Arriving In France, well sort-of

After 4 weeks in France and various parts of Europe, I'm finally starting that blog I promised everyone! Photos are up on Facebook and I'll see if I can put some here, but my camera is currently out of commission, so I'm making sure everyone else takes plenty of pictures!!

I got into Frankfurt Airport around 7 am on Monday the 11th or 12th, after having barely made my connection in Dallas. I only had 45 minutes for the connection to begin with, and then we got delayed, so I was only in the airport long enough to run from one terminal to the other. Needless to say, my bags didn't make it :-(  I had a bus from Frankfurt to my dorm, LaFayette in Metz, France that was leaving at 9:30 but I missed it and the next one so I could stay and get my bags, which were a couple of hours behind me. I got my passport stamped twice and went through customs three times, going back and forth between our meeting place and the luggage claim :-)

I finally arrived in Metz in the late afternoon. our dorms are really apartments, we each get our own little space with a bathroom, huge desk and bookshelf and a kitchenette. I think they emptied out IKEA :-) Eating here has been an adventure, there is a grocery store not too far away, the French eat a TON of bread!!! So, that's what I have most of the time, which is fine with me!! There is also a whole aisle of cheese that I have only just begun to explore!!

The part of Metz we are in is sort of the business and university area. There are a couple other French Universities right next door and the cafeteria we eat lunch at is on their campus, so we get to see them quite a lot. Many of them wear these lab type coats (black or white) which are covered in patches and writing, I'm told it either has to do with their "greek" system or with sports teams, Jenny thinks it makes them look like Manga characters :-)

I finally got into downtown Metz on Thursday, it is beautiful!! I have yet to go inside the cathedral, but it looks great from the outside. Apparently the stained glass windows are some of the largest in Metz. I'd like to go to a mass there sometime, I think that would be interesting, even though I probably wouldn't understand a thing. Metz is filled with old buildings and parts of fortifications, this area has been fought over by France and Germany for centuries and Metz played a big part in WWII. There are a ton of German influences in the architecture, especially at the train station.

Classes are neat, my history class is very discussion based and only has 7 people, so it is great!! My economics class is very interesting, we have a French professor (don't worry, the class is in English) but she brings a great perspective to the class and we are really studying the current global economic situation and how we got here. My French class is the most relevant, as soon as I learn something I get to put it into practice, although i have to admit, our professor can be hard to understand sometimes :-(

That's about it for week 1. I'm headed to Paris this weekend and I'll try to update when I get back!!