Jour un

My first day in Paris was quite awful, honestly. I basically cried all day. I missed my friends, my family, Starbucks, PCC, I even missed seeing fat Americans in drive-thru lines. I wondered why I thought it was a good idea to ever leave Seattle, land of beauty and perfection (or so it seemed as I wiped my tears away). I told Lauren that I was coming home asap. The family I am staying with picked me up from the airport and, I will blame it on the language barrier, was not welcomed with open arms. The family has four children but I will only be taking care of the younger two (ages 10 and 5). The parents have not been very open with me and I rarely see them. Needless to say, it seemed as if this was about to be the beginning of a very long year. We had family dinner together last night so that seemed to be something that would get conversation going and perhaps cause these academic folks to break a smile now and then. Nope, guess I need to bring out the big guns with these ones. Overall, it was a very lonely, sad day.