35 hours of travel. More than 12000kms travelled. Almost directly on the opposite side of the world to little old New Zealand... And so my adventure begins! Surprisingly the lead-up to the big day was pretty chill, mainly spending time with family. Once the 5th of January arrived I just had some final checks to complete before I was ready to go on my way. I expected to be really nervous about the trip, especially on the day of departure, however the only emotion I really felt strongly was excitement. My flight was due to depart at 6:50 so we arrived at the airport in plenty of time and I met my travelling partner Sophia for the first time in person. I got the feeling she was just as excited as I was despite being a little sad to leave her family. It was nice to have someone so talkative and friendly as a companion for the flights. The 25 hours of flying was actually much better than I thought and I even managed to get 10 hours sleep so time went past pretty quick! Sitting next to someone as chirpy as Sophia was great as we ended up having a long conversation with an Austrian man on the 14 hour leg of the journey so he gave us a bit of an insight into life in Europe before we arrived. The worst part of the journey was probably the endless lines during transit through customs and security... oh the boredom :( Upon our arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport Paris we were told that one of the three bags checked in by Sophia and I had been delayed and wasn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow... Typical. Anyway it turned out it was Sophia's least important bag (she had 2) so we quickly moved on and met up with our CEI handlers who were there to greet us. After a series of train trips I bid farewell to the other CEI students and was on my train to Lyon. Now, I find myself sitting on a TGV bullet train flying through the countryside on my way to meet my French host family. It's 1630 local time and it's almost dark... I was also informed that the temperature high today in Paris was 1 and it's currently 0 outside. Bit of a change from summer in New Zealand. It is interesting to see that apart from Paris which is quite industrialised, the French countryside is much like most of New Zealand, pretty green, natural and frosty. Anyway, for those that are interested, I'll try to update this blog weekly, with a new post each weekend, I'll also add some pictures when possible.
