le premier jour

9/1/07 4:06 pm (paris, france)

aup has the WORST ORIENTATION EVER. Ucsb, I have to hand it to you; I never realized how efficient and almost painless the orientation process was (okay, I was stressed, but at least it was all my own doing, not the university’s fault). Hats off to you, o-staff.

So, lemme give you a run down of my day…literally, my last 24 hours.

6 am pst—check in at sfo for my flight that departs at 8am. I choked up and almost cried when I said bye to family, but I felt dumb walking down that people mover with tears in my eyes. Instead, I focused on the fact that I would be in one of the biggest, most exciting cities in the world in a few short hours. Ha..short.

8 am pst—leave sfo. I watched premonition with Sandra bullock…meh, it was okay. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Some time in the afternoon (maybe 4 pm east coast time?)—arrive in dc. The evil paparazzi—chris—snapped a few money makers as I walked out of the tarmac. Then we gave each other the biggest bear hug and freaked out a little. Then he grabbed my hand in excitement, but I told him it was a little sweaty cuz I was nervous and anxious. He told me no, my hands are always like that. He was right.

5:45 pm east coast time—leave Washington dc. Chris and I sat next to each other and Maddie and Mallory sat down the aisle from us. Party aisle. We met the funniest flight attendant ever. I tried to trip her 3 times. She was going to Paris because “Mommy needs to get her drink on.” We’re supposed to meet her in the 16th arrondisement in the big Paris Hilton.

Eons later (7 am paris time)—after a 7 hour flight, we FINALLY got to france. I would say paris, but to call charles de gaulle airport “paris” is sort of misleading. Our luggage was delayed a little bit, but we got it mostly without a hitch. We met the really helpful, really great, really smart AUP leaders who guided us down an elevator then neglected to find us. We found the shuttle that took us to FIAP (the hotel/dorm/what the hell is this that I’m staying in?), but we couldn’t fit all of our luggage in. So those brilliant AUP leaders left us in the middle of the bus stop for 20 minutes (literally, they were gone) before finally telling us to leave our luggage behind for 2 shuttles that would take our bags to FIAP. We were supposed to get on the bus. We were nervous to leave our precious stuff behind, but with those trusty AUP guys hanging around, we finally let go.
Oh, we also got our passports stamped and stuff. We stood in line for about an hour and a half for that. In retrospect, that’s not too bad.

11 am paris time—arrive at FIAP. We took a 40 minute bus ride here. Then we walked into the most unorganized mess I’ve ever seen. Actually, I’ll give’em credit. They would have been beautifully organized for about 100 people. But there seemed to be at least 500 of us. And the leaders didn’t know crap. We had to wait for our luggage for half an hour, wait in a line for an hour to check our luggage, and then wait in the line of all lines, the line that killed us UC kids, the line that made us look like bitches (yeah, I’m blaming it on the line). This STUPID registration line was fucking retarded. We waited in it for…gosh…must have been 4 hours.
What makes it take so long, you ask? Well these academic advisors meet with us each personally (500 people!) and tell us what info sessions to go to. Like we couldn’t read it on the schedule for ourselves. Luckily, we got a lunch break (some friends held a spot for us). If it weren’t for that, I surely would have passed out. We were all complaining loudly and I’m sure everyone hates us, but whatever. This isn’t AUP; this isn’t even real Paris.
All of us UC kids had one question. No, that’s a lie. We all probably have a thousand questions, but we could only think of a single one—WHEN THE HELL CAN WE GET INTO A BED?! 3 p.m. was when they would start giving out keys. That seemed like FOREVER away. And nobody knew when we moved into our homestays, either. Sunday? Monday? What time? They were almost as clueless as the eap office.

4:30 pm paris time—I’m sitting here on a bed in my jeans, shoes off my stinky feet, sweating in this shirt I’ve been wearing for 24+ hours now. But did you notice where I am? ON A BED! Ah, and I am happy once again.