Et il commence...

"When good Americans die, they go to Paris" ~Oscar Wilde

This has been a crazy 24+ hours. It is much too hard to figure out the math, even if I wasn't running on no sleep. So I left MSP airport at about 7:30pm on Tuesday May 21 and arrived in Reykjavik Iceland at about 6:30 in the morning local time. The plane ride over was fine, I had a middle seat so it wasn't spectacular. The movie that I chose to watch was the Hobbit movie. I felt it would be sorta poetic to watch a hobbit start his journey just as I was about to start mine. Boy what that a bad idea, I was completely confused and utterly lost. But maybe that is the poetic part because I have already gotten lost (sorta) in Paris and it's only been one day.

So I had an hour and ten minute layover in Iceland, where I proceed to buy mystery chocolate and only take one picture of the place. The first mystery chocolate was terrible it had some weird black licorice on it and the second bar I bought has yet to be opened but it looks like there's caramel in the middle so I am hopeful. Iceland was quite boring; all it was brown earth. I'm not even sure if it was grass or dirt. I plan on getting some candy or something small on my lay over on the way back.

Now off to Paris (btw every time I write that I write it in a French accent so please be kind and read it that way). We took off at 7:40 Icelandic time and landed about 1:00 pm Parisian time. On this plane ride I really did try to get some sleep, never the less it was a bust. But this time I was the aisle seat so the a plus, but it was in the emergency evacuation row and I was unable to open the overhead compartment alone, I don't know how they would expect me to open a door that's not meant to be opened and safe people's lives. I don't know if I'm to blame to this gross overestimation of my strength or if they are but for the extra leg room I think I can fake it.

After landing the Charles De Gaulle Airport we hoped on the nicest coach bus I've ever been on (it had shiny gold pleather on the seat!). I was an hour ride to the 14 arrondissement were I am staying le Maison des Province de France à de Cite Internationale en Paris. Where I was assigned my small room with a roommate plus en suite salle de bain. The room is bare but I kinda like it. I will soon be filling it up with all the wonderful things I find in Paris, and I left lots of room in my luggage so I have no worries there. The building is beautiful but quite a walk from anything. It's going to be an adjustment to go from five minutes to cross campus to twenty plus to get half way across. But it's all worth it. 

Once the settling in and unpacking occurred the group and I were taken on a walking tour of the dorm campus (the classrooms are spread all across Paris). Were we were shown were the supermarché is and where I bought provisions for breakfast and dinners that will last me a bit. It was weird shopping in a foreign, you realize the variety and the plenty that we Americans take for granted. But before I went grocery shopping (and on the way with some friend sorta got lost) I bought my first meal in Paris. A plain hamburger and french fries. Now before you shake your fists in rage at me for getting American food in France, the group I was with choice that little shop (Le fin de la faime) because we thought it was going to be more french food than the other shops we passed. 

So all and all it was a pretty boring day. Nothing exciting happened except going to a foreign country for the first time! I will leave you in hopes that this all makes sense since everything is becoming blurry and the ground has not stopped vibrating since I step foot on the European Continent. I hope that's not too bad. Tomorrow I will write about my observation, changed expectations and the things that surprised me.
Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice     

The one picture I took of Iceland

My first Parisian Meal

The main building of Cité U

Avant

“There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." -Ernest Hemingway

This is it. One week from today I will be flying over the Atlantic on my way to the City of Light. Even with four years of French instruction I don't feel prepared. But do you ever feel prepared to live your dream? 

Yes it is true I am the cliché, I am the girl whose greatest ambition is to visit Paris. But I don't really care; it is my dream and I finally, for three weeks get to live it. During those three weeks I will be writing in this blog about my adventures and discoveries. Whether they are academic or about the joli café down the rue I will be sharing them here. Jetting off on May 22 for Paris with twenty-four strangers is a very scary and exciting thing. Twenty-four strangers who will hopefully help me make the most out of my trip of a life time. Having never left the country, a stay in France is going to be one of the most eye opening and life changing experiences a person can have. Now like I said I have been linguistically preparing for my Parisian Excursion for four years but in every other aspect I have be preparing my whole life.

I have imaged stepping out of a petit café avec un pain au chocolat on to a cobble stone street and hearing the buzz of French and the clicking of height of fashion heels as I make my way down to a bridge to cross the Seine on my way to some fancy museum. But that is some fantasy. I understand that Paris is going to be a lot different than I am use to living at Morris. However I imagine that they will move at a slower pace, time is just something that stays in their beautiful watches and doesn't really affect them. Paris will be a city that lets a person explore her but never reveals all her secrets. As you might be able to tell I have a fairly romanticized view of Paris, but after all it is the city of love. 

Along with this romanticized view of Paris I dream of Paris being my ultimate teacher. I don’t really know what of, but may be a little bit of everything. She can teach me History extends beyond 1776 and that not all revolutions were as nobly fought. That language can to more than tell of love but be love. And life experiences of getting lost and being okay with it. Teaching me street smarts that the kind and coddling street of Minnesota never could. Paris will inspire me to go for greatness. To be the most open and malleable person I can be. I hope Paris inspire me to create beauty (the tangible and intangible). Paris will feed the restlessness with in me. She will show be that life extends beyond my cushioned one. And inspire greatness to flow from everyday tasks and emotions. I feel like Paris is part of my Ark.

In my French education I have run across a few things produced by the French that I enjoy. Always the reader that I am I have enjoyed reading Le count de monte cristo and Le petit prince, along with the poem Il pleure dans mon coeur. I haven’t listen to much French music however the music I have been assigned to read has been enjoyable. I sleep under a poster of Vincent Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom and Edgar Degas’ Ballet School. These paintings inspired me every day to go for my dream and now they will serve as reminders of where I have been and where I can go again. I love that the French nurtured so many great and different kinds of artist not by codding them but by being open to the beauty that they created in their own forms. Paris inspires the artist and dream within everybody and helps effortlessly produce these great works. I think I love all these things because they did not try and hide how hard the creator had to work, the effort can be seen in each line and stroke but the effort that is displayed is not a hindrance to the work but just a component to the beautiful work that the world gets to enjoy much longer than any earthy creator. And on that lovely note I end my first entry before (avant) I fly off to my dreams. So wish me luck and a bonnes vacances. 
Merci mes amis, 
Bisous- Janice