Bonjour France

We arrived to France at about 7pm on September 13^th, after about a four hour delay at LAX. For once, I didn’t even mind the delay. I was excited for France of course , but the U.S. just has so much to offer; toilet seat covers, people speaking English, menus I can read...so, I soaked up my last few hours of not being the foreigner.

Rusty was searched at the Salt Lake Airport for like 20 minutes...they wiped his hands and his bag with those strips that test for bombs and they both came back positive!...They tested different electronics in his bag and never found what the problem was, but let us go anyway...does that seem safe to you?...

We flew Norwegian from LAX to Paris and to our total shock, we discovered meals were not included with your airfare. They cost extra! I didn’t even know airlines could do that. The team (who booked our flights), claimed that they didn’t know that either...I wonder about that…But anyways, it ended up being our luckiest flight yet- the guy sitting next to me moved seats because his TV wasn’t working, which meant Rusty and I got the whole row to ourselves. It got even better when the flight attendants just started bringing me free meals! The guy who moved seats must have ordered food and since I was sitting in his window seat, I reaped the benefits :) I plead ignorance though because I was woken up from a deep sleep to a lady asking “Beef or Chicken?” I was so out of it, I could barely open my eyes, but said “Chicken” and from then on, food kept coming lol. I would say that was a pretty good start to our French adventure :)

We arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport and got a message from Rusty’s coach saying that he had come to the airport a few hours ago (when our flight was supposed to arrive), but had to leave to get to practice, so someone else would be there to pick us up. We walked out to the pick-up area to find an older man and his daughter, who was holding a cardboard sign that said RUSTY LAVAJA. The daughter- Celine, is 18-years old, and after [sort of] communicating with her during the car ride, we found out that they are big fans of the volleyball team.

We have been here about a week now and are finally getting settled in. We have been to five different grocery stores just to see what they have, Celine and her boyfriend George took me to a home goods store, we’ve tried different pastries, and have eaten at a few different restaurants- although, our first meals here were Subway (multiple times) and McDonald’s (multiple times)…You can take the girl outta America, but you can’t take America outta the girl, Am I right?

Cambrai is just how I imagined living in France would be. Boulangeries (bakeries) on every block, people constantly carrying baguettes home in paper bags, narrow streets lined with the cutest apartments. I love the architecture here; the tall arched windows with shutters, the wrought iron balconies, the window boxes filled with geraniums- so pretty!

I am trying to learn French as quickly as possible because not many people speak English. I took three years of French in High School and to my surprise, it has actually helped! I can semi-communicate with people (and by semi, I would say 30 percent of the time haha), but merci beacoup Madame Colvin! I’m always thinking, ‘If only she could see me now, living in France, speaking French!’ The team sets up a French tutor for all of the foreigners, so Rusty and I will start lessons in a couple weeks, which I am super excited about. I really need to work on my French accent because even when I am saying the correct word in French, people don’t understand- c’mon people, work with me! ;)