Welcome Back!

It's September 5th, Labor Day in the US and the national first day back to school in France (one guess as to who's having more fun!).

I arrived back in France just over a week ago, and after a very busy arrival day, hopped on the train to Metz for the weekend, where I collected my belongings and forever indebted myself to friends who had offered to drive me back to Paris. I spent Sunday afternoon unpacking and settling into my new space in an apartment in the 17th. My host family (more on them later!) was gone on vacation for a few days, which allowed me to settle at my own pace.

The whole of this past week was spent working for my alma mater's Paris study abroad program. I (really, the whole staff) ran around Monday getting ready for the students' arrival. Tuesday, the 19 college juniors trickled in throughout the day. It was our job to make sure they stayed awake, walked around a bit, ate, explored the neighborhood, got cell phones and got a ton of information thrown at them. I remember my first day pretty well, despite the fact that I remember nothing due to jetlag and fatigue. But they were really troopers and kept an excellent attitude through the week of meetings, errands, walks and guided tours.

The group went away Friday and Saturday and I got two days of respite before rejoining them Saturday night just in time to send them all off to their host families for the semester. As the director said, it felt like sending our children off to college - all 19 of them!

I returned home where I crashed and slept for nearly 12 hours. Yesterday, Sunday morning, I set off with directions from my host mother to find the marché de Levallois, the open-air market just across the périphérique (and thus just outside Paris city lines) and a very pleasant 15 minute walk from the apartment. The place was packed, but I made my way around, exploring all the stands and stalls and finally bought my produce from one selling things only from the region. The rest of the day was calm. I visited with a friend (and avoided the rain) and just hung out.

Today I slept in again, taking full advantage of my last free mornings. Then I found the local grocery, then went to place St-Michel to buy books for classes (and pleasure!) and as I was getting out of the metro, ran into a fellow Middlebury student! She had arrived yesterday and I was shocked to have run into someone I know in a city this size! Though I must admit having run into a fellow Skiddie one day at the same metro station when I was here 4 years ago.

Tomorrow afternoon it's back to reality with the first of many Middlebury meetings this week.

Now to figure out what's for dinner...