Early Morning in Nantes

Bonjour tout le monde!

First off, Happy Birthday Daddy! I love you so much!

Olivia and I are finally in Nantes. It's maybe around 6:30 in the morning right now; I don't have a watch so I'm not completely sure. Olivia and I met up at O'Hare and were able to sit next to each other on the plane to Paris. I think that there were at least 20 American students on the flight who were flying to Europe for studying abroad. But it was probably more. The row that I sat in was filled completely with American students. I slept most of the way to Paris. Olivia slept a little bit, but she has trouble sleeping on planes.

After arriving in Paris, Olivia and I meandered around Charles de Gaulle and finally figured out how to get to our next flight. The flight to Nantes took just about an hour. We took a taxi to our hotel, and the taxi driver was really nice. He gave us a little tour of Nantes and pointed out the only skyscraper in Brittany and old buildings that were sinking because they were built on sand. When we got to our hotel, Olivia and I found out that it was closed down due to construction. So we took our bags through the city to another hotel, which had a lovely elevator.

The shower in our hotel room. You can't really tell from this picture, but it is quite small. Olivia and I felt lucky that we could fit through the little shower door.

After bringing our bags to the hotel and having slightly embarrassing interactions with a few shop owners when we were trying to buy lunch, Olivia and I went back to the hotel. We were planning on staying up until at least 9 at night, but we fell asleep at 5. Thus, we have been awake since 3:30 (for Olivia) and 4:30 (for me). We can't check into the study abroad center until "late morning" (we aren't sure what time that is), so we have been waiting in our room and unsuccessfully trying to go back to sleep.

Olivia's not napping. But she's trying.

One thing that surprised me when we were lugging our bags yesterday was that everyone here seems young. Whenever I mentioned Nantes to French people in the United States, they would always remark that there were a lot of students in Nantes. It seems like everyone here are students. Probably only 1/4 of the people that I've seen look like they are over 30, and most of these older people were working in stores or restaurants.

I'm really excited about today though. We get to meet our host families and Olivia and I are going to wander around the city a bit more. Tonight we will spend the night with our host families. Then, on Wednesday, we leave for a three day orientation in Vannes, which I think will be a cute town.

The sun is finally starting to rise!