My first blog post from France!

I landed about an hour and a half ago, and now I’m hanging out in Charles De Gaulle Airport, waiting for my first train — to Lille. Not much to type as of yet, but I do have to say that the France rail “chime” or theme tune or whatever you want to call it sounds like a weird suspense sequence in a 1990s video game.

One funny thing did happen yesterday before I even left for the airport — I learned to pack like a man, well, sort of.  So I borrowed my friend’s real backpacker’s backpack for this voyage and decided to stuff it to full capacity like any woman would. When I finally got to my office, however, two of the men there successfully convinced me to empty out half of the clothes and toiletries that I had originally packed. I have never traveled with so few sets of clothing! Hope there are laundry machines somewhere.