I’ve been awake for probably over a day now. However, I’m trying to stay up until 9pm or at least 8:30 to help with jet lag so here we are. I still don’t entirely know what I’m doing on this blog but I figured it couldn’t hurt to write a little about the journey.
I flew from Stewart Airport in New York and had a layover in Reykavik. We were delayed by nearly two hours leaving Stewart and landed in Reykavik later than planned, so I booked it to the gate just to find out my connecting flight had been delayed. The original two-hour delay became nearly 3.5 hours. So I spent a lot of time waiting, trying not to blow my phone battery, and trying to catch some sleep. However, fun fact, Reykavik is in the period of time where it gets sun almost 24 hours a day, so it was bright out when we landed at 3 am.
Anyway. All this to say, I practiced patience a lot and nursed some gluten-free shortbread cookies through Iceland (very little is open at 3 am). But I finally arrived in Paris at 2pm. I successfully conquered the RER train system by myself with only mild anxiety. Thankfully the Cite U is directly across from the RER so it was easy from there. I got to see my friends again which was super exciting. I’ve missed them a lot. And then I saw our rooms, and nothing compared to my excitement about these WINDOWS!!
THESE BEAUTIFUL CASEMENT WINDOWS!! Maybe it’s just because I’m exhausted but this was so exciting. We can open them and see out into Paris! It’s so so cool. I am going to write poetry about this window, I am going to proclaim the greatness of this window forever!!!!!!
Also, a few of us went out and hunted down some dinner, which was both tricky and impressive that we pulled it off. We were lucky to have a waiter who was patient and spoke English enough to help us out. The big stress on my mind now that the travel is over is definitely the food. As a Celiac, I need to be very careful about what I eat, and that’s hard enough without everything being in a different language. We cobbled together enough French to determine the salads were safe. I had a veggie salad (I thought all salads were veggie). Though it was very good and the grapefruit was perfect, I was still hungry as we left. So I’ll be learning the key food words shortly. My game plan for tomorrow is to look up the key words I need to avoid so I can recognize them on a menu, and figure out how to communicate my dietary restrictions to waiters and such.
But honestly, despite the crazy travel, Paris so far has been lovely. We had a great meal, and took a walk through the park after. It was beautiful, and I’m so happy to be here. I am so grateful we finally got this opportunity. Now, I’m off to sleep for a million hours. (Sorry for the exhausted blog post, Dr. Smith)