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Well, here I am again*. Prepare yourselves for endless frustrations, awkward encounters, and many a post which will leave you thinking ‘tldnr’ as I embark on my second adventure in France.

              

  Let’s start with frustrations. As I write I’m sitting across the way from a McDonald’s in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. You see, this is the only place that I can find where wireless is free.

That’s right Saint Louis Airport – FREE. Now think about what you’ve done and make it better by May. 

My plane landed four hours ago, and I got through customs and picked up my bag (just one, can you believe it!) just fine. ‘finally, a travel day that isn’t horrendous.’ WRONG. I stopped at this, my favorite Macdonald’s, where I purchased a teenytiny espresso in exchange for a place to sit in this wifi haven. I needed to see if my host mother had responded to an email I sent before I left asking her to confirm her phone number, which seemed to me to be at least one digit too short. Finding no response, I dumped the tiny coffee and  proceeded to the train station, which is a good ten minute walk across the airport, and two escalators down. I go to buy my tickets, and see that I’m just going to miss the next departure. No big deal, I think, trains run all the time. So, the lady tells me, the next train that has seats available doesn’t leave til three. No problem, I can wait. Oh sorry, it’s not til seven thirty. And doesn’t get to Angers til nine. And costs 66 Euro. So I shell out the cash and go back up the escalators to phone my host mother with a number I’m not sure is real, but after asking the info station I’m told I just need to dial 00 first. I try this ‘00’ method about five times, and each time I get what I assume to be a busy tone. So I go back down the two escalators and read for two hours, then up the two escalators and try again. Same thing. At this point I’ve decided that it is not a busy tone, unless Veronique Copin has acquired a roaring social life in the past two years, but rather a signal that I am doing something wrong. This is when I silently thank my parents for making me check the weight of my bag after which we removed fifteen pounds of things to be shipped in order to avoid the FIFTY DOLLAR overweight fee. Because I’ve decided that the only way to contact this elusive or over popular woman is via the internets, which we’ve all learned by now can only be found at the good ol Macdo. So I gather up my 49.5 pound bag and retrace my ten minute walk. This time I forgo the one euro one ounce espresso as well as the slightly too familiar interior and set myself in my current location. Now, I’ve just got to kill another three and a half hours before I board my train, and in a mere five point five I will *hopefully* be greeted by my lovely host mother – that is if she got my email. Otherwise, it’s another night spent on the cold concrete of international travel – that, or cab fare.

*this post was written on September 24th, before I had set up my blog. We'll get caught up soon enough