Are we there yet?

Hello. Are you there? I’m here. Where? Angers. Duh.

Indeed, I made it safely to my European epicenter. There is so much to share. All in due time. First things first.

Total Duration: ~35 hours
Total Active Travel Time: ~14 hours
Here’s how it happened.

1) Drive [Home to Chicago] – Something like 5 hours of listening to Sirius Classic Vinyl as a gray (read ugly) Midwestern landscape slowly passed by the window. Halfway through, we stopped for Mass at Notre Dame with cousin Corryn. From ND to Chicago, we relied on Dad’s new Garmin to get us to the hotel/airport (one in the same). While I’m still convinced we owe the state of Illinois potentially hundreds of dollars in unpaid electronic tolls, the Garmin got us where we needed to go safely with minimal yelling (oh yes... there was still yelling – the Garmin voice lady has a temper).
2) Plane [Chicago to NYC] – After a short and restless night in Chicago, I hopped a plane to NYC where I would meet all the other ND students traveling to Angers. Mom and Dad walked me to the Delta counter and, naturally, told the woman checking my bags everything she didn’t want to know about us being there. It turns out Katherine W. (said Delta employee) studied in Angers (same program as me) for a year in 1997-1998. Small world. I said goodbye to Mom and Dad at the security checkpoint and made it to JFK no problem.
3) Concrete Jungle (where dreams are made) – In order to make my international flight, I arrived in New York at 11AM. The Air France flight didn’t leave until 5PM. You do the math. I collected my bags at the baggage claim of terminal 3 and made my way to terminal 1 via the airport’s AirTran (the only free transportation in all of New York). Over in terminal 1, the Air France counter wasn’t open. I found a couple of ND students there already and we sat until 1:30 when the counter finally opened. I checked my bags, got through security and then sat in the international terminal for a couple of hours (not as exciting as you might think).
4) Plane [NYC to Paris] – I was pretty excited for this one, people. I like the airport. I like planes.


Say hello to captain Jean Philippe and the co-captain (whose name I don’t know).


The plane had about 6 sections: First class, Business class, Elite class, Business elite class, First business elite class. And coach. I was in the last, but I still had a nice touch screen entertainment system.

Not 30 minutes after takeoff, the crew started serving dinner. We had the choice of beef or ravoli. I chose the ravoli.

Clockwise from bottom middle: Middle Eastern salad with chicken (surprisingly good), Cheese ravioli (actually burnt to a crisp), Chocolate/Café flavored brownie/cake (bad), Chocolate pudding (good), water, Montery Jack Cheese (the white square), and bread. We had our choice of drinks (including wine or bubbles), but I had mineral/sparkling water. Afterwards, I had tea in that red cup you see at the top of the tray.
After dinner, I watched the movie Away We Go and liked it. Then, I turned to the radio/music options available through the entertainment system to find a mix of American and French hits from the early 2000’s. This will put me to sleep for sure, I thought to myself. Two hours in and out, maybe. After realizing the music was hardly working, I watched the entire This Is It Michael Jackson movie in 25 minutes, fast-forwarding through the songs I didn’t know (most of them).
During the movies, I had the following through process: I’ve been watching this movie for a while. I wonder where we are. I wonder the exact speed and altitude among other statistics of this flight in both English and Metric units. Yeah. That is what I wonder.
At any time duing the flight, I could see these and other statistics of the plane and a map of where we were (à la flighttrackers). Here is picture of us approaching Europe.


At 3:30 Paris time, continental breakfast was served (no pun intended):


Orange juice, muffin (mystery flavor - it was fine), plain yogurt, and le café.
From then on, we were flying over France. Thus, my window seat entertained me from there. We landed in Pairs at 5:27AM in blizzard like conditions. I was excited to be in France, not so much for the snow.
All of the ND students assembled outside the plane and headed toward the exit. I had my first conversation in French on French soil with the customs guy. It went something like this: “Bonjour.” “Bonjour!” (I give him my passport) “Merci.” “Merci!” (I'm the one with the !)
I’d call that a success, wouldn’t you? When we got to the baggage claim, my bags were there. Thank goodness! One girl didn’t get her bags (but she had a hunch before we left – connecting flights between airlines are no good).
And then… we waited. Another girl in the program (not the one that lost her bags, that would just be crazy) missed the plane due to another connecting flight delay (again, no good). We waited no less than 2 hours in the baggage claim for her. I did some crosswords and KenKen to kill some time. The others in the group got restless, so they decided to get a computer out and play American pop music and, this is the best part, dance. I wanted to, well you probably know.
5) Train [Paris to Angers] – After that fiasco, we walked to the train station with our luggage. Apparently the French are concerned about cars using the escalators because there were concrete poles in the way of each one making it difficult getting up and with full suitcases. After some typical downfalls (trying to validate our train tickets at an electronic kiosk where you buy train tickets), we made it to platform 6 and loaded the train to Nantes.
Once on the train (again no easy task with 2 suitcases), I stashed the big case up with the other luggage and the smaller one above my seat. I tried to watch the French countryside pass by, but promptly fell asleep. There will be other train rides, I suppose. I can tell you that many of the over passes (the ones I saw, at least) had graffiti on them. Imagine that! Graffiti in France. Go figure.
Thank goodness I woke up just as we were arriving in Le Mens, France (some of my readers may know that as the namesake of a certain building at a certain College across from a certain University). A mere 20 minuets later, the train pulled into Angers. The big suitcase that we last saw when I stashed it with all the other luggage was buried under everyone else’s luggage, so it was a challenge getting it out. I’ll remember that next time.

I made it to Angers. We met Professor McDowell at the train station where I then met Mme. Bechu. We got in the car together and drove less than 5 minutes to her (my?) house. She then took me around the block to she me how I will walk to the Catho (the University).

Upon arriving at the house, not unlike now, I was tired. So here is where I stop. For now. I’ll be back soon with updates on my host family (excellent). My house (excellent). My third floor (deuxième étage) flat (sans foreign roommate!). And other pretty awesome stuff. Stay tuned.

Sorry for the length, but you can imagine what it was like to live through it. So, you know what? I'm not sorry. See you in a few. Au revoir!