Hello again all! I have made it to Angers after all which is fantastic but let us start from the beginning. On the 21st I went my big adventure. I had my two big (and overweight) suitcases and 2 more carry-ons. Apparently you are not able to take a backpack and a bag onto an Icelandair plane but the guy was nice and checked my third bag through free of charge. Yay for Icelandair.
In the airport I met up with another TAPIF assistant who is from Washington and was on the same flight to Paris as me. That was fun to pass the time. I was sadly going to be in a middle seat so I took the advice of my wonderful mother and asked the guy at the counter to put me in either a window or an aisle if one was available, and lucky me not only did a window become available, but a window in an exit row with an empty seat next to it!
The flight started off as any normal flight does except that Icelandair does not feed you for free so I bought a sandwich and "authentic Icelandic beer" which tastes horrible. About half way through the flight a man gets up to go to the bathroom and passes out in the isle and smacks his head really hard against the floor. This guy was not doing well. For the rest of the flight he had to lay on the floor with an oxygen mask on and be monitored by a doctor who happened to be on the plane. I can relate to this sentiment because a little over two years ago the same thing happened to me on my way to France.
Iceland is sparce and freezing, when we were landing I thought that we were just going to crash into water. The food is interesting and the language is even stranger but overall it was a nice short layover and I have an Iceland stamp in the passport. The second leg of the flight was less exciting and we landed in Paris on time. The packet I received before I left stated that I needed to make sure that I got my passport stamped in Paris. Well after looking around forever and dragging my heavy suitcases I was led out of the secure area and not allowed back in so I have no Paris stamp. They apparently wouldn't give me one because I got searched in Iceland and therefore didn't need to go through customs or something. Hopefully that won't be a problem in the future.
The trek to the gare (train station) is a long one but I managed and caught my train with time to spare. Getting everything on and off the train in time during my transfer and ending points before the train left again however was nearly impossible. I met Sue (one of my bosses) at the train station and she took me to the foyer where I will be staying until I can find an apartment which is nice however I un-knowingly left my backpack at the gare and inside were all of my important documents, my laptop, and my mp3 player. When I finally realized what had happened it was too late to go back to the gare so I spent the night unable to sleep worrying about the outcome of my bag.
Early in the morning I woke up and ran to the gare in search of my backpack. Thankfully someone was able to track it down but they told me that I was lucky because any later and the backpack would have been "s'explosé" or exploded because of the terrorist threat left bags are disposed of this way. I got an angry lecture and had to pay 9 euros but I got my bag back and all is well.
Today I started my job as the office assistant by meeting all of the students in the program already and helping Sue around the office. I also began my exhausting search of housing calling everyone I could find who had a studio to rent. I am going to go look at one tonight and two tomorrow, so hopefully one of them will yield a new arrangement for me. Fingers crossed!!!
Well that is enough for now, more later when I find a house!
A plus!
