What an awesome and insanely long day it's been. After a two days of traveling, with two of three flights delayed, a year of planning, and a lifetime of dreaming I set foot in the my favourite city since girlhood, Paris. I booked a window seat, and actually got really excited for a touchdown at 8am Paris time. I watched for le Tour Eiffel for an hour from the plane (didn't show up), and reunited with Carmelle at Terminal 2A right after the passport stamper dude taught me how to pronounce my name properly. I was all set to go the the Eiffel Tower straight from exiting the airport, but Carmelle helped me laugh at my own naivety of thinking that the whole city revolved around the Eiffel Tower. It was apparently train-distance away and I had this weird idea that I somehow thought that it was viewable from every angle and corner of Paris...
Anyway after finally working our way through the metro system (Carmelle's French skills coming in handy), we got to Gare de Lazare station to get some coffee and meet up with Caren for some lunch (pizza!!). I even had my first conversations with French people in France -all really nice. One old lady kept speaking to me in French (cos like, I look so French and all), and I just whipped out my whole laugh-and-pretend-not-to-hear thing. As she continued I pulled out my next card from Year 7 French "je ne parle pas francais". But she laughed and then just kept talking, just this time slower! I caught one word "japonais" and just guessed the rest of it and proceeded to talk to her about my background and nationality and family (kept reverting to espanol haha) but it was all well and good, she was lovely.
Our next train was to Rouen, about 1.5 hrs away from Paris, and we were greeted by Carmelle's host family upon arrival: Christine and Yves, and their two daughters, who drove us to their absolutely stunning, cute and typically French home! Later their brother joined us. The weather was fantastic, mildly cool but the sun shining brightly like I hadn't seen it in Sydney for months. They were so nice and offered us baguettes with a variety of five or six cheeses, complete with red wine. I helped myself of course. We have the cutest room, and feel very at home.
Right now I'm the only one awake. It's 1:30 and I haven't slept properly in two days but this is just too exciting to write (though probably very unintelligible, will see)! Dinner would be at 8 which I'd thought was ridiculously late, but before we knew it it was 7:45 and was bright as 4pm Aussie time!! It's been such a long day because, as I discovered after dinner, it does NOT get dark till around 10pm!!! We finished dinner 2 hours later, salmon risotto with even more wine and cheese! Caren and I were already getting drunk/dizzy as, but it really was a good time for everyone.
Then the host parents thought it would be awesome to take us to the Rouen light show! This was at 10:30pm but I needed to make the most of it, despite my tiredness! I was imagining Vivid Sydney material but this was way better, and was featured on the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was highly artistic, one about Jean d'Arc (who was actually imprisoned and burnt at the stake in this city), and the other about Monet. It had stories to tell. It had music. Absolutely stunning. Tomorrow we're exploring the city and learning more! I'm so excited, I love this city. I adore Europe, and I think I could actually be here and be in awe everyday. Gonna sleep.
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