On est arrivé!

Outside Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

First group photo-there is no better backdrop than the Eiffel Tower!

After a long journey, our group safely arrived in Vire, France yesterday around 4:30 pm where students were promptly greeted by their host families and whisked away to begin their adventures in Normandy. After experiencing a two hour delay leaving Nashville, we were lucky enough to have United hold the flight to Paris for our group for 45 minutes so we could stick to our schedule. We rushed through O'Hare and settled in for an 8 hour flight, landing in Paris at 9:40am.

Our endearing bus driver Dominique then took us on a whirlwind tour of Paris since we had some time before we needed to be at the train station. Many students got their first glimpse of Notre-Dame, the Louvre, and of course the Eiffel Tower. We then ate lunch at the train station before embarking on the final leg of our voyage to Normandy.

Madame Smith and I had a chance to quickly meet and greet all the host families individually, and the hosts seem so happy to have the opportuntiy to host our students this week.

This morning at school Mr. Garcia and I were able to visit a 6th grade English class in which all the students were quite excited to meet "real" Americans. They practiced their English with us, and one student in particular was quite startled by the fact that we're so tall! We then got to sit in on a high school English class with our family stay coordinator, Martine, in which Anna Claire, Jennifer, Vivian, and Michelle were guest students. The students asked us questions about life in Tennessee and what we thought of Normandy, and they were particularly fascinated by the concept of prom.

Tomorrow we will all be together for our first excursion, visiting the Bayeux Tapestry and the D-Day Beaches.

-Madame Garcia