An Interesting Start

 Bonjour tout le monde (Hello Everyone),
       We are eight students who are rising seniors at Pace Academy and have traveled to Nice, France to further study French culture and language as part of the emerging Global Education program. We are staying with host families and attending classes at the Alliance Francais.
       Well, all I can say to start off is that we have had an adventure on this trip. The eight of us together have had quite the share of chaos, excitement, nerves, and pretty much every other emotion on earth. Right now Mackenzie and I  (Jordan) are sitting at a McDonalds in downtown Nice.  We don't have wifi at the house so this is the only way we can get on the internet. Sorry for the late posting, I will try to come here as much as possible to keep you filled in on our experiences!
          I feel like we have been away from home for about a month already, I don't even know where to begin! I guess I will start out by giving a short recount of our airport fiasco ( trust me, you don't want to hear all the details). Allison, Michelle, Morgan, Carolyn, Mackenzie and I all arrived at the airport on time(Claire was already in France and Hallie  flew separately), the only problem we had was figuring out wheather to check our baggage all the way to Nice or to check it to Rome where our connecting flight was, it turned out that half of us checked the bags to Rome and the other half to Nice, all we would have to do was go through baggage claim an extra time, not a big deal, right? Wrong! After a smooth and comfortable flight to Rome, we arrived at about 7:30 Rome time and missed our connecting flight to Nice. We were all a little upset but thought nothing much of it. Turns out that we could not get a flight until 5:30 so we would have to wait 10 hours and not all of us could fit on the same flight. We had to split up and three girls flew straight to Nice while the other three plus the teachers flew to Munich, Germany and then to Nice. The last batch of us finally arrived in Nice at around 11:15 pm and after almost two full days of traveling, were completely exhausted!
         The next morning (Sunday), we woke up and explored the city which is absolutely beautiful. Everyone is very pleasant, the weather is perfect, and there are lots of things to do! We discovered an ice cream place in what is called the "Old City" that we have visited every day since we have been here. We are all enjoying the laid back southern french persona by visiting the beaches and walking around the Old City. We even learned about the history of Nice as we went on a guided walking tour yesterday.
       School has been a learning experience so far, it is a complete immersion process, none of the teachers speak english! We are all in a class with at least one friend, we were lucky enough to be placed together after taking a placement test! We had our first full day of class today and have already met many people of different nationalities, in mine, Morgan's and Claire's class there are Austrians, Italians, Irish  and some other nationalities that I can't remember! That is really all the inside scoop so far but be sure to check back soon and stay posted! I tried uploading pictures but after sitting here waiting for about 10 minutes, decided to give up hopefully you will be able to see some soon!
   Until next time,
         Jordan