Jan 3rd

The view from my hotel you get if you lean out the window like a goon. Which I did.

Well. Somehow I made it to Lyon. In Heathrow, I bid adieu to dear Charlie, who had been showing me all the sights of London as we were landing. "There's where Madonna stays", he informed me, pointing to a large white hotel across from a large green. He showed me his apartment, which was directly across from Green's Park in the middle of London. I was pretty jealous that Charlie was going home, and thought about what a nice feeling that is. Instead of going home, I was going further away, and into the great unknown.

Once I got out of the strangely disorganized Lyon airport (spent about half and hour in line on a set of stairs to get to customs) I needed to find a taxi. I went outside to the cue of taxis, and went up to one and waved at him. Awkward moments ensued when he rolled down his window, and looked at me in a way that said, "what could this girl possibly want?" You would think it wouldn't be that difficult to understand what someone wants when they walk up to your taxi with about seventy pounds of luggage and wave in your window. However, I must have missed the special code word for taxi drivers in French class because this one took about thirty (very) awkward seconds to figure out that I actually would like him to give me a ride to my destination.

After a longgggg (and expensive) cab ride, I finally arrived at the Hotel Résidence. The room was very nice, although the bathroom gave new meaning to the word claustrophobic.

After watching "Mary Poppins" in French, which made me feel a little less homesick, I slept semi-well, woke up, and had some fancy french breakfast. French hotel breakfasts are about three million times better than American hotel breakfasts, and a lot cuter. They have countless adorably packaged yogurts, cereals, individual packages of nutella, and cookie/cracker things called "Petit Gourmands" that I'm guessing are for children. I wasn't very hungry, so I just had coffee and some fruit. I checked out of my hotel, and took another taxi to the international office. I searched for "la bagagerie," where I could put my bags for a bit. After stumbling around the campus for a while, with my enormous wheelie suitcase and backpack (everyone stared) and even walking into a classroom while class was in session, I found the tiny office and dropped off my bags. The international office was in complete chaos, as everyone seemed to be arriving today, but eventually I was given a pink slip of paper telling me when my information session was. I then took yet another taxi to my host family's home. I'm there right now! It's a lovely apartment in the Presqu'île area, which is basically the downtown area. I'll do some exploring today, I think. A bientôt!