Sarah goes to school and discovers she doesn't have to go to school! (At least for a week!)

Hey everyone!  So the last few days have been quite busy, as I've been trying to run around and figure out how to live like a Parisian!  Natalia (one of my four roommates) bought a sweater that basically sums it all up - it says: "Je suis Parisien, j'<3 rien" (in english, "I'm Parisian, thus I like nothing").  The city is an interesting place, and everything here moves at a completely different tempo.  Despite this, in the past few days I've been able to set up a French cell phone (for nine Euros!), go grocery shopping, get a bank account, and take my first nervous adventure on the Metro.  Plus the food here is amazing!  Cheese that would cost a fortune in Canada is super cheap, and there are little creperies on every corner.  In Le Marais, where I live, there are a crazy amount of kebab and falafel stands that are so popular people line the street to wait for them.  So, as you can tell, the food here so far gets a huge thumbs up from me!  Today was also my first day at Orientation!  I went to my school, Sciences Po, which is situated in the 7th arrondissement, Saint-Germain des Pres.  It's a very nice area - the school is surrounded by designer stores and beautiful apartment buildings.  We met there this morning for the first part of our Welcome Program, and I met students from the US, Australia, Sweden, Brazil, Egypt, Chile and Canada!  It was really exciting to see the mix of people and hear all of the different languages spoken in one place.  Unfortunately, I have classes on the proper French methodology we're expected to use while studying at Sciences Po every morning at nine o'clock this week (YUCK.)  But the classes will be followed by tours of Paris, the neighbourhood around campus, and the school, so that's what I'm looking forward to.  Every day also happens to end with having a drink somewhere or another, which is another bright point!  And I'm going to end this post with the good news that for the first week of class at Sciences Po... there is no class!  We have a week off, which I've already started brainstorming for.  Croatia?  Turkey? Portugal?  Switzerland?  Belgium?  I'll let you know!

Sarah arrives in Paris (finally!) and makes friends

Hi everyone!  I've decided to write a blog to keep in touch, since I've had a lot of people ask me about my exchange.  This way, hopefully it'll help me remember the best moments of my trip too!  So I've officially arrived in Paris, and everything's going well so far.  After a super long Air Canada flight where I couldn't sleep because I was so excited, I landed at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris.  I found an airport shuttle to the Gare de Lyon, a nearby train station, and managed to squeeze me and my ridiculous amount of luggage on and off the bus.  Finally, the last part of my trip was a taxi ride to my apartment at 8 rue Mahler, in the Marais area of Paris, a very trendy neighbourhood known for shopping (YAY!).  I ran into my only hiccup when me and my crazy luggage got dropped off on the sidewalk... I didn't have a key to the apartment.  My roommate Natalia was supposed to be meeting me at the apartment, but we had no way of contacting each other!  So I grabbed my bags and decided to see if I could find a phone booth to call Tal's mom's cell phone, as she's staying in Paris for the next month for French classes.  This is when I figured out that Parisians are absolutely useless at giving directions.  I asked a few people if they knew where the nearest phone booth was, and they would nonchalantly flap their hand in a random direction and say "Oui, par là...." or "C'est sur la place!"  So I decided after all that I would just sit on a bench by the road and regain arm strength before I figured what to do next.  Luckily, an old Parisian by the name of Jean-Francois decided to take pity on me and struck up a conversation.  Soon we were chatting about Jean-Francois' vacation plans and about his daughter studying in Spain.  When I decided to try the apartment door again, he helped me with my bags, and sure enough, another lady kindly let me in.  I met Michal, my roommate from Portland, Oregon, on the way up, and Jean-Francois and Michal helped me haul my bags upstairs.  Hurray for making friends when you're lost and burdened with baggage on a Parisian sidewalk!  But that was the craziest part of my day.  Tal and I took a power nap in the afternoon, and tonight we went to her mom's apartment for a glass of wine, followed by another at a small pub not too far from our place.  All in all, our apartment is beautiful, the neighbourhood looks lovely, and I'm really excited to explore more!  Tomorrow Tal and I are going to get groceries, a metro pass for me, and hopefully our last roommate Jake will arrive tomorrow morning!