disclaimer: sometimes, i think i'm david sedaris, and try to write like him. this is why it's so long for only three days. you can skim it and i promise, i'll get to the exciting parts soon. love to everyone who's reading this!!

tuesday (mardi):

stuck in the airport. too much luggage. read an entire book. boston to rek-kef.

wednesday (mercredi):

going through customs at 1230am. everyone is blond and/or bearded, females included. thirty minutes till the plane to paris leaves, and i am standing in my socks behind a very pissed off parisian man who cannot believe we have to go through customs again. apparently when you go from a non-eu country to an eu country, customs changes. why can't it be the same everywhere? at least i didn't get the full body grope this time like in logan. i decided to take off my money belt this time instead of trying to explain myself to sven in icelandic. 

side note: everything in icelandair is said first in icelandic, then in english, then in french. i die laughing every single time i hear a word of icelandic. it sounds exactly what beans sounds like when she yells in her sleep. but when i hear my name, very strongly accented, amidst the icelandic, i do not die laughing; i simply die. every passenger making the connection to paris was called because we were delayed in logan, and now we have approx 10 min to get on the plane. i'm pushing my way through customs, almost forgetting my shoes, getting my passport stamped, and i book it to gate 4 where i am again behind the pissed parisian. at this point, i am sweating profusely, exhausted, and filled with adrenaline because i do NOT WANT to be stuck in iceland. there is literally nothing there besides the airport. nothing. but they are playing bjork in the terminal. iceland's one claim to fame. 

there is a french family behind me with 42524 kids, and every one of them is more awake than i am. two of the little girls try to escape the tyranny of their parents in line, but alas, they are on leashes. i find this absolutely hilarious. they stop short, look at each other and pull faces, then turn to their parents and begin whining in rapidfire french. this rapidfire french should indeed by comprehensible to me, but i am having trouble remembering my own name at this point if it wasn't plastered all over my visa papers. finally, we board for paris, a three hour journey that seems like thirty because it is approx. 1am in iceland, but will be 6am by the time we arrive in paris. i remember vaguely that i am supposed to sleep, but the closest i get is turning on quiet music and closing my eyes. a little blond boy and his aunt? grandmother? are in the next seats, and the boy promptly lifts the armrests, puts his head in his grandmother's lap, feet in my lap, and passes out cold. the grandmother smiles apologetically at me, and i decide to be a good citizen and let the kid sleep. i figure this is better than him wailing for three hours, or me trying to explain to the grandmother in icelandic sign language that i need to get up to go to the bathroom. he kicks strategically, exactly when i'm about to fall asleep for a precious five minutes, and repeatedly. maybe he is replaying iceland's chance at the world cup in his dreams. 

but finally, finally, FINALLY we arrive in PARIS!! i watch the sun rise over the city and have a fleeting sensation of self-satisfaction (or is it self-pity?) that i have now been up for more hours than i can count in spanish. we disembark, and i haul my 432423 pound handbag and even heavier backpack to the baggage claim, which is harder to locate than wonderland without the anxious rabbit. question: why is every single piece of luggage owned by every person on the globe black? i am painting mine neon plaid for the trip home. lesson learned: cdg airport does not believe in elevators. it does, however, believe in escalators. i believe that escalators belong only in hell. after many failed attempts and many disgruntled parisians behind me, i finagle my two giant suitcases onto the escalator, only to discover that i take approximately 8 more to reach the train station. a few minor altercations later (read: always one, sometimes two, suitcases managed to fall down and down and down only to be hit sadly and repeatedly by the stairs at the bottom until i got there) and i have reached the train station!! success!! 

i get in line in front of two australian tourists who belong on the crocodile hunter if they weren't so pompous (they complain loudly and in my direction about how people should learn to pack and not take everything with them; meanwhile they are both visions in khaki canvas onesies, no wonder they have no luggage) and i pick up my ticket for the tgv (train à grand vitesse - france's fastest train! used to be the world's fastest until japan built one faster... then it got destroyed by an earthquake... karma?) where the guy laughs at my american bank card, asks me why there is a tree on it, tries to sell me the student tgv pass for only 45 euro more, and sets me free. the train station smells strongly of pee (exactly like the stairwells in the parking garage in portsmouth) and i don't want to know why, i just want to sleep. THEN, the station becomes heaven on earth, angels descend from the rafters and morgan freeman begins announcing departures... there are vending machines everywhere that sell only kinderbuenos!!! i buy 5euro worth of kinderbuenos (i still have some left) and eat them until i feel like a human again. 

it is now approximately 8am, and my train doesn't leave until 130pm. bummer. i finish another book (in english, shhhh) and leave them on the bench for someone else to read. i then watch the absolutely entirety of the 2002 john mayer dvd with the extended commentary until i know all the lyrics (but let's be real, i knew them already) and catch a few glorious minutes of sleep until my train is announced. there are four access points for each platform, so i ask a girl who looks like she knows what she's doing where i'm going. turns out, she speaks no french, her plane arrived half an hour ago from munich, and also has no idea where she's going. good news: her name is kim! and she speaks english! we brave the escalator together, and shove everything we own onto the train right as they are blowing the whistle and shutting all the doors. my seat is in a quad with three very large people speaking rapidfire portuguese. i pick up a few conversations, decide they are not portuguese secret agents posing as tourists to sneak into spain and attack, and pass out. i wake up as kim is leaving for angouleme, give her my contact info, and pass out again until bordeaux. 

my host family greets me, and the kids and i haul everything i own up to the fourth floor. my wonderful host mom, nathalie, shows me my purple room and huge bathroom! then lets me shower while she makes dinner. we eat outside on the terrace (because the apartment has THREE FLOORS! AND AN OUTDOOR TERRACE!) where i am offered some weird european beer in a fat little can that tasted kind of like how the train station smelled. nathalie is a glorious cook, and the two kids, jeanne (girl age 12) and sacha (boy age 8 almost 9 don't forget) are hilarious and pushing each other out of their chairs and making me eat everything. my host dad, jean-louis, smokes and picks grapes from a vine to have for dessert. we eat, i am given the grand tour de l'appartement, and then i pass out, spreadeagle, on my giant bed next to my suitcase and toothbrush.

thursday (jeudi):

not much happened thursday, given that i woke up at 4pm. it is deathly hot in the city thursday.