A Cornellian in Paris: 1st day in Paris!

All good things come with time, says my father. I guess that's true in this case. After about a 27 hour delay on my flight from Newark, I finally arrived in Paris! At Newark, I met up with four other kids from my program - so at least I wan't alone living in the airport for 2 days. Our flight Wednesday night was delayed 6 hours because of plane traffic, then a power outage, then snow and after midnight the airport was shut down altogether. So we slept at the airport and finally got booked on the same flight we were supposed to take but on the next night, which got delayed again because of plane traffic, but finally took off. We were beginning to call our adventures "Study Abroad: Newark." In the meantime we did meet a lot of really nice French people waiting to fly home. We got some tips of places to go in Paris, practiced our French and realized that the French know a lot more about American government and pop culture than we do.

So after not really sleeping for two days and being penned up in an airport, arriving in Paris was like arriving in paradise. Our little group split up as we are staying in different dorms around the city. I took a taxi with another girl to my dorm, Foyer Didot. The foyer is in a cute, somewhat lively neighborhood somewhere between Montparnasse and rue Alesia. My room is like a typical American dorm room except that I have my own bathroom and there's a lovely view of a park in the square next to my building. From my friend Vanessa's room, on the other side of the building, there's a view of the Eiffel Tower!

View from my window!

After dropping off our luggage, we set out to meet up with the rest of our group. Unsuccessful at finding them or contacting our program director, we did a bit of our own exploring. We went to le Jardin du Luxembourg. Then crossed over the seine to Île de la Cité and saw the Notre Dame cathedral. Then we walked along the Seine on the right bank and walked around by the Louvre. Tired and freezing, we started to head back to the dorm. We stopped for some chocolat chaud in the St Germain-des-Pres area, found our way to the metro and then came home. Some pictures from our adventures: