Day 0 Report

I have about five thousand things I'd rather do now (like watch a movie or even go back to sleep), but because I am so kind, I will start my journal now. :P

Anyway, I was so tired yesterday after spending the whole afternoon and evening copying French words/phrases/grammar rules into my book. The food list, especially, took an insanely long time, during which I learnt that a plum is a prune and a prune is a pruneau, whilst a banana is a banan and a pineapple is an ananas. Since I dislike all the above fruits, I shall just ignore all of them an save me some trouble. :P

I copied till 8.45 p.m., when I was due to leave at 9.30 p.m. and I had yet to bathe. So of course I left late, although I had just enough time to reach the airport, check in, get unceremoniously dumped at immigration, then stroll to my boarding gate. There was some confusion about the boarding time since it was supposed to be 11.10 p.m. but the stupid sign said LAST CALL and there was a steady stream of people queuing up to scan their stuff. I ended up making some last-minute phone calls before hurrying into the queue.

My particular queue took so damn long that it was 11.10 p.m. when I entered the waiting area, which was full and boarding had yet to commence. Feeling immensely cheated, I stood by the window and minded my own business. However, less than 5 minutes later they started boarding so I zipped down onto the plane.

Thanks to the stupid regulations on water bottles, I was dying of thirst by the time I sat down and requested some warm water.

The plane took off late, by which time I had managed to play a bit of Animal Crossing. Then I played some more and enjoyed my usual cup of hot chocolate and warm cashew nuts till supper began. I watched He's Just Not That Into You whilst eating - and I took a very long time to finish eating; I know because the stewards and stewardesses kept walking by to check on me. The appetiser was very nice (lobster and provencal vegetable terrine with creamy tomato dressing) and the soup too (roasted tomato soup with goat cheese tortellini, basil oil and cherry tomato) but the main course was neverending. I did, however, enjoy my drink, a concoction of 7-up and white wine named "Kris in Love" - even though I could've sworn it was named differently last year.

After dinner I wanted to explode, so I sat very still in case I really did. Anyway the stupid seatbelt sign was on so I couldn't go anywhere for a really long time.

The movie ended very late (by which time the other two passengers were long asleep) and I went to wash up while my "bed" was being made. Then I listened to some music and tried to sleep.

I was wondering what all the little hazy dots (reflections?) in the window were when I finally fished out my glasses from the handy side compartment and saw...........STARS. Lots and lots and lots of big white bright stars in the sky, so many and so big and so bright that I couldn't indentify anything.

Then I fell asleep.

4 or 5 hours later I was apparently the first to awake. It was quite bright outside but someone had pulled down the windows while I was sleeping.

I originally planned to just laze around for another half an hour but my nose started running (and hasn't stopped since!) so I had to go to the bathroom and wash up. I locked the door and IMMEDIATELY the seatbelt sign came up. I didn't return though, since the seatbelt that comes with the "bed-seat" wasn't working properly so there was no point.

Then I whiled away the rest of the time playing Animal Crossing and writing. Breakfast is about to be served soon and I'm having dim sum!

.........and my nose is running again so back to the bathroom I go. :P

LATER...

Yawn. I miss the plane blanket.

Anyway, despite our late departure we actually arrived in Paris almost 30 min earlier. After showing my passport to the really scary police guy outside our gate, I proceeded to immigration. We seemed to be the only people around; indeed, immigration was empty and we had to go round and round the endless snaking cordoned area until I was very dizzy when I reached the counter.

Baggage collection took slightly longer because it was delayed a while, and then it seemed like all the Business Class people got their luggage before I did. But finally I hauled my luggage on to the trolley and headed out into the arrival area.

First I located Exit 34 (where the airport bus pick-up point is) - it turned out to be right in front of the baggage exit.

Then I checked the approximate arrival time of Denise's flight (8.35 a.m.) on the screen above the information counter - the counter was right beside Exit 34.

And now I have nothing to do but stand by the stupid wall and wait. :P

EVEN LATER...

After the most boring 1.5 hours of my life in the airport (during which a tour group of Singaporeans decided to gather around me for no reason at all), Denise finally turned up and we finally left the airport.

Our timing was good and the bus arrived very soon. We got out luggage stowed below, then clambered up to pay the driver (€16.50) before settling down.

Lucky for us, Terminal 1 was the first stop so we had no problems finding seats, unlike some who got on at other terminals.

The ride was reasonably fun since we got to see a bit of Paris, like the Bibliothèque National and the massive Gare de Lyon (gare= train station), the other stop on the route. In fact, I think we travelled quite near the area where we'll be staying in three weeks' time.

Just when I had finished celebrating the end of the most boring wait of my life in the airport, I was faced with an even longer wait at the Gare de Montparnasse. To make matters worse, they only reveal your platform number 20 min before the train is due to arrive.

We arrived at 10.30 a.m., which means we could have caught the 11.05 a.m. train as originally planned. But because we had been so afraid of missing it, we ended up with tickets for the next direct train - at 2.05 p.m.!

We spent most of the 3.5 hours in the waiting room, where pigeons and sparrows audaciously roamed and flew about. Basically the only thing we did during our long wait was to translate questions and other conversation topics for use later - from mundane random stuff like "You're so lucky you live by the sea! I wish I lived by the sea!" to more detailed information on life in Singapore (knowledge gained courtesy of Nation-Building in Singapore).

Finally FINALLY 1.45 p.m. rolled round and we could go check our platform number.

The platform turned out to be nearby and we were happy - until we saw how long the train was. I never knew trains could be so long. There must have been around 20 carriages or something - and our first-class carriage happened to be nearly at the end!

After hauling our stuff up the train, we went down the very narrow aisle and found someone sitting in what was supposed to be our seat. Upon Denise's enquiry, it turned out that we were in fact on carriage 12 instead. So we rolled out luggage down the next carriage, where there was another guy sitting in our actual seal! There was a lady waiting behind me so I was forced to drag my luggage all the way out the other end of the carriage, where I dumped it on the luggage rack. The guy had returned to his own seat and that left our seats (individual seats facing each other with a foldable table in the middle) vacant, but out seats were much nearer the luggage racks between carriages 12 and 13.......so I had to drag my luggage back down the aisle and haul it up on the nearer rack! By the time I finally collapsed in my seat, I had a splitting headache and had probably pulled a back muscle.

The train left almost immediately, going in the direction I was facing. But after whizzing past hundreds of perfect flat fields, I found the countryside so uninspiring that I began to doze off. When I did actually doze off, the ticket-checker guy happened to enter so we had to present our tickets. Then I stopped being sleepy. :P

It's almost 4 p.m. now and about 2h40min to go before we reach Brest. I hope we end up along some coastal route, but I'm not holding out for much. Anyway Brest is right by the sea so there won't be a shortage of sea views in the next three weeks.

THAT NIGHT...

We got to catch a glimpse of the Brest harbour and sail boats floating along in the lazy sunshine, before the train FINALLY made its last stop. 12 hours after I had landed in Paris, I was finally in Brest!

Denise's host met her first and I was just beginning to wonder if the Stephans had forgotten about me when a stout guy came up to me holding the CIEL letter. It turned out that he was not Mr Stephan but his son B (whom I suppose is actually Mr Stephan too :P), and we had a nice little drive to the house where I actually remarked about the lovely weather.

The house looked quite small from the outside, but what caught my attention the most (well, it was a bit hard to miss) was the garden - I can't tell how big it is, since it looks like a mini forest/jungle/you get the idea, full of densely-planted shrubbery and about a zillion different flowers. Speaking of which, my room overlooks the garden but if you try really hard, you can see a bit of the sea in the distance.

The room, by the way, is such a pretty little place. The double bed (well it's not as big as a queensize but definitely way bigger than a single) alone won me over, but then there's the nice little nautical-y pictures on the walls and the nautical-y colour scheme of mostly blue and white.

I was left to unpack whilst B prepared dinner, "preparing" consisting of a microwave whirring and strange squeaks coming coming the kitchen.

At 7.30 p.m. (when dinner was supposed to start), I happened to pass by the kitchen and realised where the squeaks were coming from - three grey parrots! Dinner wasn't ready yet, but I met the Stephans' daughter G in the hallway. Her family had come over for dinner and her kids were shrieking somewhere in the mysterious corners of the house.

When finally dinner was ready, I headed into the dining room and met G's husband and kids - a daughter named Morgan and a cute little blonde son named Corentin.

Dinner was, er, quite a trying affair. I managed to tell everyone what I'm studying in school, but then G tried asking me something about working as a teacher or something and I didn't understand at all. Finally her husband (whose name I didn't find out) asked if I spoke English and became the translator (he's a teacher) while we ate pizza, some tomato-egg salad, yoghurt and cherries.

Then there was some confusion about school tomorrow, because it's Pentecost and public schools will be closed. Since CIEL is a private school, who knows? We took a look at my letter from CIEL which stated that my course starts on 1 June, and it was decided that B will just fetch me to school tomorrow morning and if the school's closed, we'll just go back.

Anyway, after dinner I could FINALLY have a bath, which was horribly complicated since the toilet is not attached to the bathroom. How on earth do people live with this configuration is beyond me, but it's unnecessarily inconvenient. The shower was nice and warm though, but the bathroom was so cold at the same time.

After my bath I flopped onto the bed and here I am now, watching the sun slowly set at 10.30 p.m.