The Never-Ending Journey

Fourteen hours. Fourteen long, tedious hours of travel. During my trip, I honestly doubted for a while whether it would ever end.

Unlike Jessica, I had a layover flight. My first plane ride took about seven hours, and we went from Detroit Metro to Amsterdam. And guess what? Seven hours meant that we were early. I shudder to think how I would have felt after the real timing of the flight. Anyway, this was the flight where I planned to get as much sleep as possible, since it was a long trip and I was supposed to have an aisle all to myself. What do they say about best-laid plans? Oh right--they go awry. Mine was the perfect example. Not only was I squished in a middle seat, but I was also a mere row away from the toilets...lovely.

Needless to say, I did not sleep. At all.

In addition to that, the airplane food was absolutely horrible. I was fed a light snack around four, dinner around seven and 'breakfast' around nine--or three o'clock in the morning, depending on which time zone you reference. Of all of these, the snack--a bag of pretzels--was by far the best taste-wise.

So what did I do instead of sleep and eat decent food? Well first I watched a movie--Disney, of course! :) And then I found this cool game called Shanghai on the monitor. It was similar to the computer game Mombasa from elementary school. I managed to play--and win--every level of the game by the time that we landed in Amsterdam. All of this (except the movie) was done with the delightful sounds of Broadway songs playing in my ears via my MP3 player.

My layover lasted two hours. Two hours in Amsterdam in which I couldn't even leave the airport. It nearly killed me! And on top of that, the line for passport check took nearly forty-five minutes and the entire time I was stuck next to a guy who wouldn't stop talking to me! Now, I'm not normally one for talking to strangers; that lesson has been beaten into my brain from all the Law and Order: SVU and CSI that I've seen. So when this old guy randomly strikes up a conversation, I honestly did not know what else to do! I talked minimally, avoided eye-contact, did everything except punch the guy and he just kept right on telling me how he was going to Germany for a toy company and was trying to find certain perfume for his girlfriend. I was never so happy to report to my gate--with plenty of time to spare, despite the lengthy line.

The flight from Amsterdam I genuinely enjoyed. It was only about an hour and a half long and I had both a window seat and the entire row to myself! Since the flight was so short, it was pointless to try to sleep, so I simply looked out the window the entire time. The sun was just coming up and I never saw a prettier sight. The clouds resembled the ocean at a sunrise, with occasional occurances of a patchwork quilt that was the land way below. Beautiful does not begin to describe it.

So are you keeping track of my travel time so far? Seven hours + Two hours layover + One and a half hours equals a grand total of ten and a half hours to get to Paris. And I needed to get to Angers, which is another three hours away by train.

This part of the trip was the first leg of the journey where I did not already have a fully-thought out plan. The general idea was to find the train station within the Charles de Gaulle airport and buy a ticket to Angers from there. Sounds simple, right?

Actually, it was pretty simple. I was especially proud of myself when I bought the train ticket in perfect French...until I forgot how to say "one-way". Oh, well. You can't win them all.

So three hours by train. And did I mention that the one wheel broke off of my suitcase? Picture it: me, climbing up three flights of stairs (I didn't see the elevator in time) with one gigantic suitcase, a smaller suitcase, a heaping backpack, a laptop case, my purse and one extra carry-on bag. My shoulders are still aching!

And then the pickup. This, above all, was what I was most worried about, simply because up until the day before I left, I still wasn't sure how I was going to get to the place where I was staying. I had two options: call and home that my family was home, or take a cab. And then Friday I received the email from Madame Picherit saying that I should give her a call when I get in and she would come and get me. A bonafide answer to prayer!

Even so, all the snags were not immediately solved. I did not bring my cell phone to France because I am planning on getting on here. I had also heard that Europe still had pay phones--which is true. But, what I didn't know was that these pay phones only accept phone cards. I even had some European change all ready, but the slot was definitely too big for a coin. And guess what else? The train station doesn't sell phone cards. What in the world was I going to do?

I was finally able to convince someone who worked at the station to let me use a phone in the office. I think that he was sympathetic towards me due to the fact that I had fnally succumbed to tears, though only a few (no sleep, a million mix-ups, a new country and a foreign language...wouldn't you?). Or maybe he just wanted to be rid of me.

So Madame Picherit picked me up from the office of the train station (I felt like I was sitting in the principal's office) and I finally got to see the city that I will be living in for the next four months. I gotta say, it is exactly the way that I had hoped it to be: quiet, rather quaint, and obviously from Europe. The street signs alone attested to that fact. It took about ten minutes to get to my home-away-from-home, and here I had another surprise: lunch was waiting, and so was Madame's family--or rather, her children and grandchildren. I was introduced to everyone and I won't post their names because to be honest, I don't remember them all. I was too busy scarfing down lunch (in as polite a manner as I could).

This meal was unlike anything that I was expecting. I knew that lunches were rather big meals rather than dinners, and I also knew that there were several courses. What I wasn't really expecting was the food to be so bland. I've heard so much about French cuisine that I guess I was looking forward to crepes and escargot at every meal. Stupid me. Instead, we had soup, pork, potatoes, green beans, cheese, and then yogurt and oranges for dessert. Most of the food needed serious seasoning, as they didn't really have that much flavor...at least, not like I'm used to. Even so, I wasn't going to complain. In comparison with airplane food, anything would have tasted like gourmet cuisine.

So then I unpacked. Big whoop. And I tried to get my computer working, but it didn't. This was where I almost cried for the second time. The WiFi--though working fine for every other computer in the house--would not connect properly to mine. So instead, I am plugged into the wall with an ethernet cord. Could be worse.

And...that's it. Now that I've probably bored all of you with the longest blog in the history of blogs (or my blogs at least), I'll just end here. A tout a l'heure!