Arrival.

It’s three minutes until noon on Sunday, 20 June. I am writing from a small, cute apartment on the Quai Claude Bernard in Lyon, Rhône-Alpes, France. My windows are open, but since I am on the top floor, all I’m looking at are leaves from the tree in front of our building. If it weren’t for the car noises, church bells, and occasional sirens below, you’d never know I was in a major European city. Looking down from my window through the leaves, I can see a busy street and a wide river. Just beyond that, a hill is covered in old buildings—apartments, churches, and houses. It’s cloudy and cold out today: a high of 52^oF. I’ve been here for almost 24 hours, during which time I’ve set up my room, showered twice, eaten, Skyped with my parents and Jeff, slept for nine hours, explored the area around our apartment somewhat with my roommate, grocery shopped, and taken a trip to the Sunday morning open-air market. Even with all that activity, I’m finally calming down a bit after a tiring journey over the Atlantic.

I left the States at 6:40 p.m. on Friday evening after a very difficult goodbye with Jeff. Everything went smoothly until arriving at London Heathrow: no connecting information for Lyon was given over the intercom on the plane, and no gate number was on my ticket. Luckily, and completely coincidentally, the man occupying the seat next to mine was the husband of the trip’s supervisor. Working together, we were able to locate the gate of our flight to Lyon, and we got there just on time, despite the long lines at security. While waiting for my suitcase in Lyon, I heard familiarly accented English and went over to ask the girls using it whether they were with the U.Va. trip. They were, and one of them agreed to split a cab with me, even though we were going to slightly different destinations. What would’ve been a 44€ expenditure became just 22€, which is, of course, still ridiculous but easier to swallow.

When I arrived at Marie’s, the property manager’s, apartment to pick up the keys, I had to wait for her for some time. When she finally arrived and gave me the keys, I walked up the five flights of stairs only to find that the doors weren’t labeled or numbered, so I didn’t know which was mine. I searched and peeked and, in general, looked like a confused American. Fortunately, there were some people across the way that I was able to ask, and they genially pointed me to the correct apartment. However, when I got there, I couldn’t open the door. There are two keys required, one that looks perfectly normal and one that looks like it opens a castle. You can guess which key caused problems. I traipsed back down the stairs and asked Marie for help. She brusquely explained the door and demonstrated, so I was finally able to get it open.

To make a long story short, when I got in the apartment, I cried and unpacked and cried and read the Bible cried and showered and cried and prayed. A month is such a long time to be away from home and, most especially, one’s spouse. I tried for an hour and a half to hook up the Internet so I could at least email Jeff and my parents, but—surprise, surprise—I wasn’t able to log on. I hit rock bottom. I was alone in a strange city without a way to contact anyone I knew, and my worn-out mind and body just couldn’t take anymore. But before long, my roommate arrived, and things improved quickly. E got the Internet running in no time, and I explained the castle-key to her. We realized about the same time that we hadn’t eaten all day, so we decided that we’d run out to the grocery store for supplies. Not that there was much of a choice: nothing is open on Sunday except the weekly open-air market, and stores close early on Saturday.

The grocery trip turned out to be a fiasco. Marie had pointed us in the direction of a Casino, the primary Lyonnais supermarket chain. E and I absolutely could not find it and, after walking for an hour and asking three different people for directions, had effectively gotten lost. Finally, we found a tiny grocery store that was still open, and we stocked up on some necessities: eggs, vegetables, cheese, fruit, bread, water, laundry detergent. Regrettably, the laundry detergent and pack of water bottles were enormously heavy. Since we were lost, we ended up having to carry them a very long way. Both of us suffered hand damage. I simply cannot explain the pain we experienced due to the being-lost and the six-pack of 2-liter waters. Even today my fingers and hands are sore, the skin’s rubbed raw, my feet are aching, and my biceps and back muscles are killing me. To add insult to serious injury, on the way back from Casino, we passed no less than five (closer) supermarkets. To further open the wound and pour salt in, we discovered after returning to our apartment that the “laundry detergent” is actually fabric softener. Come on. Nonetheless, we’re marking it as a success because we’re not hungry and we did eventually wind back up at 1 Quai Claude Bernard.

This morning, E and I had a much better experience. We went to the open-air market to look around and find ourselves some lunch. We did not get lost this time, thankfully, and we found cheap and delicious food. We feasted on a rotisserie half-chicken with roasted potatoes at lunch and ate some more bread and cheese. (We really have no option on the bread and cheese, you understand, because we’re in France.) The only problem arose when trying to reenter our apartment: castle-key reared its ugly head again. We spent upwards of ten minutes just trying to open our crazy door. It was the height of frustration, let me tell you. We’re going to have door practice before orientation tonight.

That’s pretty much everything that’s happened so far, and I need to stop writing because I have reading to do for class tomorrow. In short, things are going okay, and I am so glad E is with me. I can’t imagine how much I’d be wishing I could go home right now if I wasn’t going through it all with someone else. I actually do still just want to go home, but I’m starting to feel better about being here for a month. And Skype really, really helps. It’s a big comfort to be able to see and talk to Jeff and my parents (for free!) and to hear the voices that calm me.

I can’t post pictures because my computer doesn’t recognize my camera. But I will write more later—whenever the next adventure ensues.