Salut Mes Amis!
I've FINALLY gotten around to blogging (sorry to make several of you reading this wait so long)! Due to this late commencement, there's a ton to recap and I've therefore decided to create several posts detailing my journey thus far. This post will serve as a general introduction and basic retelling of the events leading up to my arrival at my final destination, Montpellier, France, on Jan. 4. I'll try to keep the story as concise and interesting as possible.
First, a little background info: Roughly four months ago, I received the news that I'd been accepted into W&M's Montpellier Semester Program! Being the positively French-obsessed person that I am (a fact of which anyone who's spent 5 minutes with me is well aware) and having never before gone to France, receiving this opportunity was truly a dream come true. I committed to the program immediately and spent the rest of my fall semester preparing for what I was sure would be a fantabulous journey. But of course, no good travel story is complete without a few hiccups and surprises...
After arriving at Dulles International in DC on Jan. 3, I found out that my flight was delayed by over eight hours and the original route I'd planned to take (DC to Denmark, Denmark to Nice, Nice to Montpellier) had to be completely changed! Naturally I started hyperventilating and going cray, but after some moments of silent prayer and help from some very friendly airport staff, I was able to get a new flight to Paris AND a ticket upgrade (as it turns out, my "first class" ticket was really just "economy extra," lols, but in my defense it was a really plush portion of the plane).
Once I arrived at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, it was pretty much smooth sailing from then on. Not only was I able to easily switch my train ticket from Nice to one from Paris, but I also met a new friend whose brother goes to W&M. Gotta love them Tribe connections! She helped me navigate the train station (which is in the airport bc France is awesome and obviously caters to the directionally-challenged like myself) and showed me where to buy wicked awesome croissants. I then caught my train and arrived in Montpellier around 16h (4:00 pm) safe and sound.
Aside from the afore-mentioned struggles and nearly straining a muscle trying to tote my overweight suitcase around, I'd say the trip was an overall success :) Though I'd never flown by myself internationally before and had a couple of mishaps, God kept me shockingly calm throughout most of it. After the initial freak out about my plane, I felt completely at ease and was thoroughly able to enjoy my journey to the "center of happiness" (which of course is a metaphor for France)!
A bientôt,
Mari
First, a little background info: Roughly four months ago, I received the news that I'd been accepted into W&M's Montpellier Semester Program! Being the positively French-obsessed person that I am (a fact of which anyone who's spent 5 minutes with me is well aware) and having never before gone to France, receiving this opportunity was truly a dream come true. I committed to the program immediately and spent the rest of my fall semester preparing for what I was sure would be a fantabulous journey. But of course, no good travel story is complete without a few hiccups and surprises...
After arriving at Dulles International in DC on Jan. 3, I found out that my flight was delayed by over eight hours and the original route I'd planned to take (DC to Denmark, Denmark to Nice, Nice to Montpellier) had to be completely changed! Naturally I started hyperventilating and going cray, but after some moments of silent prayer and help from some very friendly airport staff, I was able to get a new flight to Paris AND a ticket upgrade (as it turns out, my "first class" ticket was really just "economy extra," lols, but in my defense it was a really plush portion of the plane).
Once I arrived at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, it was pretty much smooth sailing from then on. Not only was I able to easily switch my train ticket from Nice to one from Paris, but I also met a new friend whose brother goes to W&M. Gotta love them Tribe connections! She helped me navigate the train station (which is in the airport bc France is awesome and obviously caters to the directionally-challenged like myself) and showed me where to buy wicked awesome croissants. I then caught my train and arrived in Montpellier around 16h (4:00 pm) safe and sound.
Aside from the afore-mentioned struggles and nearly straining a muscle trying to tote my overweight suitcase around, I'd say the trip was an overall success :) Though I'd never flown by myself internationally before and had a couple of mishaps, God kept me shockingly calm throughout most of it. After the initial freak out about my plane, I felt completely at ease and was thoroughly able to enjoy my journey to the "center of happiness" (which of course is a metaphor for France)!
A bientôt,
Oh gosh, that's crazy! Did they say what happened with the plane that was delayed? I'm so glad it worked out though! And what is economy plus? That clearly doesn't exist, so it must have been first class after all.
ReplyDelete-Super Laura
I think the original plane had some technical issues. Almost every passenger had to be re-routed, and they didn't plan on flying out until 2am! It was insane for a while, but yes totally glad it all worked out :) and hahaha, I'd never heard of it before either. It was super nice and had a lot more features than normal economy, which is why i originally thought it was first class. But then i walked through a room filled with leather swivel-chairs and big-screen tv's and realized THAT was real first class lol! Have you picked out the things you want to pack yet?
ReplyDelete- Super Mari