Finally!

At this time two days ago, I was on a flight to France.  My mom, Sophia, Nathan and I went to sushi at Sadako in Ann Arbor around 5:15 before we went to the airport.  I got there around 7, checked in, and boarded my plane around 9.  I watched the movie Definitely, Maybe toward the beginning of the flight, which was really good.  Then I tried to sleep, but I couldn't because I couldn't get comfortable.  We arrived in Paris at 5 a.m. Michigan time, 11 a.m. France time.  Before we boarded the plane, me and three other girls from my program (Wendy, Christy, and Andrea) found each other and introduced ourselves.   After we landed, we found each other again and made our way to the train station which was connected to the Charles de Gaulle airport.  They purchased their tickets online, as did I, but they were having problems retrieving them from the kiosks.  I already had a hard copy of mine mailed to me, and I began to wonder why they didn't.  It occurred to me that the ticket I purchased was for a train that left from Paris Gare de Lyon (Charles de Gaulle airport is about an hour away from Paris).  I got really nervous and went to information who redirected me to the guichets.  A man who worked in one of them was really helpful and not only exchanged my ticket for me, btu also gave me a student card which provides 60% discounts on TGV tickets.  This will come in handy when I visit Maureen in Paris!  Anyway, I needed two tickets, one from CDG to Lyon, and then one from Lyon to Grenoble.  We got on the first train around 8 a.m. Michigan time, 2 ;m. France time and off the second train around 12 p.m. Michigan time, 6 p.m. France time.  My host mom, Madame Cottave-Fabert picked me up from the station and drove me back to her home.  She seemed very nice and helpful.  When we arrived at her home (a kind of big, very old home on the outskirts of the city) she showed me the salle de bains, the W.C. (which we had to pay to use in the train station .50 Euros!) and my bedroom.  My bedroom is tiny with a twin bed that is too short for me.  It is also lined with dolls, which creep me out, and posters of dogs and horses.  The bed is super uncomfortable and the past two nights I have woken up in the middle of the night sweating (it gets up to 90* here lately!) and have been unable to fall back asleep for at least two hours.  When this happens, I get frustrated that I am so hot and uncomfortable and I question why I came here so eagerly.  I start to think about my family and my good friends and I get really homesick and start crying, it's weird.  I've been away from home so many times, I had no problem transitioning to college, etc.  I guess I've never been out of the country alone.  Also, when I went to Harvard summer school back in 2005, I met a really good friend named Lisa and we became really close.  This year, on Alternative Spring Break in Chicago, the same thing happened with my friend Maureen.  Here, I haven't met anyone I click with yet.  Judging by the looks of things, I don't really see a good friend in anyone here.  Luckily today, another girl came to live at the house with me.  She is from U-W Madison and she is in the same program as me.  Her name is Jessica.  She's blond and overweight from Milwaukee, and she has no interest in going out and having fun, but I am just really grateful there is someone else in the house with me.  I guess I've just been feeling really lonely.  Today we went on a walk after dinner and that was nice.  After our walk, I did some reading on Grenoble.  Two places I want to go this week are La Bastille and La Musee de la Resistance, which is on Rue Hebert.  I was actually on that road yesterday when I went to an art museum with Mme. Cottave and her friend.  The art was displayed in Ernest Hebert's old house and all of the art was by him.  It was small, but the paintings were really beautiful and I appreciated getting out of the house.  Before we left, I went for a dip in Mme.'s piscine in my new red maillot de bains.  Her pool is really weird though, it's like covered by a dome that is maybe 4 ft above the surface of the pool.  Hello, claustrophobia!  Oh, one more thing! Today, as part of our homework, we were given a kind of scavenger hunt to do around downtown Grenoble.  It was cool because I saw a lot of the shops, cool fountains, old buildings, etc.  I also had to take the tram home by myself...and I did, pas de probleme! I also took it to the university this morning for my 21h class.  It's going to suck when I begin at 8h du matin!  Anyone can tell you I am NOT a morning person! Anyway it's kinda late and I've got homework to do in the morning.  Bon soir!