The One with Crazy Jetlag

My trip to Paris started out simply: said a final goodbye to my mom at security, got scanned all over by the extremely friendly TSA people, and then ate some McDonald's fries to get one last taste of pure America before boarding the plane. I was so anxious I couldn't wait to get on the plane! After what seemed like ages, we finally boarded the plane and took off. I slept like a baby during the first 2 hours with terrible turbulence and then post-it-ed an entire Paris travel book (that one's for you mom :) Before I knew it, we were in Paris! By that time, it was 9:40 AM Paris time and we had an entire day to stay awake and work through the jetlag.

After getting to our apartment, we went on a guided tour of the area and then had a quick orientation meeting at ACCENT, the company who set up our housing. They are seriously a godsend; the nicest and most helpful people! We did a little grocery shopping and then went to Monoprix, which is the equivalent of Target at home. Monoprix is already my favorite store. So after unpacking and setting up our entire apartment, I couldn't take the jetlag anymore. I was so excited to be in Paris but couldn't really appreicate it because I was exhausted and still felt a little sick from all the traveling. Solution? Sleep and get up early to get the most out of the next day and appreciate Paris for what it is. And that is exactly what I did.

The next day, we got up and went to an actual orientation meeting at ACCENT where they explained how to use the metro, buy a cell phone, and then a bunch of other important stuff like "don't pay attention to boys that hit on you, they aren't the ones you want to talk to." Very helpful information. Really though, I did get a lot of information from the meeting today. So the first item on the agenda after the meeting was buying a phone. Out of the 13 students from U of I, I'm the only one that speaks any french... it definitely made getting phones a fun experience. Half the group looked around the store like deer in the headlights before realizing we needed appointments to get a phone. Somehow, we all walked out of the store with exactly what we wanted and way to communicate. Then we got lunch and the food was amazing! Who knew that when you ordered a ham and cheese sandwhich that they'd give you an entire baguette with ham and cheese on it?

We walked around our area a little bit, saw the Bastille, and then went on our biggest excursion yet: take the Metro to buy a longchamps bag on the other side of the city. We didn't get lost, we didn't get pickpocketed, and we found the store 10 minutes before it closed! Luckily we all knew exactly what we wanted and had made our purchases in no time. After buying our bags, for at least $50 cheaper than you can get them in the US, we went to Printemps. Printemps is like Nordstrom on steroids. Every designer you can think of had a huge section in the store. It was glamorous. 6 floors of pure fashion; clothes, jewelry, and most importantly shoes. I fell in love with the shoe section. One day I really will buy myself a pair of Jimmy Choos. Unfortunately today was not that day. But I had my Longchamps so I was still thrilled!

We took the metro back and Courtney, Torey, Monica and I met up with Jamie for dinner. We went to a nice restaurant down the street from our apartment building and had our first official dinner in Paris, complete with a glass of wine. It was scrumptous, the service was wonderful, and we laughed about our "homestyles" as Torey calls them, or hometowns, and finished dinner around 9:30 like true Parisiennes. And now, it's time for our first real night on the town. Wish me luck!