I'm here!

I'm alive. I'm happy. I'm jetlagged, my hair is dirty, but, damnit, I'm here.

For proof, see below image that I just took on my balcony:

I arrived yesterday (Tuesday) morning 45min earlier than scheduled (thank you, tailwind) from JFK into Nice. After a wonderfully sunny day-and-a-half on the ground here, it is now late afternoon on Wednesday and I just returned from a quick trip to Antibes to buy a new printer cartridge and four reams of paper - all of which I carried back to JLP by my lonesome. So, basically, I am She-Woman.

Namita (our French colleague) also arrived yesterday from her home in Avignon, as she does every year, to help me set everything up has at the beginning of the program. She is a native French-speaker and her negotiation skills for room rates at our student residence (where I stay) and the local apartments for professors is unparalleled. Her expertise comes in very handy in the days before the students arrive as she and I set up the housing for everyone, arrange catering for the 'opening dinner' we hold for the students on Monday night after they arrive, etc. She also delivers all of the 30-some-odd French cell phones we loan to our students/professors that she stores at her home in Avignon during the off-season.

Anyway, after a busy 24-hours of hitting the ground running with her in all of our planning efforts, Namita has left for the day to go stay with some friends of hers in Nice for the night. Apparently they were able to get tickets to a Classical music concert going on in Monaco tonight, so she and her friends will attend that together before she arrives back here in Juan-Les-Pins to get back to work with me tomorrow morning.

The rest of my evening looks relaxing! I can finally unpack, get everything settled in my apartment, shower (with soap & shampoo, at long last!!), BLOG, and begin the process of creating/printing the Orientation packets I will give to each student upon their arrival this weekend. Perhaps I'll even squeeze in a little pilates on my balcony at sunset - oh la la!

For now, though, I am snacking on some Comte cheese, watching live coverage on CNN (the only English channel I get) of Obama arriving at Engine 54 in NYC (a fire station that lost 15 men on 9/11) to deliver a private speech in the wake of Bin Laden's capture/killing. Oh, and I'm uploading some other photos to use on this blog - so, stay tuned.

I plan to work BACKWARDS from today to get you up to speed on the last 36 hours of my life. Away I go...