Arrival in Paris

We arrived at Paris airport at 7am. As we were deboarding the plane, there was security checking out passports and they actually held up a group of people to thoroughly check their visas. They took one look at our US Passports and let us through, I guess the common misconception of the French not liking Americans is not true.

We had taken Thai Airways.

Our baggage took quite a while but I entertained myself by looking around the airport.

After we got our backpacks, we went to find the train. Apparently we had to take one train to Gare du Nord then transfer and take another train to Gare de Lyon.

We also took the opportunity to book train tickets to the rest of our destinations before catching our train headed toward Montagis at 10:34. We had to run to catch it though and boy that was tough with our huge backpacks. We also had to be sure that we were in the right part of the train because the train separates and the front goes one place and the end goes another place.

But we safely arrived in Fontainebleau with the help of the significant other of another INSEAD student that just happened to be on the train as well.

We made our way to INSEAD partway on the bus then ended up walking. The signs weren’t so clear but at least we knew we were on the right track.

We made it!

First thing we did was use the fitness center to take showers and get dressed for the occasion. We’d been on the plane overnight and felt quite icky and a bit jet lagged. After freshening up, we had lunch at the school cafeteria. The kabobs were yummy! But the “admission fee” was 5.47 Euros for guests! We had to pay it since Ron’s student ID wasn’t registered with this campus.

We only had an hour or so before the graduation started so we went to have some coffee and find friends. We went inside the tent a bit late so there were hardly any seats left.