Je suis arrivée à Paris!

Fred met me at the airport with a big smile. He was so gracious to help me cart all my bags around. We went first to the dorms to drop off my bags.

Les gens at CitéU thought I was arriving tomorrow so they were not prepared for me- either way it is going to take them a few days to get me an internet account. However, Vincent at AgroParisTech finished my registration today and I should be able to get internet access tomorrow at the schools. I will have to get yet another account at Fred’s lab.
We met up with Fred’s Walking buddies from America. We went for a great Vietnamese lunch (pho soup and some poulet (chicken) sauté pimento curry like thing) close to APT- great food- I will have to take my dad there!

Vincent helped me through all of the paper work and the meet and greets at APT. Talked to Maryline and Claude briefly.. I am feeling embarrassed of my French and I can’t seem to get into the right mindset. I was really tired too because I only slept for a half an hour on the plane..

I was very lucky because it was a cool and sunny day for the most part. I walked home from APT (30 min) and it was getting un peu cloudy. It is almost 9:30pm here and it is still light out :) Good to know. Tomorrow I am going to run out early and get some groceries. I should be meeting Fred ~ 11-12 at Versailles, which is a 45min-1hr metro ride…

I will need to get un carte orange- which is a weekly metro pass that I can buy for 5 zones (Fred’s lab is 5 zones from the center of Paris in Versailles). Après la fin de Mai (after the end of may) they will no longer sell these, but instead you’ll have to buy the NAVIGO passes which require you to a) send them a photo online and fill out paperwork and they will mail the card to your address; or b) bring a photo to the accueil/information ticket counter in a train station to get the pass for 5 Euro.

Finished unpacking and rearranging in about 2 hours. I HAD to take a nap.. I was dreadfully tired.. I hope that I can sleep tonight.

At a 0.57 transaction rate, I got 1.000 Euro for over 1,755ish dollars. Ouch.

Laundry is 2,50 Euro wash and 1,50 Euro dry!! Ouch.

There are several irons available at the front desk that I can use so that I don’t have to buy one. My clothes are SOOOOOOOOOOO wrinkly from being jammed like a sausage into my suitcase..

PS for international travel they are still allowing you to check two 50lbs bags. So there was a nice fee that I didn’t have to pay (minus one ouch).

Quoi d’autre (what else) ?
I’m sitting in the common area of the dorms and there is a piano recital/show happening in the auditorium :)