5 Janvier 2012 - Le Premier Jour

Aujourd'hui est notre premier jour en France! Après un bon vol, notre groupe a attendu - vainement - à l'aéroport Charles de Gaulle pour une autre étudiante déjà en Europe qui devait nous y rencontrer. Sauf, nous ne l'avons pas trouvée! Nerveusement, nous avons voyagé à Quimper en Bretagne. A Quimper, nous avons trouvé que notre hôtel était fermé jusqu'à Mars. Zut alors! L'autre hôtel est très bon et nous l'aimons! Après un jour de surprises, comme l'hôtel et Mlle Feat avec la police à la gare, nous nous sommes tous couchés très fatigués...

After gettting to the Charles de Gaulle aiport, we were going to get on a bus to ride from Paris to our first destination: Quimper. Unfortunately, a student already in Europe wasn't yet at the airport, so after waiting for her, we had to leve her behind. In France, bus drivers, even driving for private use, have to stop every two hours and take a 10-30 minutes break, which significantly adds time when you need to drive 6 hours away. Once in Quimper, we came to the hotel to find that it was closed until March. Horray! Luckily, the chain owns a nicer, bigger hotel just a ways away in the surburb where we had rooms waiting for us, although that adds 20 minutes or so of walking to get to downtown every day. Mademoiselle Feat went to the train station in Quimper to
wait for the lost student and discovered that you may be mistaken for a lady of the night if you wait around in a train station for too long...  After pretending to be American to get people to leave her alone, Mlle Feat found said student, and we all slept peacefully in comfortable beds.