First Transmission

Quick first update:
-The group flight was the best choice I could have made (except that AirFrance check-in people are the most monumentally bitchy and inefficient I've ever encountered in my limited experience of actually checking luggage. As those who know TravelBen are aware, I tend not to pack more than a backpack because I am lazy and like to pretend like this will minimize the risk of me losing things along the way). They weigh your carry-on and the thing you're putting under your seat as one item; consequently, there was a line out the door of JYF Students who had to pay to check another bag, and one crusty old French woman whose badge said her job title was "Escort" ( to which I ask ''escort to whom...and in what century?'') dealing with the overflow. Consequently the line to deal with that took longer than the security and boarding process combined.
-The flight was as peaceful as one could hope. I sat next to a group of Portuguese people who were awesome in every way and frothed at the mouth when I said obrigado when one of them handed me something. I'm overproud of this accomplishment. Also, in the Some People Should Just Not Have Children file let's add the woman across the aisle from me whose hoop earrings were larger than her four-year-old's head and whose thong rode so far up her ass that it managed to bisect her tramp stamp. No jokes. Only the truth on this blog.
-Arrived in Tours eventually, host mom is amazing, asked, essentially, if we could "bust this joint'' rather than wait for the boring welcome speech, took me home, and introduced me to her equally interesting friend. We spent the night talking about family (famille récomposé, mère poule, faire des soucis), careers, life stories, and the time she got locked out of her house in a nighty. I win the first-host-family-experience jackpot.