I am alive in France

Wow, so what an incredibly difficult 40 hours or so it's been. My visa paperwork finally came through last Saturday, the day before I was supposed to leave, and I flew out of Texas on Sunday september 6th. That was by far and away the worst and hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life, I have never cried so much in a 24 hour period of time ever, Ever....I was a blubbering mess at the airport the entire time. I flew from DFW to LON heathrow thinking OK, this is cheaper than flying to Paris, so I'll just take trains the entire way and it will be fun...WRONG. The one thing I have discovered about the train system, awesome may it be, is that it's not giant suitcase friendly...meaning there are no escalators or elevators anywhere in sight, seriously, not for miles. I lugged two giant seventy pound bags, with one forty pound backpack, laptop bag and purse down to the tube in London, up to the international train station in London, up the ramp to the Chunnel train (high speed train direct from Lon to Paris) down to the RER (Parisian subway) in Paris, to get to the other side of Paris where my connecting train was, onto said TGV (French bullet train) and then finally to the train station in Tours. THe worst part was the up and down of the subway in Paris, one very nice man helped me the whole way with both of my bags up and down 5 flights of stairs...he was very kind...Parisians are not mean, so all of you who say they're all rude, can take that. Now in England, people were just plain mean, they stared at me, laughed, and on more than one occasion asked me what I was doing with so much shit, and what was I thinking. Long story short, fly to Paris, even if it means having a connection anywhere else, taking the trains with giant suitcases, not worth it.

So I arrived in Tours and my proprietor (landlady) and my new camarade de chambre (roommate) met me there and we all crammed into a teeny little car and drove to the apartment. The flat I'm living in is quite cute, there will be three girls living here. So far I have met Siobhan from Scotland who is very cool and very good at french I might add. Cami, a medical student, should arrive next week. The flat isn't as small as I expected, but I do think it's funny because the toilet and the showers are in different rooms here....side note, our toilet room is the nicest in the flat, brand new wood flooring and fresh beautiful wall paper, my favorite part is that all toilet paper here seems to be pink, it's very amusing. My room is rather large, and painted orange, which makes me happy as it suits Graham's nickname for me "Pumpkin." So I live in a pumpkinny room with a bright pink bed spread...how fitting? Siobhan and I took a stroll around town last night, Tours is full of charm...being a 1000 year old french city can have that effect:)

Today is my first day at the university, so as all of you are getting ready or have already headed off to bed I am up and about to face my first day as a teacher. I've actually been up for about two hours as my body clearly has NO idea what time it is or who I am still at the moment. Today I will hopefully tackle the grocery store and find myself a cell phone. I have yet to have to pay rent as I don't have a bank account here, but apparently it's not necessary up front here the way it is in US to pay your rent before you move in, who knew?? Did I mention my apartment is so old that it's blinds are actually wooden shutters and the key to my room looks like something out of the 1900's (seriously). Well I am going to be off now, thanks so much for all your love and encouragement, it's a lot less scary now that I am here, but still pretty lonely. I miss graham more than I ever thought possible to miss a human being, so I am still adjusting very slowly. I will post pictures soon, I'm a bit behind and still moving very slowly today.

I miss you, I love you,

Sarah:)

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