First Full Day

So, yesterday was the day I arrived. It was a long, warm, sticky day of travel. Plane from LAX to Toronto, then Paris. Unable to sleep on a plane, I was happily surprised that I survived the day without falling into a heap before I was able to "check-in" with my host family and take a badly-needed shower. Survive, I did!

As I write this, it is 10:40pm (Friday) and it has just gotten dark. I arrived home about 10pm, still light out. Now, I've got my window open to a lovely breeze, the apartment is empty except for me and Meune, the sweet kittty, and I can hear a crowd in the distance cheering crazily for a game of the World Cup. Fun!

Today, we met at the Accent Center (the study center and company that arranges all of the details for COC and other colleges and Universities who use this program). After a very entertaining orientation (program, safety, using the Metro, etc.), a group of us left for lunch (take-out deli, we ate in the park). Most of the students met again at 2:30 and Pierre, our professor from COC, took us via Metro to Tour Montparnasse, the tallest building in France. At 56 floors of ugly, modern office building, it isn't much to look at, however; it has the most amazing view of all of Paris from its rooftop deck.

From Montparnasse (my home neighborhood, by the way, in the 15th Arondissement), 5 of us (Felice, a COC dance professor and her daughter, Oleya, Cindy, the head of COC's Culinary Dept., and her friend, Kim, decided to take the Metro to the Seine, near Notre Dame, where we took a tour boat ride and later had dinner. 

I'd been thinking about cheese since I'd landed. This is the charcuterie platter with cheese. I even tried (and liked!) that creepy teerrine stuff in the front left of the photo. Delicious. A little more walking, enjoying Notre Dame from the outside (it was already 8pm). . .

. . . and couldn't pass-up the opportunity to have a crepe with Nutella for dessert (from the same cafe where Mark and I had had crepes six years ago).

The final challenge of the day -- get back to my apartment, alone, with an outdated Metro map! Had to stop to look at a newer map (I will be getting one tomorroww), but otherwise found my way and ended-up home with no problems.