day 2

sorry i can't photoblog these. i have to wait until i'm not 100% dead tired can-only-blog-the-bare-minimum. :) plus my computer sucks. you'll have to match them up to the photos i post on fb later.

another day of finding things out. and a funny story!

in the morning we had orientation. i wanted to meet everyone so bad but it was kinda awk and there's like 70 people on my program so it's not like i'm gonna meet everyone anyway...but i talked to a few people. we went into this room and just spent the whole time orientating. we had a lunch break so i bought lunch at a monoprix store (honey yogurt and fruit for around 3 Euros.) we ate it at luxembourg gardens. not gonna lie, it was kinda awk. the whole everyone-getting-to-know-eachother thing, i guess. but it was so peaceful there. after that we had homestay orientation and vie pratique and then were basically freed to do whatever. i don't know how i ended up with who i ended up with, but i did. who i hang out with feels kind of random, and there's still other people i really wanna meet more/hang out with, but whatever. anyway we just walked around and tried to find a place to charge our cartes navigos and realized we were close to the river and i was super excited and we saw the river!
AND THEN
out of the corner of my eye i saw the SPIRE
"IS THAT WAS I THINK IT IS....." i screamed.
IT WAS!
NOTRE DAME
I SAW AND WENT INSIDE NOTRE DAME.

HAAAAAHHH MAAAHHH HGAWWWWDDDD
and that was the first time i truly felt like i was in paris. on ile de la cite, with the river, and with notre dame.
(i'm gonna climb to the top! but later on.)

THEN we walked around some more and sat down and got Berthillion ice cream on ile de st. louis. everything was SO picturesque. after more walking we got dinner with everyone all together. again, it was kind of a game of who-do-i-sit-with and am-i-gonna-be-friends-with-everyone. sorry if i overanalyze this, but i do. i'm super glad they had vegetarian option :) yays.
also at dinner i met MARI who speaks japanese! HALLELUJAH. i think my brain was going to explode if i had to hold my japanese in for this whole trip. also i got to talk to two of the asians today, zhanjun (monica) and mengjie (iris.) SO GLAD. i know this is SO WEIRD but i feel weird if i don't get to talk to asians. -___-; but anyway.

MY STORY

a group of us took the metro home together, but i was the only one (besides my roommate who had already gone home) who had to take my particular line after the transfer. and it was already dark. GREAT. so i was scared and paranoid and watching my stuff VERYYY closely and hoping i did it right. well, i did it right. i was at the right track at the right time, going the right direction, and got off at the right station. yes, i did it! this metro thing isn't as bad as i thought. then i went up the stairs and out into the street.
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
this looks NOTHING like what i need it to look like. where was the picturesque little entrance i went in before? everything looked totally different. yet i was certain i had gotten off at the right stop. as it turns out, Gare de Lyon is BEYOND HUGE and i had gotten off at a totally different exit, across the block (or further) from where i needed to walk home. i had no effing clue what to do. i walked about a block down, realized it was fruitless, and started walking the other way. what do i do? it's night. i'm alone. this is the first thing they told us not to do. Oh fuck! Searching left and right, I saw a policeman. but he's a man. do i trust him? do i trust anyone? is my french even good enough to do this? finally, i didn't know what else to do. "excusez-moi pour vous deranger monsieur, mais j'ai un p'tit question...
and so it began. i told him i was lost and didn't know how to get to my homestay. he asked me a bunch of questions about why i was there, where i was from, etc. and eventually, seeing that i couldn't walk it on my own...got a police van to escort me. can you believe it? the kindness of a french person. oh, how i never expected to get ESCORTED home in a french police car! yet this was HAPPENING! his policeman friend was driving, him in the passenger seat, me in the back. i almost didn't trust them, since it's intuition NEVER to get in a car with strangers, but...they're policemen! they have to be honest...right? ironically enough, i think i trusted him more because he was hispanic/something non-white. while i was in the car, he was making smalltalk with me, and i ended up telling them that i sang. of COURSE, being pushy french dudes, they asked me to sing, and wouldn't stop, and kept pressing me. luckily, the song that came on the radio was "Hey Soul Sister" which i know and love.
so i sang for them.
apparently they really liked it, and were kind of rockin' out, and i have my suspicions that they were ignoring the GPS and taking a longer route until the song ended. at least they reached my house (THANK GOD, THIS IS WORKING OUT! I DIDNT GET RAPED!) then he said the words that all frenchmen say and that all girls sort of dread to hear:
on prend un verre?
it's like, do you wanna go out for a drink?
so i had to politely refuse (at least he accepted the refusal), THANK HIM PROFUSELY, and head up home.

PHEW! what an experience! and a really good day 2. starting to get situated. :)