a rough start...

Bonjour from Paris!

It's been a rough few days, settling in to a new place much bigger than Tours. On Saturday night, I left my bag (and worse, the bag that Matt gave me for Christmas) in a taxi after a night out at our friend Michael's friend's apartment. My credit card, camera, metro pass, and "plan de Paris" are all gone, and the bag too.

Things are being dealt with, but there's no worse feeling than being alone in these kind of situations. Thankfully my phone was in my coat pocket, so that was saved, but everything else is gone. As soon as we exited the cab and it pulled away, I realized everything was gone and in a futile attempt, I ran after it, in heels, on the cobblestone street and wrenched my ankle.

Paris is charming and can win my heart back within 20 minutes, but yesterday, it seemed just like every other large, cold, city.

I don't think I will ever lose anything ever again.

And now, I'm using free WiFi at a McDonald's one block from the Champs Elysee, because my foyer does not have any reliable internet. It blows my mind that a residence for students doesn't have working internet-- hopefully I don't have to do much research for classes or anything.

Anyway, I'm in Paris for goodness' sake. It just wasn't the smoothest of beginnings.

I'll try to update with more positive details soon... Bises!