The more I see, the less I know

I'm finally here!

It only took two flights (second one nearly missed), 10 hours, one confusing airport and a 45-minute cab ride, but I made it. But for some reason, I still don't feel like I'm here.

I haven't had an existential "what am I doing" crisis (yet, anyway), but I've been waiting so long to come here that I don't think I know how to feel yet. Nothing has been too hard yet. I'm sharing a hotel room with three other AU girls until tomorrow when we meet our host families. I've had to use French when dining out, but sometimes the waiters pick up on our accents and speak to us in English anyway. I did buy a cell phone "tout a fait" in French, though, so that made me feel pretty good.

Then came meeting the host family. I actually ended up switching with Emily, another AU girl with the enclave, because both our families lived in the same apartment complex in the 20eme arrondissement, but hers had a cat. I had checked off "no pets" on my application, but of all the four-legged creatures I can handle (sort of), it's cats. And he looks like Ryan's old cat Lenny, so that made me happy.

My family, les Vallee, are very nice. There's a mom and dad, Karin and Etienne, and three kids aged 9, 10 and 14 I believe - Nicolas, Pierre and Marie. Marie is adorable - she wants to look up to me as a big sister, which made me happy because it's sort of like home except now I have a much younger little sister. They made me couscous with three different types of meat for dinner. I think I ate like a bird compared to them, but hopefully they know I did actually like it.

The only problem with the entire evening was that they reminded me too much of my family. I've talked to my mom every day, but I haven't really been homesick. I guess that was because I was living with all the other girls who were in the same position as me, so I had a strength in numbers feeling the first few days. Now that I'm actually in the situation I will live in for the next few months, it's scary as hell. To top it all off, I ended the day by breaking down in front of my host parents because I couldn't figure out how to ask them about keys and building access codes.

I had sworn to myself at dinner that I wouldn't cry in front of them because I didn't want them to think I didn't like them or their family. At least the kids weren't there, but I felt awful anyway. I'm sure they understand because they've hosted kids before, but it wasn't my best moment. I didn't feel like I wanted to leave; I just wanted a hug from my mom. Well, maybe it was a bit of an existential crisis. I wanted a hug from my mom at my house.

Oh, well, hopefully today I can communicate about things that aren't technologically related. Bonne chance a moi!