Je ne comprends pas français, parlez-vous anglais?

"Pardon me, I don't understand french, do you speak english?"

I spent much of my plane ride to Stockholm and then to Paris memorizing that phrase. I ended up using it on the cab driver that dropped me off at my dorm. But we'll get to that later. Let's start at O'hare.

Yesterday I got to O'hare and, after being charged $200 for an extra bag and an overweight bag, I had 3 hours until my flight. I took my time in the bathroom, then dilly-dallied in one of those stores that sells candy, nuts, magazines, books, neck pillows, and converters. I sneezed while looking at the book titles and someone, from what seemed to be the corner of the store across from me, said "bless you." I looked around to thank this person and noticed no one was looking at me, and there was only one guy in the corner that I thought I'd heard the voice from, and he was looking at the wall with his back to me. I decided to declare my "thank you" to the room at large and when I turned back to the wall of books I heard a "you're welcome" from the same voice. But still no one was looking at me! It was odd.

I moved on to security and picked one out of the 5 lines that I thought looked the fastest and the shortest. I am always wrong about security lines. As soon as I commit to a line, some other line seems to be on fast-forward while mine is in slow-motion. The large Indian family in front of me was not helping anything; they didn't understand english very well and kept needing to take more things out to put on the security belt. I still had two and a half hours so I wasn't in a rush but I still didn't want to be in the losing line! I just had to wait patiently until I finally saw my crate enter the x-ray box thing.

After finding my gate, I chatted to Rachel for 40 minutes before hanging up and beginning to read a book for school called "French or Foe." It's a guide to understanding French culture and systems so you don't automatically consider everything rudeness. I found it really helpful and I read it on my first flight, at the Stockholm airport, and finished it on my second flight.

On my first flight I sat on the aisle in the middle section next to a family of three, the child was about 2. She was fussy and cried on and off during the flight which was really obnoxious. Poor kid. I'm sure she was tired. Anyway I overheard that they were going to Helsinki after they reached Sweden. The video screens on our seats weren't the kind where you can start the movie whenever you want; they all start at once and you have to time it just right so you can catch the beginning. I watched Valentine's Day, which I like less and less each time I watch. I read my book and when the lights went off I tried to fall asleep. The problem was that it was FREEZING on the plane and everyone had their blankets up to their necks. I could not get comfortable due to the cold. The woman next to me was shifting non-stop like I was for a few hours too. Finally, I settled into a position that might keep me the most warm and the most comfortable. I looked over at the lady next to me and she too seemed to have found a good position for she wasn't moving around anymore. Just that instant the lights went up as they woke everyone for breakfast. The meals on Scandinavian Air were pretty decent. I was pleased.

Pulling into Sweden was sort of bleak because it was cold outside (10 degrees celsius is what the pilot said), it was grey, and it was wet. I was disappointed because I pictured Sweden sunny. As I walked through the airport I noticed it looked EXACTLY like the set up of the Copenhagen airport. So much so that for a moment I thought, "maybe when I thought I was in Copenhagen I was actually here.." But then I noticed that the store/food/lounge area was much bigger and much more substantial. That airport was so cool. It was clean and shiny and there were wood floors just like in Denmark and there were tons of shops selling really expensive things and also a really cool home ware store who's stuff looked kind of like IKEA. (Duh, Sweden!)

The airport didn't just rekindled my desire to visit Sweden, it cemented it.

On the 3 hour early afternoon flight to Paris I continuously nodded off but tried as hard as I could to stay awake so I could beat jet lag. Once I had my bags in Charles de Gaulle it was 1:30pm. I was supposed to meet up with some other NU study abroad students landing around the same time I did, but I only found one. She and I traversed the airport looking for the shuttle pick up stop and then waited a while for the others. Once 2:45 hit we hopped in a taxi.

At my dorm I was greeted by the residence manager and some other official guy. They went over some stuff with me and gave me my ID and my key. As I walked into my room I saw that my roommate had already moved in completely and she was sound asleep on the bottom bunk with one foot sticking out of the covers. I began to unpack and right as I was almost finished her alarm woke her up. After a quick hi she put the phone on snooze and went back to sleep. I went to the grocery store a block up the road and bough soap, shampoo, and a couple snacky items.

At the check out the cashier said in french how much the total was, but I looked up at the register because I didn't understand her. It said 24.50 and below that it said 154.48. I assumed the 24.50 was the last item she rang up, and the 154 was the total. I was completely content with this and went about paying. She shook her head at me and pointed at the 24.50 instead of taking my 160 Euro I was passing to her. I immediately understood and handed her 25 euro, fully aware that all the people behind me were wondering aloud where I was from (though I can't be sure since I didn't understand them..). As I walked out of the store I realized that this is phantom Bolivia stuff. Food in Bolivia was expensive because lots of it was imported, and the prices were high looking because everything was 7 to 1 to the dollar. So a bottle of syrup could easily be 25 Bs and a box of cereal 43 Bs. Therefore a charge of 150 Bs is no biggie. But, I must remember I'm in France now and things are different.

That's all for now folks! Tomorrow I'm going to try to find a flat iron and Wednesday we have orientation!

Love,

Hillary