Today I got to meet some of the other API students. There were supposed to 16 of us, but only 9 of us made it because the rest had their flights cancelled because of the weather in the US. I should meet the rest of them in a day or two.
After meeting in the lobby of the hotel, the API academic director gave us all "cartes navigos," which allow us to use any public transportation in Paris for free. Once we got our cartes navigos, she led us through the metro to the API center where we had our safety orientation. Here we also received our Carrefour grocery stipend cards and a pocket-sized metro and Paris street map -- so hopefully I won't get lost tomorrow when I have to navigate the metro from my host family's house to the API center! To be honest, I'm a little nervous to have to do it by myself. I had hoped the other API student who will be staying at my host family's house with me would be there so we could navigate it for the first time together, but unfortunately his flight was one of the ones cancelled.
After our safety orientation finished, our director took us to a nice local restaurant called L'Amazonial for a welcome to Paris dinner. The food was amazing -- and better yet, paid for by API (haha). I had jumbo shrimp with avacado mousse, pork filet mignon with a mustard sauce and pasta, and a nutella crepe for dessert.
When we finished eating, our API director left us to navigate our way back to the orientation hotel ourselves. It wasn't difficult at all so that helps calm my nerves about navigating the metro myself tomorrow.
I'm excited that I will be moving from the hotel to my host family's house tomorrow morning. I can't wait to meet my host mom!
Oh! One thing I noticed about the metro is there is an insane amount of police. Almost anywhere we turned there were police officers. The metro police also take gate jumping very seriously. Two guys tailgated into the station behind us after we swiped our cards and within a minute basically everyone in the station either had to show their tickets to the police officers or have their cards scanned to see if they had been validated at the turn-stiles.
My carte navigo
My Carrefour grocery card
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