Day one: The day of unfortunate events..

       Day one: Total array of emotions..We did finally make it to Paris and got all settled in to the school, so that's a plus! But it wasn't all that easy.. It started off on a bad note with our first layover in the Dulles airport which is quite large. We ended up having ehh about 20 minutes to get to our terminal and board the plane (stressful to begin with) and once we did breathe a sigh of relief when we got to our gate, we then shortly discovered that our gate was changed to a gate on the COMPLETE opposite side of the airport (thanks to our new friend Jim or else we would have totally missed the flight!). After sprinting through the airport we surprisingly made it to our new assigned gate on time and boarded the plane! After that we thought it would be smooth sailing from there, only to find out that once we got to the airport in Paris our shuttle had taken one of our passengers (she arrived earlier than us and was going to wait for us to take the shuttle with her) before we got there. All heck broke loose between me, Val, and Kassidy seeing as we were exhausted, stressed, nauseous, and hungry. We finally found an english speaking man in the airport who let us use his phone to call the shuttle and THANK GOODNESS they came back to get us. The ride was a little frightening though...apparently driver's here in France don't fear being in car accidents....(pretty sure my life flashed before my eyes on that shuttle ride).
        Then comes what we had expected to be the fun part of the day: arriving at Cite Universitaire! Well, what do you know..that was a mess too. We couldn't check in when we got there around 12:30 and we had orientation at 2.  After a little while we got all checked in but at this point we had no time to shower, eat, change, fix our hair or anything, but we thought who cares it's just orientation..no biggie....but we were wrong. Little did we know that we were taking a field trip to the Louvre directly after our orientation. So away we went, all airplane smelly, messy hair and makeup, and no food in our systems. The Louvre was amazing except for the part where me and 4 other girls lost the rest of our group....No worries we made it back ok!        
        Most people who study abroad say that the first day is amazing and you are in that "honey moon stage" where everything is new and wonderful, but I on the other hand had a total opposite experience. I hated everything about my first day in France. Not that the school or people are bad, but there is no sugar coating it..it was a bad day filled with many tears. Not being able to communicate with people from home is the absolute worst part about it (yes, I miss my mom already).  So it's safe to say that the experience of the first day was very unexpected but I can confidently say that I think tomorrow will be 100 times better :)