Day 1 & 2 - Part 1 - Monday March 18th-Tuesday March 19

We began our journey by departing JHS at 2:30 pm local time to head to O'Hare International Airport. We arrived safely at O'Hare at 4:45 pm and made quick work of getting through ticketing and the TSA security checkpoint.

Our departure was delayed 4 approximately 45 minutes due to United Airlines needing to swap planes. Yet, we were wheels up at 8:15. JHS Physics teacher, Cory Militzer, was watching our United Airlines Flight UAL987 while we were taxiing on the runway and wished us all a safe flight.

I was super fortunate and had an awesome seat mate, Ms. Foerster! 

Once we hit our cruising altitude, we had our first in-flight meal. Passengers were offered two options: 1) Buttered chicken with cilantro lime rice or 2) Five vegetable stir-fry.

After dinner, everyone settled in and most passengers took advantage of the wide variety of in-flight entertainment options. Others started to settle in and get ready to get some rest during the lengthy flight.

Roughly 90 minutes before arriving, breakfast was served in the form of breakfast sandwiches which consisted of a croissant with egg, cheese and caramelized onions.

As we descended from cruising altitude we began our final approach and really lucked out with the smoothest landing ever as we arrived at Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle a full three minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival time.

Our group quickly made it through security and made our way to our meeting point where we met our EF Tour Directors: Eduardo and Silvia!

As we went through informal introductions and received instructions and expectations for the start of our Paris adventure, our road weary group (most of us had struggled mightily with getting any quality sleep during our flight) loaded onto tour buses and made our way through to Paris and our first stop.

To be continued...