Bonjour tout le monde!

I have arrived in Vichy, finally!! My first post will be all about the trip there! Here we go…

I arrived at the Kansas City International Airport at around 11:45am on Wednesday, September 2nd. It was so hard saying goodbye to everyone without getting teary-eyed! Leaving my loved ones home is definitely the hardest part of this all. I just wanted to pack them in my suitcase and take them with me. However, I was able to let go to embark on this incredible journey. Luckily, my friend Allissa was going there for the semester too.

Our airplane from KC to Charlotte

Check-in went smoothly and we began boarding at 1:15pm. Everything was going as scheduled until we got to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. Apparently there had been a passenger issue and everyone on the flight had to go through document re-verification. Due to seat rearrangements, we ended up boarding at 6:20 instead of 5:30. To top that off, the tow bar malfunctioned and they had to get a new one down to our plane. The flight finally took of for Paris at about 7:30pm. Fast forward the 7 hour and 20 minute flight plus the 7-hour time difference and we finally arrive at the Charles de Gaulle airport in France a little before 10am on Thursday.

Charlotte Airport

Our gate D11, and a little old man headed to France! Lol.

The meal provide on the flight. It was actually a lot of food!

Little did I know that the hard part was yet to come! We got through customs and picked up our luggage. Our goal now was to find the train station in this huge airport. We tried to follow the signs but the arrows kept pointing down, which apparently meant “keep going”. After asking 3 people for directions in what I thought was the most butchered French ever spoken, we found “La Gare” (train station). We printed our tickets, and then headed to these little yellow machines to validate them with a time stamp. Riding the train in Europe is very interesting! The platform that is assigned to your train is not disclosed until about 15-20 minutes before it arrives. So there is always a huge wad of people in front of the departure screens and as soon as the platform is assigned, the crowds rush out the door. We found or train and headed to the platform.

Printing our tickets.

The trains arriving at La Gare in Paris!

I couldn’t have acted more like a foreigner on this train ride. It was so embarrassing! We hopped on the train, not entirely sure it was the right one. Once inside there is a small area to store the luggage. I found a tight corner and squeezed my bigger suitcase in there and kept my carry-on with me. I go through the sliding doors and I could not find my seat for the life of me!! I ended up going down two more cars and then back down the same ones, all while pulling my suitcase down this tiny little aisle. After 20 minutes of being hot and frustrated I made it to my seat (which I had passed like 3 times). The rest of the ride was quite relaxing and I took a quick power nap before arriving at our connection in Lyon, France. As soon as the train started slowing down I grabbed my luggage and waited by the doors. I didn’t want to get stuck on the train! I got off the train and realized that my bigger suitcase had a tear on the side. It must have snagged on another suitcase zipper when I crammed it in with all the other suitcases, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The suitcase rip.

At the Lyon station we ran into Serena, another student headed to Vichy. (Quick back-story: We were supposed to meet Serena at her gate in the Paris airport. Due to the delay in Charlotte she ended up arriving before us. To our misfortune, we could not connect to the Wi-Fi at the airport so there was no way to contact her! We were so happy to see her there, so we could ride the train to Vichy together.) We grabbed a cup of coffee at the station. It is partially open air, so there were pigeons inside. One flew right by my face!

To my surprise, the second train was much easier to ride. We found our seats quickly and we were finally headed to Vichy. We were the 3rd stop on the route and the anticipation of arriving kept building up the closer we got. At 4:35pm we arrived in Vichy. I was so happy and so relieved, I felt like I had been holding my breath the entire trip!

Some of the views during the train ride:

Gab was there to welcome us to the city. She is a student/coordinator at the university that had been helping us with preparations. As soon as we walked out of the station I was completely amazed! This town is so breathtakingly beautiful!! We had a short walk from the train station to our residence building. It was a really rough trip, but every minute was worth seeing Vichy.

Stay tuned! Next post will be about settling in to my new home! 🙂