We made it!

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Bonjour from Ivry-Sur-Seine!

We survived our fist day! Miracle of miracles! We survived completely in French, mostly because we were too afraid to ask people if they speak english. My french has improved by 100 percent. which is to say that yesterday I knew 15 words, now I know 30, but ah well we have 7 weeks to practice. The trip here was gruelling. 8.5 hours on the plane to Geneve, 1 hour to France, .5 hours getting to the RER (metro) only to stand in line for another hour to get our carte orange (week metro passes) Then an hour and a half navigating different metro lines to get to Ivry where our host lives and a combined hour of walking which included getting lost trying to find her work, so we could get her key, to walk uphill to get to apartment, that was 5 flights of stairs up. Oy! We broke Jet Lag Rule #1. When we got to her apartment we were litteraly foaming at the mouth, dreaming standing up, so we crashed into a deep sleep for several hours. The kitty, Fillou slept at out side. Today we feel much better after a long sleep, and great breakfast of fruit, yogurt, croissants, and baguette and Tea. We are off to St. Germaine de Pres and later the Liuvre for free admission after 7:00. We will meet Isabelle for drinks in Place d'Italie, a cute neighborhood she said that is sans touristes. Isabelle is very sweet and friendly. She has an adorable little apartment with a great view of Paris. Ivry is a mini-city outside the city limits that has lots of parks cute streets and outdoor restaurants. It is quiet and clean and open and sunlit. She will show us around town more properly tomorrow when she has off work. bientot will post more after our first day in Paris!

Allison

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Comments

[sandy]

oh!
Oh! now I'm having second thoughts about coming to France!!! No, just kidding! It sounds like France could be 34 hours away, but if there are buttered rolls and tea waiting for me, I'm there!

[Jamie]

Let's see some pics
Glad you made it! Are you able to upload pics? mmm croissants!

[Allison and Miranda]

Pics are a bit of a pre-pic-ament
ok the upload is going slow; Our host doesn't understand english all that well, i figured out how to upload on the site but it takes forever, so now i think i need to resize the pics but not sure how to do that on a french pc or if she even has a program to do it.... pics will come, as soon as I figure it out.