Finally in France

The last few days have been a whirlwind! I arrived in Paris on Monday morning after an overnight flight. The plane ride wasn't too bad, but our luggage took awhile to arrive and then we had to figure out how to negotiate the taxis. The first taxi driver didn't know how to get to my street, but eventually I arrived at my host mom's around 4pm. And then I slept for hours because I was soooo exhausted! The first night was pretty overwhelming because there were two guests staying over for the night, and no one spoke any English. My French is getting a little better now, but on the first night I seriously had no idea what was going on. And I don't have an internet which is just really, really annoying. Maybe I'm a little too dependent on the internet, but it's really my only way to communicate with people back in the states and I like being constantly connected to the news and what's going on.

Now for the positives! As I expected, France is an absolutely amazing city. I'll post pictures soon because the parks, and really the entire city, are gorgeous (and actually have internet). On Tuesday we had the orientation for our program and the professors just explained what would be going on over the next few months. Yesterday (Wednesday), was our first day of class and it was much less painful than I expected. In the morning we had a French placement test and then in the afternoon we had a 3-hour lecture for our France and French Policy class. The professor (Michael Loriaux) talked about the history of French education and then six French students who will be in our program talked about French education today. The six Sciences Po students are all in their second year at the university but for this semester they will take all their classes in English with us. I'll enjoy getting to know them better since they know much more about this city than we do. Well that's all for now! I'll write more (with lots of pictures) soon.