Day Un

My first views of Paris from the plane this morning were somewhat underwhelming. But I knew that somewhere under the swathes of fog was Europe, and that made those swathes European, which rendered them exotic. From the plane, I could see rows of exotic, ant-sized cars driving in their exotic, Parisian way. (Imagine how disappointed I was to find that the exotic cars drove on the mundane right-side of the rode).

Besides the automobile habits, the first thing I noticed about the French was that they book it; their walking is comparable to a moderate sprint. I was in the Charles De Gaulle Airport when I made this discovery – I could have been running and it would have appeared as an amble! (Charlotte backs me up on this).

Speaking of Charlotte, she was at the airport waiting for me!! [For those of you who don’t know this Charlotte character, she is one of my best friends, whom I met at Ohio University. She’s been teaching English in France for almost a year now, and I flew into France particularly to visit with her. She’s incredibly fun and we have all sorts of travel plans, so expect to see her name crop up often in future posts.]

<-- Charlotte and me, being happy to see each other.

So, back to my story: Charlotte met me at the airport, where I had managed to completely bypass baggage claim. (If I had had any idea of what it would be like to haul my two big bags from Paris to Orleans, I would have left them there). As it was, Charlotte used her powers of French-speaking-ness to finagle me back to the baggage claim, and – baggage in hand – we were off!

… in a manner of speaking. The French apparently don’t have a lot of wheelchair-bound citizens because we ran across zero ramps or elevators. That translates into Charlotte and me hauling my bags up and down endless rows of stairs. Fortunately, the French are also an extremely helpful bunch, if quick-footed. No less than three men carried my bags up or down stairs for us when they noticed us struggling.

Finally, with Charlotte’s expertise, we made it to the Orleans-bound train. [Orleans is Charlotte’s city of residence, for the record, about an hour outside of Paris]. It was on the train, when Charlotte handed me my first croissant that I realized,

HOLY CRAP I’M IN FRANCE!!!

The croissant was delicious -->
(While viewing the pictures, please keep in mind that I was incredibly sleep deprived).

The train ride was a blast. I got to catch up with Charlotte, and espy bits of Paris. I was surprised by the vast amounts of concrete and graffiti, as well as it’s vague resemblance to Pittsburgh. Huh.

We arrived in Orleans, and the city is beautiful. It’s so … French looking. I’m sure I’ll write more on it later. I’m so glad to know that Charlotte has been living in such a wonderful city.

For dinner, Charlotte introduced me to the wonderful French cuisine known as Racclete. It’s a cheese prepared in/on a grill made expressly for melting cheese. The grill looks like a trivial pursuit game piece. It has a bunch of removable pie pieces that you put the cheese in, and then stick into the racclete. (Please visit the wikipedia site for a better description). After warming the cheese, we poured it on boiled potatoes and sliced ham in the traditional way of the French. Bon Appetit!

On a completely random note: The French really do wear berets!