My Second Day In France

I have been in France for almost two days now and was out of touch with everyone for 1 and 1/2 of them. It felt like a year. It's crazy how much you become accustomed to constantly being able to get ahold of everyone. Suddenly I had no working cell phone, no internet, and my calling card only had 12 minutes on it. It felt like torture and then I realized that it's been only a day and a half. That's nothing. But now I have the internet. So it's going to be ok. The flight here was ok. The first half from Newark to Paris was wonderful. I got to watch movies and spread out since no one was beside me. It went by really fast. Then we got to de Gaulle airport, the most confusing airport ever I think. We struggled to find where we needed to go, went through 18 security gates that all seemed pointless since they emptied out into...nothing. Then we sat there for 3 hours. I had not slept on the plane and suddenly it was 6 hours later than before. I am dazed. The next flight from Paris to Montpellier went well too. Except at this point I was aware that I was blaringly American and for the first time, I felt like a true foreigner. I have never been a foreigner before and it's a weird feeling being completely out of place. We don't know any of the small mannerisms and we don't know what mannerisms point us out as American. But they know. So then we got to the dorm in this run down part of town that has nothing in it, barely a shop. Which after not sleeping for 24 hours, being completely homesick, not eating for the whole day and being completely overwhelmed by France, was not encouraging. I felt horrible, exhausted. We walked around town a little and I was in an even worse mood. The dorm rooms themselves are really nice: single rooms, bathrooms, and kitchenettes. But they have NOTHING in them. No tv, had no internet, nothing to do. NOTHING TO DO. I was completely homesick and I had nothing to do to take my mind off my missing Jake and my family. I could not sleep without waking up every 20 minutes and feeling completely and totally alone. Awful. I wanted to go home so bad. I finally got to sleep after midnight my time (6:00pm back home). I woke up this morning feeling a little better but still horribly homesick. Took the french placement exam, oral exam, ate a buffet lunch, and went downtown. It is beautiful down there. Beautiful. Well I think we are going out for some drinks now. I will write again later!