La jeune fille Katrine est revenue dans son pays adoptée! And she has apparently returned to blogging, too. I initially thought it wasn’t worth blogging anything from 10 days worth of travel, but I found within about thirty seconds of arriving in Europe that I was already taking mental notes of things I wanted to jot down.
The back story: my very first French teacher ever, Mme. Gonzalez, is currently the head of the language department at Walter Payton College Prep. My younger brother and my mom, while visiting said high school, ran into Madame. Email addresses were exchanged, and I received an email shortly after that read something along the lines of:
“Bizarre question…are you interested/available for chaperoning our HS trip to France between March 27th and April 5th? Transportation and housing are included. Don’t feel obligated to say yes, but let me know if you’re interested!”
I have a policy never to turn down free trips to Europe. I have never had to enforce said policy before, but I have no problem starting now. Free trip to France? YES. Yes, I am interested.
So, several months later, I am in a bed and breakfast just outside of Strasbourg and winding down my first full day in France. Well, technically it’s not even 4:30pm local time, but I am still quite ready to crash. I got maybe three hours of sleep on Monday night, and despite the fact that I managed to sleep an hour or two on the plane (quite an accomplishment for me), that makes it about five hours of sleep I’ve gotten in the past 48 hours, not counting the random moments when I have randomly dozed off. There have been a lot of those moments. This is also the first time in my life I’ve done a trip to France that has not involved moving to France, and I have to say that I’m quite pleased with it. Packing was far less painful than usual, and having only one suitcase and one messenger bag was absolutely lovely.
We left Chicago Tuesday at 2:30pm and arrived in Frankfurt Wednesday at 5:45am. The flight wasn’t bad—it was no Lufthansa, but it’ll do. I was unfortunately in the middle seat, which made the already not fun experience of flying across the Atlantic even less fun, but I survived. We got through customs in Frankfurt without a problem, but ran into trouble with luggage—one girl’s suitcase was missing. We spent a good amount of time trying to figure that out (without any success) before boarding a coach bus to Strasbourg.
Aside: There is something about being on a bus with school friends for students. They cannot resist the urge to burst into song. It entertains me.
We finally arrived at Lycée Margeurite Yourcenar around 10am, and were greeted by the exchange students. The French students had already visited Payton in the fall, and the kids were very excited to see each other again. The lycée looks almost exactly like Anita Conti—same architecture, same signs about the bac blanc and TPE, same teachers wearing jeans as work attire, identical cafeteria set up, same note on the main administration door telling people to go to the secretary’s if no one is there (and seriously, the wording is identical). We had a small breakfast they had waiting for us, mingled with the proviseur, chatted with the French teachers (meaning the French teachers of English, not the Americans), did a quick tour of the school, and then were taken to lunch. Because it is France. And that is all the reason you need to eat less than a half hour after your last meal. Meals in France are not eaten because people are hungry—they are eaten because the clock says it is time to eat, so eat you will!
We went on a brief walk after lunch to try to keep from falling asleep (it worked temporarily) and then dropped our things off at the bed and breakfast where the chaperones/Payton teachers are staying. It’s a really cute place. The couple who owns it built on a three level addition to their own house to turn it into a B&B—there’s one room in the basement, and dining room on the first floor, and then three more bedrooms upstairs. Marie-Paul, the wife, made us a delicious dinner tonight, complete with homemade rhubarb ice cream topped with strawberries. I forgot how delicious French food was. I will basically be stuffing my face the entire time I’m here.
And now I am sleepy.
Bonne nuit!
