July 11- 1st Full Day in Paris

Today was our first day in Paris. We hit the ground running. After getting off the plane and going through the passport checkpoint, we had to got to baggage claims and then customs. After all that, we met up with Dr. V in the airport lobby to receive further instructions.mwe were split up into 3 groups and given a transit I.D. To travel anywhere in the city unlimited. We walked to the subway stop in the airport, which was quite a walk, to get to the campus we were staying at. Once everyone was on we sat down and waited for our stop which took about 40 minutes. Once we arrived to our stop, Cite Universite, we excited the subway station and were led to the university. Once we got to the university, we were given check-in cards to fill out, in French of course. Then we had to choose our roommates and sign-off on our room. We then received our TNCIS i.d. cards and had to sign off on our perdiem. Then we were told to take our luggage inside to the library where it would be locked away until we were able to check-in at 3 pm. Once we out our stuff down, we were free to roam the city until check-in time. Well, until noon for marketing students. So we had 3 hours to explore before we had to meet with Dr. V. A group of us went to the international building at the university to find food. To our surprise, there wasn't much there. Interesting enough, in this cozy cafe type of dining hall, a bird was flying around eating crumbs too. That kind of creeped me out. Seeing that there wasn't much offered, we decided to test our transit passes. We caught the RER B (subway) to the Notre-Dame area and we settled on a restaurant called Le Fenelon. I ordered a flank steak which came with fries. After eating, we had to go inside to pay for our food. France is very different from the U.S. There are no sales taxes and waiters/waitresses don't write down the orders. They also don't accept tips. Once you're done eating and ready to pay, you have to approach the register. With cash payments, receipts aren't given. After breakfast/lunch, the marketing students returned to the university to meet with Dr. V. Once we all met up, Dr. V took us to Notre-Dame for a walking tour. After we got to Notre-Dame, Dr. V gave us instructions for the tour and left. While on the tour, we walked through Versailles, past the lock bridge, and we ended near the Eiffel Tower.