On est arrivés!

After a frightening, sad, and turbulent week, when school had ended far too abruptly and our community was literally torn to shreds, the French students of Westmoore gathered on Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm with Ms. Worster and Madame Robillard at the airport and they were joined by Monsieur and Madame Tarter with their students from Moore High and Southmoore. The journey began with the usual bagage and boarding pass stress, then tearful yet happy farewells. As soon an the group made it through security to the other side, we began to develop bonds and become one cohesive group. Everyone got an assigned number in French to help us easily keep track of our group. 

The flights from OKC to Minneapolis and from Minneapolis to Paris were smooth and uneventful. Some students were able to sleep during the international flights, others were not. The flight was not full, so we were able to spread out a bit. The service was excellent, we could select movies to watch on individual viewing sets at each seat, and the food was passably good. For the record, Madame got close to six hours of sleep on this flight! (As she has predicted!)

Once on the ground in Paris, everything went smoothly, but it was hectic and we had to keep a pretty pace going to get from  point A to point B to point C, etc. Everyone's bags came through just fine. We figured out the system for purchasing our subway tickets at the automatic booths, we made it to the North train station in Paris, purchased our tickets for Montdidier, and finally had time to sit, eat, and relax for about an hour. 



Then, the students got to learn how to pull off train travel in France: Get the ticket stamped, walk the length of the platform to the 2nd class cars, load up the bagage, get settled. The train trip was smooth and the rocking of the train with its smooth ride slowly convinced several travelers to catch a nap. Realizing that they were about to meet their host families and dive in to the deep end of French speaking, students were practicing high-frequency expressions and resolving questions related to their immediate personal needs.

The train station in Paris known as la Gare du Nord from which we took the train for Amiens.

The change of trains in Amiens happened very quickly, with a lot of luggage hauling, but we made it with time to spare on our final train. Despite a slight delay halfway to Montdidier that made us a half hour late, when we finally arrived our host families and familiar friends from last year's visitors to Westmoore were there to greet us with a banner for our Franco-American partnership, cheers, and hugs and smiles all around.

The train station in Montdidier where we arrived and met our hosts.

Exhausted, we each scattered to the four winds with our hosts. Now, we are settling in, getting showered and fed, and hopefully waiting for a normal bedtime hour to arrive so we can get some much needed sleep!