From the Hostel in Paris

Paris - 1 fevrier

As far as hostels go, I’d have to say this one isn’t bad. Well, this is my first time in a hostel, but no sadistic businessman purchased me for the purpose of gruesome torture, so I’m deciding that I got one of the good ones.
My sleeping schedule has completely shifted: I am now a morning person. I get really tired around 10 PM and well pass out if not steadily stimulated. Friday night I woke up in the complete dark, fully clothed on top of my blanket, music still playing in my headphones, book open laying on my chest. Out like a light. I’ve been waking up around 5 AM and falling back asleep off and on until about 6:30 AM when I simply can’t do it any longer and must rise and join the world of the wakeful. Saturday morning I did have an epic lucid dream via music-induced meditation (lucid dream meaning the unusually kind one has conscious control over). I went around and visited all of you. When you asked why I wasn’t in France I stated frankly, “I am, I curled up sleeping on my bed in a hostel right now, I’m just visiting you in a dream.” To which you completely understood. So, if I visited anyone, you must let me know.
I won’t go through the details of the itinerary, it’s usually various ratios of eating, sleeping, orientations and socializing. And ridiculous singing and dancing in parks (side note: I got to teach theatre games! Yay for being a theatre geek!) We also had a bus tour (our guides were the AFS local volunteers, they made the whole thing a lot of fun) of Paris, of which I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures of - my camera was dying. However, many other people took pictures and will be posting them on Facebook. In such event, I will steal them or link to them. That is as soon as I get internet (oops, I realized the anachronistic nature of that sentence, in that I don’t have internet at the time of writing this, but by time anyone reads this I will have internet…because I’ll need internet to post this. Oh well).
I met all sorts of fascinating and awesome people. Actually, four of the students were at one point in their lives models (two guys, two girls). Yeah. That happened. New Zealanders are really cool people: when we were divided into smaller groups, I got to be in the group with most of the people from New Zealand. I’m not sure if they represent all of New Zealand in that way, but they were fun. One such Kiwi, Francis, brought Flight of the Concords on DVD as a gift for her host family (because they’re New Zealand’s claim to fame right now) so a group of us watched a few episodes.
Sometimes I feel a little intimidated, I suppose, of the frequency at which these other AFSers have traveled. I mean, discounting the travel that happened before I was forming cognitive memories, I have never left my time zone. Most people here would need both hands to count all the countries they’ve been to or lived in. Oh well, we all have to start somewhere, right?
Discounting plane food, I am ashamed to say that the first place I ate in France was…McDonald’s. I’m not sure if it was to ease the culture shock or what, but the AFS volunteers decided that that would be the best place to start. Well, I didn’t eat anything there considering the food’s tendency to make me physically ill, so I suppose the first food that I ate was here in the cafeteria of the hostel. It was generally pretty good, even though I didn’t really know what most of it was. Ooh, this is bizarre: the French don’t color their yogurt (later edit: actually they do, sometimes, but not all the time). Therefore, no matter the flavor, it is always white and the same consistency (no fruit chunks). It’s a trifle disorienting to be eating something that obviously tastes pink or red but is unmistakably white. Also, mineral water: still gross in France.
It’s pretty quiet right now - my roommates are both sleeping and all but 5 or 6 of us have gotten on buses and trains to take them to their families. In about 30 minutes time, my family will arrive to pick me up. I will meet them, then I will be part of their family. There’s something odd about just hopping into a situation that usually grows from, quite literally, a fetus. Je vais être son fils. C’est etrange.
Lastly, to clear up confusion due to my misinformation: when I received my Visa information, I was uner the impression that I was going to be in Poitiers, so when I received my family information and the address said Cachan, I figured that it was a suburb of Poitiers. This, however, is not at all the case. Cachan is a suburb of Paris, about 10 or so km outside the city. Much to the jealousy of many other travelers, I will be staying just outside of Paris. I find this ironic because often times when other people would talk about my exchange, they would say I would be living in Paris and I would correct them by saying France, I’m not sure where in France yet. So, people who would say Paris, instead the more general France, it turns out you were right. Annnnd… I have to go downstairs now…to meet my family soon.
Wish me luck!

Taylor en France