I have arrived!

Technically I was in France for my first post also...but we'll ignore that for now.

The city is so beautiful! Landing in Nice was an amazing experience because there was so much water surrounding the runway. That isn't my picture, but it's a good one.

When I arrived, Javier from ISSGC was waiting at the airport for me. He was kind enough to wait with my bags while I took a quick look around the airport. I did take a few pictures of some signs that I will upload later. The amount of English on everything was surprising. Javier let me know that it would not be the same outside of the airport. He was right, but it was not too overwhelming. After another ISSGC student arrived, we went outside to find a taxi.

Javier gave a nice taxi driver our directions, and then we were on our way to Sophia-Antipolis. The driver spoke (to himself while driving) in French, but he was able to understand us when we told him that we saw a sign with the building name on it. He even shouted "That's why I'm the best!" because he got us there in record time with ease. 140 km/hr...which is 87 mph, but he was a very safe driver. I've already noticed the first difference between France and the US. Apparently, we tipped him too much. Surprisingly though, he told us and gave back the excess money. Maybe that's just because he was a nice man, but I have never heard of that happening in the US.

After getting checked in, I went up to my room and realized that there is no air conditioner. The temperature is comfortable, although it is slightly hot. I've been here for a few hours though, and I'm already used to it.

One thing that I did have trouble with was buying the right adapter/converter for my US laptop charger. Luckily, Cole had an extra for me to borrow for a while. (Thanks, Cole!) My cell phone has no service at all, which was surprising. Oh well, I planned to use Skype anyway.

There is a dinner at 7 that I should be getting ready for, so I'll finish this here. Tomorrow, I'll discuss my experiences from the first day of school.