Je suis arrivée!

Hello all!!
This is my first official post on my first official blog! This is here so that I can record all of my fantastic adventures and weirdo thoughts while I'm here in beautiful Caen, Normandy and so that I can keep all of you up to speed without spending countless hours fiddling with Skype ;P! I'm going to do my best to post at least once a week.  That shouldn't be too hard, right? That way I have everything down while it's fresh but you all aren't trying to read a book a day haha.  This first post is probably gonna be pretty long so bear with me, I'll try to keep the others under 10,000 words ;P
I'm sorry to say that the first part of my grand adventure wasn't all that great... Actually, getting here was hell... I traveled alone with WAY too much luggage and I don't suggest that anyone follow in my footsteps.  The three planes that I took to Paris were actually quite lovely.  On the trip to Chicago, I upgraded to first class so that my second bag would be free -- it was short but sweet =] The trip from JFK to Paris was shorter than I remembered it being when I went with Mum and there were hardly any people on the plane! I was able to put the armrest up and lay across the seats! I didn't get much sleep though; I was far too nervous.
When I got to Paris, everything went downhill... I took the metro to the Gare Saint-Lazare- the train station across the city- and it was so convoluted that I almost broke down on multiple occasions... I had to change lines in the middle, which wasn't bad, but the second train was PACKED and I had two HUGE bags with me... I felt like I was squashing everyone's toes... On the first train, though, there were a couple of men who were wonderful to me, helping me get my ridiculous baggage settled then chatting with me about the weather and news.  At one of the first stops a man got on with his guitar and promptly started playing for us all.  He was quite good but none of the other patrons seemed very pleased about it and I understood why when he started to sing with his second song- he sounded like he had been swallowing rocks his whole life!!
When I finally got to Saint-Lazare, I didn't even realize where I was, I thought it was just another metro change-over.  I eventually found an Info station and asked for SL and they pointed straight up.  That happened four times (with tiny, jam-packed escalators between every one [on one of which my bags fell on me, slamming me into the woman behind me...I felt so horrible]) until I was finally on the surface and directly in front of the train station.  After fiddling for about 20 minutes with a ticket machine, I finally found the guichets (ticket windows with Actual people) in a different, if adjacent, building and the woman there took pity on me.  She was so sweet and explained everything slowly and step by step and I made it, with relative ease, onto my train headed for Caen. The views passing the train were straight out of story-books! The rolling hills were a green that I have never seen naturally occur in America and all of the scattered houses were built of beautiful stone and nestled perfectly into the hillsides.  We passed horses and riders and sheep with their dogs- I even saw a group of jackrabbits running across a field! It was picturesque, to say the very least.
After probably the longest day of my life and one very kind taxi driver, I made it to the University.  I got my keys and struggled my way into the building.  Once again, a couple of very nice gentlemen helped me up the stairs with my bags and into my room (the American ideas about the French are completely off-base! They are uniformly helpful and kind! Or, maybe it was just the mixed look of panic, exhaustion, and near-tears that I wore all day...).  Side-note here, my room is Awesome, if a bit small... I will be posting all of my pictures on FB so you can take a look at them there =] After I got settled a bit in my new home, I began running sprints between it and the office building, filling out paper-work, asking questions, and generally looking panicked.  When I asked about the internet, I was sent to find a different building and a woman who's name I promptly forgot (typical, right?).  Eventually, and with the help of a couple American girls, I found an IT guy who helped me try to set up my internet, until we found out I needed a password that I wasn't able to obtain until Monday... Then he led me to the woman for whom I had been searching all along and she sat me down, let me use her phone to call my mum in the US and then explained to me everything that would happen on Monday.  She also gave me a map of the city and marked it with a bunch of useful markets and supermarchés and sent me back to collapse in my room for the weekend.
Since then, everything has been uphill =] I went to Monoprix (the French Target) on Saturday and got everything that I needed, plus some food to keep in my mini-fridge (which came equiped with the room! So awesome haha). I also went to the telecom store to fix up my french phone and buy an ethernet cord (the wifi in my dorm sucks....haha) and the man there spoke English with me the whole time, telling me stories about where he had lived and describing some of the politics of France when he caught me watching the debates on the tv in the corner.  He was so sweet and he pretty much made my day! The rest of the weekend I pretty much read adjusted myself to the idea of being in another country...
Monday we had orientation with the same kind madame who let me use her phone.  I met a few of the other international students and we got a lot of useful info.  We also went, later that day, and got our Ucards and our codes for the internet!! Today (Tuesday) has been pretty hectic. We started classes today but it's an orientation week to make sure we're all in the right levels.  We did pre-testing today (8:30am tests are decidedly NOT my strong suits haha) and I made a couple of friends which was amazing and is finally starting to make me feel like I could call this place home.
Oh! One last little anecdote! On Monday, as I was walking back from the Ucard office, a woman stopped me on the sidewalk and started talking to me in rapid-fire French.  I caught that she was Parisienne and had lost her phone, but I thought she wanted help finding a place she could buy a new phone instead of borrowing my phone to let her family know she had safely arrived, which was what she was actually asking.  I don't know if she had a sixth sense and could feel that I had Just been in her situation or if I let off some sympathetic signal, but it doesn't really matter - she was another make-the-day moment =] She also, however, let me know how out of my element I am at the moment! I had an entire coherent (and correct!) sentence planned out in my head, but as soon as it got to my lips it got all jumbled up! That seems to be a theme lately....I hope that goes away soon....

Are you still with me? That's all for today, and I promise I'll try to keep my next few entries a bit shorter haha.  Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing! À bientôt, mes amis!!