France at last!

I can't believe I left a week ago! Excuse the much belated post but apparently not sleeping the week before you leave then not sleeping for another five or so days after that can make you too tired to come up with an amusing blog entry!

Now that I have begun sleeping again I can say that I am here, I am safe, and I am having an amazing time! In my next entries I'll wax poetic about how fantastic France is and how I am already not looking forward to leaving it! For now, I'll just tell all about my journey to get here.

The day before I left for France was wonderful, Alex and I had a great day together and I was able to finally relax. I had made sure that all of my packing was done early so that our last day together would be without stress. I packed Tuesday night then Wednesday we slept in, saw a few movies, had a massage, ate dinner and saw another movie (SATC 2, wasn't terribly impressed with the movie, but the audience was an experience!) came home took a shower and "slept" for two hours before heading to the airport! I did a very good job at holding it together knowing that I wouldn't be seeing Alex for another three weeks after we said goodbye.

The first flight went very well, Alex is having me edit his latest project right now and it helped a lot to have that to focus on while I flew (which, if you've forgotten, I hate more than anything!) I think I may have slept 45mins on that flight. We were on a smaller plane (compared to the giant one I took across the ocean!) so we were closer to the ground which I took as an opportunity to see my country before I left it...I even had my rubber band around my wrist to "snap away" any negative or scary thoughts I had! Every time we had turbulence or started to turn in a scary way I just recalled what my book had said, we were just "finding better wind", "It's a comfort issue, not a safety issue." And, shockingly enough, I was even able to hold it together when the pilot told us that for the next 45 minutes we were not allowed to play our electronics and that the flight attendants would be seated for the rest of the flight because we were going to be "avoiding some weather" read: impending clouds taking up entire sky.

We landed and I was feeling VERY proud of myself but started to get anticipatory anxiety again when thinking about the fact that I had to do it all over again, for an hour longer, in just a few minutes. But, I took my pills, tried to relax and know that we would be taking off again soon (once in the air I'm usually better, it's the gearing up for it that's so hard for me). That is until we were grounded because of a storm for the next two hours. In Newark. You can imagine my joy at having to sit in the ENORMOUS, stuffy plane for two hours while watching lightening flash against the tarmac outside my window, all the while knowing that because we were taking off so much later I was now going to miss my train ride. Awesome.

The actual flight to Paris also went very well, surprisingly good food, more room and thank the Lord I brought my ipod because there weren't really any movies, just previews and horrible in flight "entertainment", and you had to pay $6 for the movies on my first flight! I slept a little, maybe an hour and a half? It was also really fun to wake up every so often, or look out my window thinking it had at least been an hour or more since I last looked and to see nothing but OCEAN every time!

However, I did very well again on the second flight and made it safely to Paris! I did miss my train ride though so I had to wait three hours for the next one and buy another ticket, very annoying. Then, as if I wasn't delirious enough from lack of sleep I somehow had boarded the train and was on my way to Brantome! This is me after no sleep and 20 hours of travel, don't I look happy?! (The glasses hide my very dark circles and the bush deflects from my very greasy hair!)

On the stop before mine I got my luggage down, sat it next to me and got very excited to be done traveling for the day! The conductor called out the station name and I happily gathered my things and walked towards the exit...and then watched in horror as the train pulled away from my station and continued on to its next stop...

Oh! Also, all the people that said "Oh, everyone speaks English!" not around me they didn't! I asked four people, as tears of sleep deprivation and utter confusion, threatened to spill down my cheeks, if anyone spoke English. "Non." was all that I heard, again, and again, and again. So I waited by the door trying to hold it together for the next thirty minutes as the train came to its next stop. When it finally did and the train actually let me escape, I ran to the nearest phone to

call Kim to tell her that I wasn't actually going to be at the train station where she was waiting at but instead at another, more distant station. Sadly, I came to find that not only was I at a strange station, in an unfamiliar country but I also could not use any of the phones because of my American debit card (it's a different slot that accepts their cards) so I found a nice woman holding her phone and asked if she spoke English "a little" she said as I begged to use her phone, to which she responded "Non". Super! Then as tears started to rise again the woman sitting next to her said I could use hers. I called Kim and after accidentally telling her the name of the station was "Exit" in French we figured it out and she drove an extra 45 or so minutes to get me.

The day ended with trois fromage pasta or "heart attack food" as Kim called it and trying desperately not to fall asleep while we drove the nearly two hours back to Brantome. Finally in bed I had a restful hour of sleep before I was awake for the next four! This continued for three days until I slept for twelve hours one night. I guess I was tired after all that!?