Je me trouve encore en France

A brief summary to begin.
Last summer a couple of my friends, namely Josh McLaurin and Daniel Jordan, discovered a wonderful little organisation known as WWOOF: World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Following a study abroad trip to New Zealand, they passed some time in New Zealand and Australia with a couple of WWOOF hosts and came back with some wonderful stories and photos to share. These two gentlemen provided me the inspiration to travel this summer with WWOOF.

But enough of the name-dropping, what does WWOOF do? WWOOF seeks to connect organic farmers with volunteers, providing with membership access to the list of hosts to visit. With a variety of national organisations and a central site for the remainder of the hosts, one can travel the world with WWOOF. For 3 to 6 hours of help each day, WWOOFers receive room and boarding, which makes for some very affordable language immersion.

So here's the plan for me this summer: stay in France from 13 May through 25 June, spend a few days catching up with myself in Florida, and move on to Japan the 1st of July to spend a full six weeks there.

Le Voyage Commence
At about 4 00 in the morning, 12 May, I wake up to the unpleasantness of an alarm. The presence of Ashley, though, successfully countered the early morning attack, enough so that I was able to get up and get processed to arrive at the airport by 5 40 or so.

Everything went smoothly at the airport, as things usually do, we had our goodbyes--my family (less Mum, as she'd already left for South Africa), Ashley, and I--and I was off like a bolt. Such a hurry, of course, so that I could wait eight hours at Dulles in DC for my flight to Paris. The wait wasn't all that interesting, and neither was the subsequent flight.

Alors, J'Arrive à Paris
For a city as well known as Paris, the airport is inevitably pretty decent, but Charles De Gaulle was fantastic. No problems with customs or passport control: I don't know if French made the difference, but I simply said, "Bonjour," and they stamped my passport and sent me on my way. I picked up my bags, already tired at the start of my day (having arrived at seven in the morning), and sought the train station to figure out how the heck to get to Le Buisson from Paris.

I wasted a good deal of time contemplating the ticket machines and waiting in line to speak to real people at the train station, but eventually bought my ticket from Paris - Montparnasse to Le Buisson. Of course, I then had to get to Montparnasse, but the ticket machine for the Métro didn't like my Wachovia card (even though it accepts Visa), so I had to return to the line to buy my ticket from a sales rep (for whom my card worked perfectly).

[As an aside, I determined after the fact that my bank did the exchange at 1.55 USD per Euro--my but the dollar's gotten weak. Remember when it was that to the British pound? International fees weren't too bad, either.]

A nice British woman on the train with her kid(s?) gave me advice as to where to get off on the Métro to find Montparnasse (because there's no direct connexion from the aeroport). Changing stations at Châtlet--and having explained to me like a simpleton that my bag had to pass before me to get through the gates, because my brain was not yet functioning well in French and I was ever so tired--I found Montparnasse and waited again but managed not to have too many problems finding my train. On the train I kept falling asleep, and I was afraid I'd miss my stop, but I made it to Bordeaux for my connexion without any other problems.

...

Le Présent
On the less lit first floor, I sit at my computer, itching to get up and go to bed, writing for you. Still, I think you've probably had enough of my droning on and on for now, so I'll get to sleep and recount more for you tomorrow.


Bonne nuit!