Bonjour à tous et à toutes ! Hello everyone !

We have arrived in Saumur. I want to apologize to those parents who I spoke with on Thursday when I said I would likely be able to update the blog sometime Friday evening France time. After our initial arrival yesterday, the trip to Saumur, and then arranging the pickup of students with their host families, we all were extremely tired! We are now well-rested and ready for the coming week!

Below is a picture in the Indianapolis airport of the students:

During our wait for the flight to Detroit and the layover before boarding our flight to Paris, many students socialized, played card games, and generally spent time acquainting themselves with one another.

We had a brief mishap in the Detroit airport, in which, during our search for the correct gate for our flight to Paris, we accidentally exited security and had to go through TSA again, but the students handled it like absolute pros... probably since they had just done the same process a few hours prior.

Below is a picture of the plane to Paris. It was an Airbus A380 consisting of three sections of three seats each in the main cabin. You'll have to excuse the image quality, as the window was somewhat tinted and had a slight grain in texture because of it.

Once in Paris, and after clearing customs, we reunited with Evie and Hannah, a student who met Evie at Charles de Gaulle prior to our arrival. On the bus, Evie was gracious enough to snap a quick photo of the students (as well as Shane and me). You likely saw this photo yesterday in an email sent by IUHPFL.

We stopped briefly for lunch at a roadside cafeteria prior to arriving in Saumur. Once in the city, the students were quite excited to meet their host parents. We went over some brief information for them to keep in mind (which we also covered in English at the Indianapolis airport). Around 4 pm, parents began arriving. Below are pictures of the 20 student host families as well as the 3 families who will host an instructor each.