VOILA!!

So, I am in France!

I’M IN FRANCE!

I’m pretty excited. About my trip here; Well I took of from Dulles Intl. on Sunday the 7th on a airplane bound for Munich. The flight lasted for 8 hours. I didn’t sleep at all, but that was okay because it wasn’t too boring of a flight. The meal was surprisingly good, and the seats were pretty comfy. The coolest part was the guy sitting next to me though. At first I really didn’t notice him because he was just some middle age businessman sitting next to me, but then he opened his computer. I glanced over a little while later to find that he was working on a presentation for NATO. Well that was pretty cool, but I kinda forgot about it for a while. Anyway he put his computer away (I think for supper) and then he got it back out a while later and turned it on. Only then did I notice that to log in he actually had to scan his finger on this little scanner thingy on the laptop! The top of his screen did say unclassified, but I was still pretty intrigued, because by stealing glances at his screen I learned that he worked for NATO in their health department and he was a Doctor (the MD kind).

So we got to Munich at 5:30 am local time, and unloaded, at which point I had to walk from one end of the terminal to the other end, go through security again, and go down to the lower level. And then I sat. And sat. And sat, for six hours, none of which I slept. I was pretty much alone for quite awhile, but ever hour and a half or so a lot of people would show up, sit down, and then leave 15-20 minutes later. I mad four assumptions during that time. One; they are very clean. Two; they are very quite and organized. Three; they are all businessmen. Four; they apparently become businessmen when they are 15, because about half of the business people I saw were under thirty.

I then got on a plane for Geneva, and the flight only took one hour. It is probably my second favorite flight of all time. The whole time it was pretty clean, and we were flying low enough to see all the little houses in all the little towns! I arrived in Geneva, and the rest was pretty simple (baggage claim and customs… they didn’t care).

We drove up to the campus and unload all of our stuff up three flights of stairs to our rooms. After a little bit of unpacking a group of us went back down into the little town of Collonges-sous-Saleve which is about a 5-10 minute walk away… well downhill at least. It is pretty much one of the steepest hills I’ve seen a road on (going stratight) Anyway Collonges is the cutest, most bucolic town I have ever seen. It is a perfect little French town with it’s old buildings full of shuttered windows with overflowing flower boxes and tiny little stores and bakeries. Il est tres mignon! But the only downside of going into town (be it Collonges or Geneve) is that you have to walk back up the hill of death. It is exhausting and strenuous after a whole day of walking!

The next two days were spent going to meetings, taking entrance placement exams, and registering. The exam was pretty hard, but it went okay. The registration however, took about four hours. The longest part was when we had to fill out an application form for a residency permit and then make sure we had every document we needed for it. Awesome. It was confusing, and almost everone was missing a “correct” document from their bank.

The campus is pretty amazing… gorgeous. It is literally right up against this huge rock face of the Saleve, and all the buildings are really cool, and the grounds are kept up really nicely. The view from our room is stunning. We look directly at the rock face of the Saleve. Oh and my roommate is Leah Robinson, who is from Walla Walla, and whom I share a mutual friend with. She’s pretty awesome.

Well I am going to go nap now, because we have the whole afternoon off and it’s cloudy.
And I’m tired.