"Didn't your mother ever teach you about staring?" -Meg Ryan, French Kiss

Today marked my first experience with the Paris metro system. As could have been expected by those who know me well, I'm falling in love with French children on the metro. This morning the cutest little French boy of about 4 or 5 years old wearing trousers and a little peacoat was starting at Rachel and me. His mother told him several times in French that he was being inappropriate, but he just kept looking at us. When I walked out of the metro car, I smiled at him and he gave me the cutest, most crooked smile I have ever seen, tugged at his mother's sleeve and pointed at me.

I'm still suffering in a bad way from jet lag. It's going to take a few days to get over this. I'm grateful to have so much time here because I've been able to take today and yesterday to just kind of vedge out and adjust to the time zone, the culture, and the teensie tinsie cans of coca-cola.
Prof. Erickson showed us to the institute building today where we will be having class. It is beautiful and the missionaries who live there seem very funny.
Rachel and I have unknowingly become the Ren and Stimpy of the trip. Everyone in our group thinks that we are the funniest thing they've seen since whatever the funniest thing they last saw was. One girl Fran literally is reduced to tears by our interactions and shenanigans.

All in all I think this is going to be an amazing trip. I've only really had a glimpse of the romantic side of Paris at this point, and I can just feel it all calling to me. Tomorrow I have my first day of classes, and then I have the whole afternoon to dive into this city. I feel like Charles Sumner on his first voyage to Paris which he claimed was a necessity which begged at him his entire life. "But I go for purposes of education, and to gratify longings that prey upon my mind and time...The temptations of France I have been warned against...I can only pray that I may be able to pass through them in safety...May I return with an undiminished love for my friends and country, with a heart and mind untainted by the immoralities of the old world, manners untouched by inaffections, and a willingness to resume my labors with unabated determination to devote myself faithfully to the duties of an American!"

In a few minutes a taxi will be here at the hotel to take Rachel and I to meet our host family! We are very excited and also very exhausted. I plan to spend the afternoon unpacking, sleeping, reading and watching Sleepless in Seattle on my computer.

For lunch I had a mango the size of my head that I got from an outdoor market and a can of coke that was not the size of my head.

In the words of the beloved little orphan Annie: "I think I'm gonna like it here."

French Graffiti: "A man?"

Outside the pretty institute building in the heart of Paris.