Travelling to Nancy (transferred from my Journal entry on July 3)

We've been on the plane long enough for the flight attendants to have fed us. I estimate less than an hour judging by a man a few seats away watching an episode of 24/7 that has not come to an end yet.

I'm going to start the body of this entry with the fact that I have the worst possible seat on this flight: 19H. Sure, I have all the leg room I could ask for but with no seat in front of me, I have no where to put anything. SockMonkey has been in my arms since take off and after 30 minutes of mild turbulence and freezing my butt off, I'm hanging in my Habs snuggie. My feet and knees were aching so it was nice to get up to get the snuggie out of my backpack.

I'm sitting next to a couple. They seem cute on a little cute vacation to France. Haven't lurked for rings, but maybe they're on their honeymoon? Who knows. As I mentioned having the worst seat and the man watching 24/7, I'd like to inform you that I have no access to a TV. It sucks. There's an empty seat between 24/7 and a sleeping man, but I'm scared to disturb to ask if I could squeeze in.

Sitting where I am, at the very front of Economy Class, I have a great view of First Class. It's an overseas/overnight flight, so there are sleeper seats. In the 4 closest seats to me, there are kids no younger than 15 but no older than 19. Turbulence again. It baffles me to see such young kids in First Class. I wonder what their parents do with their lives to be able to afford something so extravagant for 4 kids. Another perk about my seat? It doesn't recline fully. I wonder if those kids have randomly loaded parents (like the Upper East Siders of Gossip Girl), or if maybe they invented something or maybe made a very smart investment. Being me, I wonder if maybe they own a sports team or something. I wonder why these 4 kids are going to france. To stay with family? At a family villa? Or maybe just to be tourists. I guess I'll never know...

I see Jordan Staal on the 24/7 man's screen and it makes me thin of Ashleigh. I'm a baby so when I left my mom at the security entrance to the gates, I was teary eyed. I left all my family and friends for a month (knowing I'll be back in 4 weeks, of course). O wonder how Ashleigh felt though. Leaving everyone, everything and a way of life to start over half way around the world. Ashleigh, if you're reading this, I commend you immensely for your courage to start fresh in Canada. I'm so happy we are friends.

...

Woops. Now we're sitting at Charles de Gaulle/TGV Station. I literally was trying to think of something to write after that last paragraph and passed out with the pen in my hand in my notebook. Embarrassing.

The rest of the flight was okay, slept most of it. Now it's 3am home time and I'm so sleepy. This TGV Station is so big. there are so many people just hanging out waiting. We'll be here for about 3 hours until we depart for Lorraine TGV Station which is an hour and a bit on the train away and finally a half hour bus ride to Nancy.

The girl sitting across from us has a Galapagos Islands parch on her backpack but is reading an English book. I wonder where she's from. She looks young, with a flower pinning her bangs back. Every other person who walks by is speaking a different language, it's so weird to me how international this place really is. Which is weird because being from the Falls and living in Toronto you're think it wouldn't baffle me.

When we were printing our train tickets, we came across the Team Canada football champions coming from Vienna (I guess) heading into Paris. Made me think of CC's obsession with calling Jenn a meathead. They were the biggest meatheads, the biggest jars of meatsauce.

People here seem to stare a lot, it's a little unnerving. I guess that's what it's like being a foreigner anywhere, always being stared at. For the natives, I guess it kind of instills a sense of pride knowing that some random person (in this case me) spent thousands of dollars (literally) to spend some time in their home country. Are we that judgmental when people visit Canada? I guess it really depends on your background and life experiences, like my lil COMN classes have taught me so well. Our level and intensity (for lack of a better word) of experience is based directly and solely on who we are and what we have experienced in our lives. So in this case, I can say for me (though I do take an intense amount of pride in my country)that judgement doesn't exist. At least not as potently as it might for others. In my short life, I've done some pretty serious travellin and have experienced many different cultures. I feel like with that (or moreso of that) I'm more open to diversity in cultures and the exploration of new places.

I don't really know where that rant came from. I think I'm just desperately trying to pass the time. But the more I write, the less able I am to read my writing. (I'll upload the picture later) But who cares.

The train ride to Lorraine was interesting. First of all, apparently 3 people had been alloted to the same seat on the train. We all just decided to sit in the closes seats. The girl I sat with at first had a little puppy. It was so cute. When she got off, I spent the rest of my train ride eaves dropping on a couple of German guys, no older than me I don't think. I was getting so confused at first because they kept switching between German and English. They were street magicians, I'm guessing, because they were talking about card and ball tricks. When we got off at Lorraine, we had to board a shuttle bus to Nancy. We ended up meeting a group from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (I think that's correct). A little confusing given Indiana is a state on its own. They were very nice.

After about 30 minutes on the bus, we arrived at the Nancy TGV Station. Now you might be wondering why we didn't take the TGV directly to Nancy. That's because there is only a few services per day and they are very very long trips. Upon arrival, we met the Director and Assistant Director of the program and were taken by car to our Residences at Monbois, le Parc. Our driver Pierre Henrie (or PH), who is also one of the Student Advisors for the program, studies film at Nancy 2. If you've seen my Facebook, I'm sure you've seen my unpacked room. The residences are very dark and jail like. Single rooms with a sink, bed, commode, shelving unit and desk. Minimal lighting. The hallways echo, they're dark and quiet. The hallway lights are timed, they stay on long enough to find your room, let yourself in and then some. Edouard is the one who let us in. I'll stealthily take or find a picture of him for any LaMarshians reading this because he reminds me so much of Vinny. Upon arrival we met Tang (her english name is Charlotte, but there are other Charlottes in the program, so she made it easier for us by giving us her last name). She's from China and is majoring in French at her University. She's only been studying the language for 3 years but she speaks much much better than I do. Her french is much better than her English, though she learned English for years. I learned yesterday that different regions of China speak different dialects of Chinese. The girls we've met Hong Kong speak English very fluently, and with the dialect difference between Hong Kong and where Tang is from, they communicate with her in English.

That got me a little ahead of myself.

After meeting Tang, but before learning those tidbits about China, Atyeh and I decided we were going to explore the city to find a store. Edouard informed us that most places are closed on Sundays in France, but this particular store may be open. We ended up walking up and down some steep hills and ended up where we started. There, we ran into some of the Americans who were on their way to Place de Stanislas. After a strenuous walk, we got to one of the last standing corners of the original city of Nancy. In the middle ages, all French cities were surrounded by thick brick walls and this piece was dated at 1336. We headed to Place de Stanislas. Surrounded by white pillars, there was a parking lot and then a pathway heading to the square. It reminded me of a mix of Versailles and where Napoleon's tomb is in Paris. A beautiful square with little cafés in every direction. The gates of the square were still standing, black with golden figures of lions and birds. After that we walked a tonne more to a bunch of places I can't remember right now. Mostly because I was paying more attention to how hot it was and how I didn't have any water with me, and hadn't eaten since 7am.

We ended up back at our residences and by the time we got ourselves changed and ready to go, it was time for dinner. Our dinner was at the other residence, Monbois. At first it was a little bit awkward for everyone but we all slowly started to mingle. I met so many people from so many different places and I can't remember any of their names. I was scoping out the hunnies (as Jenn, Alesia and I call them) and found some Euros (which is weird saying here because well we ARE in Europe), and English guy and some Danes. At one point I ended up eavesdropping on a conversation the Englishman was having withe the Danes and he said something along the lines of "Give a girl a Bacardi Breezer and you're set to  go", "The smart ones are always the sluttiest" and "I can't speak French very well but at least I have a great accent". Needless to say it was interesting. We met a Lebanese guy named Raja who really just wanted to ask us where the cups were, and offered to help Atyeh learn French.

Now I'm back in my room and it's time for bed. Until next time.