Day 1 and 2

So here is hopefully the start of a decently detailed study abroad period I'm undergoing in Lille, France. After a rather hectic morning of frantic packing and last minute running around, I fly out of Pittsburgh Airport at 5:30 pm on January 3 to Newark. I then had about a 3 hour lay over there before I boarded the six and a half hour flight from Newark to Paris, France. I grabbed some Japanese food and I swear I ate cat! The food on the plane was good, served rather right away. I started off the flight by watching a movie called Stardust which was amazing!!!! Go see it if you havent already! (yes that means you too Hilly! :-p) Then I slept a little bit, then ended up watching part of a movie that I actually cant recall what it was called now lol and then I watched almost all of The Interview before we landed.
Once we landed, it was the usual long waiting time period to pick up my baggage as it slowly came around. I then thought I had to go through customs there, but ended up not having to do anything but leave! So I thought I would go and see if I could get on an earlier TGV train to Lille since my schedule was already tighter than I would've liked. However when I went to information to figure out what I would have to do, they kept sending me places that then sent me back to other places. I ended up getting some good advice from an elderly couple who also have spent years living in Seattle - to wait for my train because I would have a definite seat reserved. So I decided I'll take the seat and the tight schedule and sat down and waited for my train.
It was a lovely ride, and really smooth for a train. About an hour long, I finally made it into Lille. From there I picked up a taxi to take me over to A.E.U. - the housing agency here at Le Catho. I got there, and after lugging all my luggage up a couple sets of steps just to pay some cash and sign a few papers to have to lug them down again, I had my room number settled. I then headed out to my new building - Sainte Camille .... only I turned the wrong direction! By the time I got to the Citadelle I realized I went the wrong way which took me about 20 min in total due to this error. By this time, dragging my two large suitcases, and my carry on with my laptop bag - my arms were killing me. I ended up stopping about every block just to give them a rest! After just about getting lost again, I finally found my building. The guy there (who was cute too btw!) helped me get my stuff up to my very bare and empty room. He had just shown two other girls their rooms and so he gave all of us a tour of the two buildings (they're two dorms that are connected but are separate too!). Then the group of four, as they had two others waiting for them to finish and me headed into the city for some food and just looking around. Only these were a group of Mexicans who flew in together. So instead of having a fun night walking around soaking in the ambiance of France and the language while getting accustomed to Lille, I had to also get used to hearing them speak in Spanish - which I can't say more than a few words in! But we did end up finding a Subway for dinner although it kinda ticked me off that these four didnt' seem to really attempt to speak French. We then headed back to our separate buildings and that lead me to this update here now. I dont' have internet yet in my room though I hopefully will have it soon! So bear with me till i can be online more often and I will keep the updates coming. I aim to head back to my room and get semi settled in tonight and crash! Then this weekend hopefully make some new friends and just walk around the city getting used to where things are and stuff like that.

Hope everything is going great back home, as I'm sure I'd hear of things if they were going wrong! haha