I'm (still) Here!

The keyboard is messing me up, forgive any typos i'm too lazy to fix! So we hung out for a long time in Detroit and then took off to Paris. On this trip I sat next to a twentysomething Nebraska woman who was going back to France to teach for two years, she had already worked there in the past. She was extremely talkative and quite obsessive about her dog, who's framed picture she took out of her bag so she could show it to me and all the flight attendants.

The plane left really late because some man decided not to go and they had to search for his luggage, I spent the time walking around the plane and talking to everyone. The back of the seats had tv monitors in them and remotes came out of the armrest- like first class, it was so cool! We could choose what movie to watch and what games to play and what music to listen to. I watched Mean Girls and Shrek 2. I had barely fallen asleep when they announced breakfast- which was odd because dinner was two hours earlier.

We arrived at Paris (CDG) after about 7 hours and were extremely confused. Not one person out of the forty of us knew where to go in order to get Boarding Passes for our next flight. And i wasn't sure if my bags had been checked all the way to Geneva or just to Paris. I bupassed luggage and went out to where tons of people were holding up signs looking for their students, I found some Rotary officials who (thank God) were going to show us where to go next. Did I mention that the escalators were flat? Like moving ramps, it was so cool! After waiting in the group for a half hour or so I found a stub that said my baggage was checked only through to Paris, so I had to squish my way in the out door to grab them. After an hour orso we were ushered onto busses that took us to the Departure gates. When I went to get my boarding pass they told me that my carry ons were too heavy. I was so stressed and so tired that I was on the verge of tears when they told me that i'd have to pay extra or shove all my stuff in my backpack into my luggage. I managed, but it was very stressful.

The flight to Geneva was good- less than an hour and the plane was nearly empty, I had three seats to my self. The worst part of the day came at the airport in Geneva where we (me and two other girls) followed all the other passengers past the baggage claim and down the hall that said France- the other said Geneva, and we were certain we were going to France. Then we realized that they didn't check their luggage and ours was back where we started. Once again I had to force my way into the baggage claim area- when will I learn?

After that we went back down the France hall to find our families, who weren't there. Wewaited for like ten minutes and then realized that something had to be wrong- I can imagine one family being late, but not three. No one spoke english well enought o really help us. Finally I decided to go and check down the swiss hall, at the end I looked around and saw no one waiting and ran back to France. Then a woman told us we had to go down the Swiss hallway-which I had just done, but it didn't make sense not to try again. We had to lug our luggage (for me, two huge rolling suitcase and one smaller rolling carry on) down many hallways and a flight of stairs. At the end we were sweating profusely and looked disgusting. We were all close to tears when we went through customs and finally found our families peering out at us behind a glass wall.

My host mother, host father, one host sister, and an Australian exchange student, Zara, were there to bring me home. Zara has been in annecy 6 months and speaks French beautifully- but was just like me when she left, she gives me so much hope. After an hour of horrible traffic, we were home.

My email isn't working, which is very annoying. Are my comments working at the bottom of this entry? Everything is screwed up. Au revoir!