En France

Well, I'm here.  Arrived at Argenton les Vallees (aka Argenton-Chateau) yesterday afternoon.  It was quite a journey.

I left my hot little studio apartment at about 3:30 and caught a cab to JFK.  My light was Delta operated by Air France, so I thought telling the driver I was going to the Delta International flights would suffice.

Nope.  I wound up at the Delta terminal when I NEEDED the terminal that had the Air France flights.  No worries.  One stop further down on the air tram and I was right where I needed to be.

The International terminal is definitely the place to be.  It felt like Ellis Island or something.  It was nuts.  Very modern with all kinds of people speaking all kinds of languages.  The Air France automated check-in was (unsurprisingly) in French, although you could select "Anglais" (which I did).

Flew on the A380 which is the enormous double-decker jumbo jet.  I arrived almost two hours early (which was nice as I got to chill and sit listening to my Michel Thomas "Learn French in 8 Hours" app), and even though the plan was there the entire time, we boarded more than 30 minutes late because they were still cleaning it and loading it with food.

When we finally boarded, there was one line for the lower deck and one for the upper deck (where I was sitting).  There were four classes of seating and starting at the front really sold the premium packages well.  Of course, I wasn't thinking clearly at first, so when I saw the enormous chairs that looked fully reclinable, with TVs and magazines and huge arm rests and your own personal book light, I thought, "THIS is going to be an AMAZING flight."  But the further back we went, the smaller the seats got until we got back to "steerage class" which looked like a normal plane, only crammed with seats (including those dreadful four-seat rows in the middle).

I booked my seat in the very last row by the window.  The window seats were, fortunately, only two-seaters, so if I wanted to get up and go to the bathroom, I only had to crawl over one person.

The map of the plane on the Internet gave the impression that the bathroom was actually a little bit removed from the seats.

Nope.  Every time someone flushed the pressurized toilets, it sounded like someone opened one of the plane windows and all the air was being sucked out.  That is to say, it was loud and startling every time.  The lady I had to climb over was not terribly attractive... older, frumpy, and pretty sour, actually.  She looked annoyed the entire flight.

We were delayed even more before we could take off because of all the traffic on the ground.  So even though our flight was at 7:15, we didn't leave until about 8:35.  Which meant there was a huge rush for the bathroom once the captain turned off the seatbelt sign.

I became just a little nervous when I saw that my iPhone battery was pretty low.  I wanted to keep going with my French lessons, but didn't want to completely drain it in case I needed to access my email or something once in France.  Fortunately, the TV on the seat back in front of me (we may have been traveling 4th class, but everyone still had a TV and pretty fancy tray table) had a USB port and I JUST HAPPENED to bring my iPhone USB cable with me.  So I plugged in and charged up.

The flight itself was actually really smooth.  Even when we hit turbulence, it felt more like a rocking than a lurching.  Don't know how they did that.

Sleeping didn't really happen.  I was a bit too wired from trying to take in all this new stuff, language included--the staff on the plane would initially speak to you in French and when it became clear that you were American, they'd switch.  I wanted so badly to TRY speaking some French, but my vocabulary is still pretty limited and I didn't want to give the impression that I was ready to talk about their favorite part of Les Miserables au francais.

It was very strange to see how short the night actually lasted.  The French passenger in front of me opened his window shade just a few hours after closing it and WHOA.  Broad daylight.  It made me think that, while the premium seats looked comfortable, the plan to sleep on the plane and wake up refreshed at 8:30 just before landing wouldn't actually work, since you lose so much time.  You'd still only get something like 4 hours of sleep anyway.

We landed and de-planed in Paris (or outside of Paris, I guess.  I didn't actually see the city at all).  Went through customs, got bags (which took forever), got some more Euros, and walked down to the train station to catch my TGV to Angers Saint Laud (pronounced Anschay San Lau).  Even though we were very late coming in and getting our bags took forever, I still had about two hours to wait in the station...and then even MORE because the train was 30 minutes late!  Some bullet train.

So then began the next leg of the journey, the almost 2.5 hour train ride westward toward Spain.  Riding through RURAL France.  The people on the train and the places we passed looked like something out of my high school French textbook.  The young men all were trapped in some sort of fashion time-warp.  Something I've noticed with European fashion, in general, is that the styles are some strange mix of early 90s with an 80s color palette.  And NOBODY works out.  That much was obvious.  Not that there were lots of overweight people, but rather, all the men are a bit on the slender side and the bodies tend to have a bit more of a softer, average quality.  VERY different from New York City.

The beginning of the train ride was probably the most nerve-wracking part of the trip.  By now I had figured out that I was totally cut off.  If I wanted WiFi in the airport/train station, I needed to pay for it.  I decided I could probably manage without it, since I knew my stop and had my ticket with the train number and seat assignment.  Once on the train, I couldn't use WiFi even if I wanted to--and in taking in all my surroundings, I forgot to take my brother's advice and buy a prepaid cellphone at the airport.

The problem with the train ride was that if I missed my stop, I didn't know what I would do.  And there were no maps or signs on the train indicating the order of the stops, and the first few stations were only sparsely marked with the name of the stop.  I envisioned pulling away from one of the stations, only to spy the one sign that read "Angers Saint Laud" and then having to figure out how to ask someone for assistance ("Assistance!" is actually not a bad place to start!).

Fortunately, that didn't happen.  The stops became better-marked and I managed to hear the conductor over the loudspeaker SAY the name of the town when he apologized for the fact that we would be about 20 minutes late to this town and this town and this town.  That was very comforting to know that I would understand him when he said the name of the town, because he spoke so fast I was afraid I wouldn't understand.  He also repeated some of the information in English, but his accent was so thick and he switched without any sort of preamble (no "Ladeez and gentlemen") that you just had to hold on until you caught some English words.

Also, I knew I could figure out which stop was mine because it was clear the train was NOT making many stops.  Angers was supposed to be the 3:08 stop (9am in New York and really starting to feel it!) so if I added 20-30 minutes to the trip because of the delay, that meant wherever we stopped around 3:30 would be where I needed to get off.

But if things got even dicier, I managed to cobble together some French so I could ask the lady to voulez-vous ditez-moi quand(?) nous arrivons en Angers parce que je suis American et je parle francais un peu, mais il parlent trop vite pour moi.  (Will you tell me when we arrive in Angers? I am American and I speak a little French, but he speaks too fast for me.)  I was busting with pride over my ability to put that together, but I never had to use it.

It was a BIG stop.  Lots of people got off.  I hadn't found my contact yet, but I was so relieved to know that my part of the journey was pretty much over.  Someone was picking me up and would drive me the rest of the way.  My brain started to decompress as SOON as I set foot off the train.

It didn't take long for me to spot Tim, one of the teachers and owners of the school.  We'd never met before and I didn't know what he looked like, but I was trying to make eye contact with every man just standing in the station--figured one of them would say, "John?" at some point.  And sure enough.

I paid 50 cents to use the bathroom and then we hopped into his car and we were off on the FINAL part of the journey, the 45-60 minute drive even FURTHER out into the country.  So yes.  Planes, trains, and automobiles.

We had a good conversation and I got to know more about the school and ask questions about its history.  The country we drove through was VERY Europe.  Everything was old and had a settled, cultivated feel to it.  Old stone crosses were scattered here and there.

I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to make it to this town after non-stop travel.  But we made it and I got settled in (more on the house and town later).  We went to the grocery store to stock me up on a few basic things--thus relieving me of the final "unknown" of the trip; what I was going to EAT.  Once that was done, I took a picture of the view from my window, emailed it to friends and family as a way of wordlessly saying, "I'm here" before taking a BRIEF nap around 6:00.

Around 8, Tim and Michelle, the owners of the school and its instructors, came to my house and we walked to the one restaurant in town and had a big "welcome to France" meal.

Came home, emailed a bit, and crashed.

So that's where things are now!  I've taken loads of pictures, but this memory card is the "bad one" that has problems being read by the one SD card reader I brought with me.  So pictures may not be uploaded for a while, but I'll keep taking them in the meantime!