Travel, Arrival.

We gathered at the Concord Coach bus station slightly before 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday after a day of flurried messages about packing. Starting noon on Sunday and going for a solid twenty-five and a half hours — ending only, basically, because of the need to actually climb on the bus — there were last minute questions about what to wear on the plane, what the dress code of the host school was, how heavy luggage could be, what books would make good gifts for les étudients dans la classe d'Anglais, and what gifts people were bringing for their French host families. It was part anxiety, part sharing.

Mr. Hayes had a giant fistful of purple luggage tags for the bus to Logan Terminal E, and possible passengers not in the French class were waved aside to a second bus. The students clambered into the bus, only jumping out to hug friends and parents on the platform one last time, and then clustered in the Cool Kid seats at the back of the bus, not realizing that put them solidly near the bus bathroom, which rendered any potential coolness either useless or embarrassing. The bus pulled out of the lot, and we waved furiously at the platform, hoping our hands were silhouetted sufficiently against the light through the back windows, as we knew from having seen off the French exchange students only slightly less than two weeks earlier that the giant tinted windows made seeing faces or individuals completely impossible.

Not sharing the bus with Concord Coach passengers to South Station or other terminals was useful, as it allowed us to leave a little early, and we hoped it meant we would get to our gate more quickly. It did mean that on the drive down, when the sky darkened with rain and the traffic snarled convulsively, slowing us down to a virtual standstill, that we would still make it to Logan delayed, but with a solid window. We met the Prometour representative at the curb, and she gamefully helped us navigate the AirFrance check-in (which may or may not have been staffed by a gentleman with Tourette's — congrats on apparently being an Equal Opportunity Employers, either Logan or AirFrance!).

We waited for gate E5 in front of a informative mural of Walden Pond, and rearranged our scattered block of seats in a way that better served our social groups than the random assignments AirFrance had provided and eventually got in the end of the boarding line. We were pretty boisterous in the connector, always a good place to be a little too loud in close proximity to total strangers, and found our reconfigured seats.

There was excited chatter about all the video options on the personalized screens, and we were glad that a group of students from Franklin Pierce College were also rearranging their seats in a slightly louder, more public, and more chaotic fashion. The plane took off, and we sat back as much as we could for six hours of attempted sleep with periodic interruptions for dinner and breakfast. The meals were spaced only two hours apart in order to trick the unsuspecting traveler into thinking that it had, actually, been a reasonable transition from night into morning. Most people didn't really sleep during this leg of the journey, despite being told or knowing full well how essential it was to surviving the next twelve to fourteen hours.

We tumbled through passport control and grabbed our luggage from the carousel, and then waited for the bus driver from Lycée Fénelon for a bit, eventually enjoying the opportunity to climb on the classiest, fanciest school bus ever. We drove past field after field of spectacluar flowering colza, loudly quoted Spongebob at each other, and eventually fell into a slim and desperate slumber to try and make up for the plane ride. Upon arriving at the school, we were hustled off to the school library for a quick moment before going to our first classes in the host school. Students went to English class with Mme Barsot, gym, or history, before heading to lunch and a second class. Energy and will flagging, we took a quick spin around Elbeuf, before returning to the school's gorgeous courtyard for a few quick games of table tennis against the underclassmen and a chance to sit on benches and melt into slumber before our host students ended the regular school day at 5PM (!) and took the students home.

Please enjoy a selection of shots from the backyards and windows of the various host homes, and look forward to a smattering of pics of host family pets in tomorrow's update!

 

PS: Why, yes, old people, the title of this post is a reference to the Suzanne Vega song "Pilgrimage" from Days of Open Hand. No, I didn't actually expect anyone else to realize that.