Le début

Bienvenue au Strasbourg! (Welcome to Strasbourg!) This marks the first post of hopefully many to come! It is our first Wednesday in Strasbourg, so I have much to catch everyone up on! From now on "we" will usually refer to all 8 people on the trip: Me, Drew Calandrelli, Anna Tucker, Jacqueline Coffin, Casie Vanderlind, Emily Phillippi, Sarah Summers, and Clare Garner. I'm going to split the blog into multiple parts, just so you know, beautiful reader.

Nothing too interesting occurred on the way over. Our first flight let Pittsburgh around 5:15 and we had a small layover in Charlotte. I think it was at this point in time that things finally seemed real. I was on my way to Europe!!!!! WOO!!!!!!! We boarded in Charlotte around 8-ish and then were off! Strasbourg here we come! My first international flight was pretty cool, if not uneventful. I had an aisle seat, so that was nice. Unfortunately, I was sequestered from the rest of the group, but it happens. I was finally able to see Looper and Life of Pi on the flight, both of which were pretty good. The cinematography for LoPi was phenomenal. I can see why it won at the Oscars.

Anyway, we arrived in Frankfurt around 10:00 local time (5 in good ol' WV) and met our coordinator Isabella. We then took a bus to Château de Pourtalès (It's a castle. Be jealous) via the Autobahn. It was really pretty and kinda reminded me of home. There honestly did not seem to be much different landscape-wise, except it was all FLAT! After a quick orientation, we spent the rest of the day unpacking and trying to catch up on some sleep. We did go to a nearby supermarket (about a 15 minute walk one-way) to pick up some necessities. For dinner, the group and Isabella went to a small restaurant by the chateau to have our first official French meal, which was delicious! A lot of people took pictures, and I think I was one of them. It might be uploaded later, once I find a way to get them off of my camera. Aprés diner, we met a couple of people from Georgia State who were here for the entire semester and hung out with them. The majority of their group was in Paris, so we met them at a later date.


Sunday:
St. Patty's Day! Reppin' my green by sporting a How-tacular 4-H shirt! Sunday was a free day, so we spent most of the time in the city, escorted by a coordinator/worker/whatever-for-the-hotel/chateau, David. It was rainy but a really amazing trip. We saw a Mardi Gras parade (why it was on Sunday, I have no idea...) which was definitely bizarre. We (or at least, I) learned how to navigate the metro and bus system. We wandered around the city center and sampled a couple favorite local restaurants. The evening was spent relocating to our actual rooms, since we were temporarily housed in the hotel section of the chateau. Afterwards, we hung out with the Georgia State people again. The next day marked our orientation to the school we were placed in!