So I managed to sleep pretty much the entire flight from San Francisco to Charlotte. I seriously don’t remember much time passing at all, honestly. It was a quick walk from concourse B to concourse D, and I got settled in for the 75 minute wait between planes.
Once I was on the second flight, shit started to get real. Or at least, it did in my mine. I got really giddy with excitement and was going through the whole “I can’t believe this is already happening” dance in my head. Things are awesome when you plan and think about them. They can be a little daunting as they approach.
The plane layout was 2-4-2, which I’d not seen in a while, but it meant that there was one less person between me and my window seat and the aisle. This poor neurotic mom sat beside me, with two early teenaged daughters directly behind us. She apologized for everything… I mean EVERYTHING, and the girls were… well, typical early teen girls. So when I heard the stewardess say there were 16 open seats in our section, I kept my eye on the open pair two rows ahead of us, and as soon as the cabin door was shut, i jumped up there to give mom some more space (she was much more chilled out later, when I came back to get my bag from the overhead).
So having two seats to myself was pretty sweet. I settle in and watched “Win Win” and “Wolverine” hoping that two back to back movies would make me tired enough to go back to sleep. But no such luck. I was awake for pretty much the whole 8 hour trans-Atlantic flight.
We landed in Paris about 7AM local time, which was still only 10PM in California. I made my way to customs, and got through with a CA-CHUNK in my passport and a smile. My bags were the first off the plane, and I was through customs and in line to change some currency before the bags were even done being offloaded from the flight.
Hopped in a cap for a LOOOOOOOOOONG and pricey ride from the airport to the apartment. Traffic was Boston crazy. The streets make Boston’s look expansive and spacious. The cab driver couldn’t get down my street because of delivery trucks, so he ended up going to the other end and backing up the street until he was as close to the place as he was going to get.
I got inside, and the property manager, Stephanie, was there waiting for me. Got the security deposit handed over, she gave me the tour, told me where the grocery store was, and then I settled in for a nap. (Super exciting, huh?)
Got up about 1:30 and wandered around the neighborhood a bit. Found the grocery stores (yay toilet paper, cereal and Nutella!!), found more awesome looking cafés than I could count, and found the place that will hopefully get me a French simcard for my phone tomorrow. Randomly walked around a corner, looked up, and said to myself “Oh hey, there’s Notre Dame behind those buildings there…” at one point. That was kinda awesome.
Got back to the apartment, set up the laptop, and spent the evening working. International conference calls via Office Communicator FTW!!
Just finished unpacking (mostly), need to put stuff away, then it’s early to bed for me.
Looks like I’ll be having house guests tomorrow (already!).
*My French is pitiful. Deal with it.
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