Travel Day One: Right now I'm sitting in the Toronto airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris. It's been delayed twenty minutes, which isn't too bad. I'll still arrive in Paris before noon, which is when my host family is expecting me, so we're still in good shape. One of my biggest concerns about this experience, besides living in a foreign country for two months speaking a language I've only known for eight years, is the travel. I've only flown alone once to meet my dad in Washington D.C. It was only about an hour and a half flight. But to fly to another country by myself is incredibly daunting. Fortunately for me, there's another OSU student flying from Toronto to Paris, so we're spending her four hour layover together. I had four hours by myself this morning where I ate an incredibly overpriced salad (Thirteen Canadian dollars!) and walked around the beautiful but expensive shops in the airport. Now, all I have to do is wait and try not to fall asleep so I can doze on the flight.
With any large event in my life, singing competitions, dates, and traveling alone, I've experienced the same pattern: extreme excitement when the event seems to be in the distant future followed by a period of nerves so intense that I want to chicken out. But I'm always so thankful in the end that I did it. I know that's the case now, but it's hard to remember that when you're in the moment and a sweaty ball of nerves.
I think the hardest part about traveling alone, and even going to college, for me is saying goodbye to my parents. That last look over your shoulder as you wave for the last time is gut-wrenchingly bittersweet. But I feel that that's the hardest part; saying goodbye. Once you're in the terminal and even more so on the flight, there's nothing you can do. It's too late and all downhill from there.
Travel Day Two:
My flight to Paris, having supposed to leave at 8:35 on Sunday, didn't end up leaving until closer to 10:00. The plane was larger than any I've ever been on. It was a double decker, and incredibly long and wide with seats three by four by three. I, fortunately, got an aisle seat in a group of 4 seats in the middle back of the plane, only a few rows back from a bathroom. However, unfortunately for me, despite my extreme exhaustion I was only able to doze in and out of sleep over the course of the flight. Maybe this was due to the fact that it's hard for me to sleep in public places. Maybe it was because my head always falls forward when I sleep sitting up (even with a neck pillow) and I jerk myself awake. Or maybe it was the middle-aged frenchman who sat next to me and man-spread so wide that he took up half of my leg space and his head almost fell on my shoulder. But who knows.
What was the most interesting to me though, was the scam I avoided at the airport. In preparation for this program, the staff of IES warned us about people in the airport who offered taxi rides prior to reaching the actual taxi stand. They told us that these are most often scams that will overcharge you. Sure enough, after I had said goodbye to my travel buddy for the day and was making my way to the taxi stand, a man came up to me and asked if I needed a taxi. I kept in mind the warning from IES but said yes anyway, deciding I would see what happened. I wasn't committing to anything. When I told the man were I needed to go, Paris, he said in quite rushed English, "Oh no. No taxis to Paris. There is strike today, no taxis today." Granted, for anyone who doesn't know, les gilets jaunes (yellow vests) have been protesting for their rights in Paris for the past several months and the different strikes shut down parts of the city for their manifestations. This I was aware of, but still took with a grain of salt. He then proceeded to tell me that he could take me to the city, but for a fixed rate of 160 euros. Now, I'm no expert, but that's an insane amount for a half hour trip into Paris, strikes or not. Not confirming or denying his offer, I pulled up my Uber app to see how much that would cost. An Uber X to my address would have been 64 euros. 160 euros to Paris my ass! When the man asked if I wanted the ride I said no and watched as he turned to an American man who agreed saying "Well I don't have another choice, I need to get there." Poor schmuck.
I went back into the airport to tell my travel partner what had occurred, as she was waiting for her housemate to share a taxi to their homestay together. She recommended that I try the actual stand, both of us agreeing that the workers in orange vests seemed more official that the man who'd scammed the tourist. "Well, if I don't come back, I got a taxi." I said by way of goodbye and approached the stand. While the story about strikes in Paris preventing taxis proved to be true, I also discovered that it was more so the different arrondissements (neighborhoods) in Paris that were unreachable by taxis rather than the city itself. And fortunately for me, my arrondissement, the fifteenth was not one of them, while another woman's, the eighth, was. The orange vested workers hailed me a taxi and I was on my merry way. And the best part? It only cost 55 euros plus tip for what ended up being a 45 min drive. Again, 160 euros my ass.
What was even better was that while the taxi driver tried to explain in very broken English that the price would end up being about 60 euros, I responded in French and she seemed incredibly relieved, proceeding to speak only French to me the entire trip. Her phone also had no charge, and I had to pull up instructions on my own phone once we were in the city. She explained to me in French that she wasn't from Paris originally, and while she had no problem getting to the city itself, once she was in the city it was hard to remember what streets were which. (That was a new one.) But, with a phone already set to French, I was able to pull up my navigation and arrive to my homestay in one piece with an extra 100 euros in my pocket.
In my next post I'll write all about my host family, homestay, and my first day in Paris. But let me say this: Whenever I saw films that took place in Paris, or Paris! in Las Vegas, I thought there was no way that it could actually look like that. But it does. Everything looks like it's fake, from a dream. Its so hard to believe that this place that I've obsessed over and studied for eight years is actually real.