Paris: Day 1

No shame these French people. Will make out in public in a public, tourist area.

Anyway, this felt like one extremely loooooooooooong day.
After I blogged the last entry, I packed up and got into the car to go to the airport. From there, I just dropped my baggage off since I checked in online earlier so my parents and I just hung around drinking coffee and juice.

I got to Montreal really quickly though we took of half an hour early.

There, it was around 9pm, and I was starving so I sat at their airport cafe and watched the airplanes being prepared and the sky was really pretty (I know this sounds really choppy but I haven't really slept at all).

I decided to call my parents while waiting to board the plane to Paris- and upon hearing my dad's voice, I cracked. Why I cry every time I leave, even if it's only for two weeks, is beyond me. I wanted to control it, I tried to loosen my voice box and breathe deeply but my dad could tell I was just croaking out "yeah" all the time. I felt like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2 when she's trying to move one toe after being unconscious for so long. :P

So I boarded my flight to Paris around 9:20- I changed my seat last minute online to an aisle seat right behind the bathroom so I could have some more leg room. I sit down and there's no one in the two seats next to me.

And then I see this really good looking Asian (I think) guy walking down the aisle opposite. The thought that perhaps he'd be sitting in my aisle flashed in my head.... and he did! Hahaha... it ended up that no one sat in the seat inbetween us which became the dumping ground of our stuff. I didn't speak to him at all the whole flight. He looked Japanese but then after sneaking more glances after getting off the plane, I have no idea what he is. He's fluent in French which throw me off even more. But when he sat down, I noticed he had a large Montsouris Louis Vuitton satchel slung across his shoulder.
Hm, either he's metrosexual or gay.
Then during the flight, he pulls out his Nintendo game thingy- you know the one all the fobs and boys play these days. This throws me off even more.

Yeah so as you can see, I was quite preoccupied with trying to figure him out the whole flight that I didn't do anything except try to sleep though my stomach was hurting so I basically didn't sleep at all. Food was crap.

When we landed, we couldn't dock because the workers on strike so we were stuck in that position for another 40 minutes. Finally we got off: the airport is small, crowded and humid. Gross. I groggily find my luggage which is already circling on the conveyor belt. Since I booked a shuttle to pick me up at the airport, I tried to find a free telephone to call him ($2/min by cell phone!) which was fine.. and then got some more euros at the HSBC atm. And then waited for a looong time for him to come. And we had to drop a lot of other people off- I was the last- so it was 3ish by the time I got to my dorm which I couldn't find either- all I knew was that it was an ugly Modern building. The other buildings here are gorgeous. It's a university campus basically where there are different international dorms here, defined by country. There's even a Japanese one in the style of their architecture- no wonder, when I was trying to find my building, I saw a huge group of Japanese people with 'milk tea' coloured hair walking around. Frickin hilarious. I'm at the Fondation de Suisse.

Anyway, I fell in and out of sleep. No air con here, so it was really hot and I always woke up sweaty. Gross. I have a really nice room- it's got a shower, sink, bed, desk.... the girl next door to me helped me with some stuff and I actually spoke french to her (pathetically), but nevertheless, she understood me. She asked me when I got in, how long I was staying, what I was studying... I asked her what she was studying (les lois) and how long she was gonna be there for (a few months). She even lent me her Ethernet cord so this is how I'm getting internet since wireless isn't working. Man, how good is that?

Anyway, went to meeting (two other Torontonians there and two Vancouver people!) and I tried to introduce myself to as many girls there as possible (it turns out, my residential advisor is a guy I knew from first year because we lived at the same dorm) then two girls and I decided to walk around and this 6"5' french guy approaches us and tells us if we want to see stuff, we're going in the wrong direction. He offers to take us to Notre Dam via metro- I thought it was sketchy but whatever. So we went to Notre Dame and one of his friends came by and he tries to sell us Eiffel tower keychains and we declined, so he gave us each one for free. He asked me if I was Japanese, and told me how he knew how to speak Japanese and started sputtering out "hajimemashite, konbanwa, ohio gozaimasu." We took a ton of pictures, though it was too dark inside the church to take any pictures plus I didn't bring my Nikon. While walking there, a french guy, approaches me, raises his arms and says "Omg my god!" and then walked away. Very weird. And then our 6'5" friend, took us back.

Yep, that's all in a nutshell. Now I'm dead tired since I haven't slept since June 30.... whenever that was.
More updates later... pardonez moi. Now my french and english both suck.