ticket, which I was told one of them would have. And indeed one of them had a passport and train ticket, a Hungarian passport. Cool. So, at this point I pretty much started flipping out, but everyone calmed me down and told me it would be fine, so I sat down and closed my eyes. At this point I started picturing all those scenes from movies where people don't have tickets and the train goes to a creaking stop in the middle of no where and the people are thrown out by their ear. So, you can imagine what a calm and happy mood I was in when the ticket person came to my seat. I nervously asked him, en Francais, (just to be sure) if this train, did in fact, go to Chateauroux. "Oui, bien sur' he replied in a very deep voice, lowering his eyebrows and taking the ticket from my hands, that I had reluctantly been holding on to. He clicked it and all was well.

I got off at Chateauroux and after twenty minutes became un peau confused parce que Pierre-Yves et Carol were no where to be seen. I bought un telecarte card and tried to call them from the pay phones but there was just a lot of beeping and a French operator speaking very quickly. After taking about five minutes to summon up some courage I walked over to a friendly-enough looking French man, and in what I can only imagine sounded like jibberish, I asked him to si'l vous plait aider moi avec le telephone. Another man overheard and called Pierre-Yves number on his cell phone, the number was out of service. At this point I had been waiting for about two hours, so, I jumped into a taxi and handed the driver l'address. The house was only a few minutes away from the train station. I rang the doorbell a few times and knocked, but no one answered. Luckily I had asked the cab to wait and so I jumped back in and went back to the train station. I decided to patiently wait, so I watched Glee on my laptop and ate my lunch and just as I was about to start stressing again, a very nice man, who new my name and had my AFS application appeared.

This man was one of Pierre-Yves very good friend and explained the whole situation to me. Everyone had gone to pick up the other Anna multiple towns over and they would be back in a few hours and everything would be fixed. In the meantime we drove a few miles outside of Chateauroux to his farm where he gave me a place to sleep for an hour and then we got back in the car and drove to my new home, where everyone was waiting. It was a very happy reunion/meeting. They showed me to my room on the third floor. It is tres adorable. I immediately fell asleep and woke up at seven, just in time for dinner. Dinner was pasta and creme fresh, which erased the negative day. There is nothing like delicious pasta to cheer me up.

Everyone is extremely nice and tres gentil. I am getting very tired at the moment, but I promise to bring more details soon. About my first day of school, which was this morning and about bonding with the girls over lady gaga!! Bon nuit <3 <3