Bonjour!

Welcome to my blog!

I've been encouraged by multiple people to blog about my experiences in Paris while I'm here doing my dissertation research. I've already been here for almost two weeks, but spent the first 10 days with Doug, having a sort of second honeymoon (with much nicer weather than our first honeymoon). So I haven't had much time for blogging. Doug left yesterday though (sad day), and I haven't really gone out all that much since, so I thought I'd get my blog going since I have nothing better to do (research?.... nah.)

Despite only being here for 11 days, I've had plenty of adventures... some good, some bad. And some really, really bad. The trip actually got off to a terrible start, before we even left the US. Our flight from Chicago was delayed because of some malfunctioning equipment, and no one could tell us exactly how long it would be before we could take off. This presented a problem, as we were supposed to catch a connecting flight in Charlotte, NC, that would take us to Paris, and at the rate we were going, we wouldn't make it. So after abandoning ship, moving from customer service desk to desk, and waiting in multiple lines, we finally got put on a direct flight to Paris from Chicago. The problem: our luggage had all been checked and loaded already (this included our carry on bags that they made us check at the gate). The nice lady from US Airways said they would get our bags and make sure they were on our new flight, but the guy she sent to get the bags didn't seem terribly interested in actually doing that. So, we made our new flight, arrived at Charles de Gaulle, and lo and behold... no luggage. Shocking.

We spent about an hour at the airport talking to the baggage claim people, who said they would call us when they found our bags. Meanwhile, I had to call my landlord's "agent" who was meeting us at the apartment I'm renting. This was going to be interesting, to say the least, since I was frustrated about the bags, jet lagged as all hell, and still not terribly confident in my French speaking abilities. So after fighting with a pay phone, I finally got through to the lady, and after muddling a few French sentences, she just started speaking in English. So, French language: 1, Abby: 0. :(  This did, however, make it much easier to check into the apartment, and since I was running on fumes by that point, I didn't really care all that much that I probably looked and sounded like a dumb American.

Once we got checked into the apartment, we basically just crashed for the rest of the day. We woke up that evening and tried to make contact with family members, but this was difficult, as my laptop power cord was in my carry on bag that was currently missing, I had no working cell phone, and my land line in the apartment ONLY calls local French land lines. Not even French cell phones. Thrilling. By this point it was late and we needed food and drinks, so we walked to the nearest Carrefour and picked up some essentials. You know, like bread, water, and Nutella. :) After getting back, we pretty much went right back to bed.

A quick side note about the bed: it is the single wonkiest futon frame the world has ever seen. The top 2/3 of it has a bar down the middle and slats that radiate out like ribs. And it's curved like a rib cage. Which means that when you lay on one side of the bed, you end up sliding or rolling into the middle, and with two people, this is incredibly uncomfortable. We ended up sleeping that night because we were both so exhausted, but the bed, coupled with jet lag, would lead to many sleepless nights to follow.

The next day, we awoke to a phone call around 11. They had found our bags! And they would be delivered between 3 and 5. This was wonderful news, considering I had been wearing the same clothes now for 3 days. Ick. And even more wonderful... they ended up delivering them early! Hooray, clean clothes, toiletries, and laptop power cord! Sadly, all this excitement wasn't quite enough to shake me out of my jet lag stupor, and I ended up passing out again once we got the bags in the apartment, leaving Doug to unpack and organize everything. (What a great guy!)

So it wasn't actually until Day 3 of my trip that we actually left the apartment and got out into the city. I'll blog more about some of these other adventures later. Au revoir!