Day 1! Travel!

Bonjour mes amis et ma famille. Wait, wrong language. I’m on an airplane flying with Air France and I’ve been trying out the scant amount of French I somehow managed to retain from Junior year of high school. The flight attendant spoke to me in English and I responded in French. I think she likes me… not really. This is all probably a very bad form of entertainment because I’m going to try to speak French when I’m really trying to speak Italian upon my arrival in Florence, but I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.

Leaving the US was very anticlimactic, but I suppose that’s a good thing. To all folks in Portland or Walla Walla I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to, I apologize. I am a bad friend, but you most likely knew that already. We’re about to land in Paris, so I’ll make this brief, but the people I’ve met so far have all been very nice. From a purely superficial standpoint, it would appear that a good 90% of the students here fall into the afore mentioned category of obnoxious preps, but that’s cool. They’re nice. Of the 34 students on my flight to Paris, I believe there are four boys. Nearly all of the girls cake on the makeup and love text messaging. It’s okay, I was expecting this. It’s like a culture shock within a culture shock. I met a theatre major girl from Santa Clara! She emailed a professor in Florence and he told her that they will be putting on a production this semester! I’m not sure if it will be in English or not, but I would hope to at least be able to do some building for it. Maybe some stage management. We’ll see how things go. There are 50 students from Santa Clara University and most of the 34 students on my flight are Santa Clara students. I also met a guy from Pomona who seemed pretty cool.

I guess this isn’t really very exciting for most people to read, but it is exciting for me, so if you love me, you’ll humor me and feign interest. This flight is almost over! I slept through most of it.I also ordered a little airplane bottle of the house wine as a night cap. Not so good, believe it or not. The two Ukrainian boys (maybe 16 years old) next to me each drank a bottle of wine and two beers before they fell asleep. Exciting. More details to come upon my arrival to Florence, I’m sure. Until then, ciao from somewhere above the Atlantic ocean!

-AJC

OK, just kidding. I’m now killing time in the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. Our group of 34 split in half and some already left for Florence. We are stuck here for another hour and a half. I already get the feeling that everything here is gonna be way expensive. Bottled water is 2 euros. (sigh). I met the Reed girl! She’s pretty cool but kind of characteristic of Reed. Quiet. Wears sweaters. Seems sad. But she talked to me for a while. I also met a very nice girl from Corvallis who is very talkative. Maybe too much. Not sure yet. I managed to find five boys including myself. Most are pretty quiet and they’re all from Santa Clara. Everyone is from Santa Clara. I also met a very interesting girl who is probably the closest thing I’ve ever encountered to the perfect stereotype of a Valley Girl. She needs to take a shower and brush her teeth and be clean and wear nice clothes all the time. Very vocal about it. Right now she’s reading a book about some princess in a big city. Ironic. I love it.

In other news, I find it interesting to note that I am not the only one here who doesn’t speak any Italian. Most people I’ve met have been studying Italian for about a year, so they have a little bit of a head start on me, but no one is coming anywhere close to bragging about their Italian skills. It’s 2:30 pm here and I am very tired. But I’ll push through and play some minesweeper now. Peace and love until I find internet access.

AJC

Long crazy night. It is now 11:05 pm here. We got in and had dinner and went on a brief walking tour along the Eastern part of the Arno river. Our tour guides were TAs and they bought us Gelato. It was delicious. Everyone here is getting completely wasted and appear to be a walking mockery of the United States. A cluster of 30 kids in Nautica and Ralph Lauren polos drinking Coronas and Budweisers. I almost threw up on them. I was told to expect this out of the So. Cal and East Coast students on this trip. Meeting people is becoming increasingly difficult when my desire to be their friend diminishes and cliques begin to form. Oh well. I’m here to explore and as long as I have a few half acquaintances, that’s good enough for me. I sort of already have that though. No girls worth noting yet. We meet our host families day after tomorrow. I should have my phone set up by tomorrow as well. I’m going to try to pass out now. I may wake up in a few hours when I am unable to sleep. Goodnight!

AJC