I am sorry, yet again, for the lack of updates, I have both been very busy and not had internet. To summarize my orientation:

Orientation in NY was very very boring. It took forever and they told us nothing useful, we played lots of silly games and watched several movies all basically telling us that "things will be different there, just try and you can do it and at the end of it all you will finally understand." Thanks, I kinda got that the first time you said it, but you know, no harm.
We took, I think, the biggest plane in the world to Paris. It was very very cool. There were about a 150 of us on the plane, and we had all been laughing that the plane would be dominated by yellow. Not the case! If I remember correctly, it held something like 1,200 people, maybe more. They had TVs on the back of each seat from which we could watch the plane take off and land from cameras in the nose and tail of the plane, and during the flight we could watch TV, a large assortment of movies, or listen to music from the TV (thank god for Pink Floyd, oh and Kira? They also had Mika) I slept for a few hours, but not much and many of my friends didn't sleep at all. It was 8 o'clock in the morning when we got to Paris.
We stayed in a hostel (I think) with the 150 Americans, the Australians, the groups from New Zealand and Germany, and a few people from Latvia, Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic (I tested out my very limited Czech on them Anna).
Everyone smokes. People from English-speaking countries (America, New Zealand and Australia) don't, but everyone else does as far as I can tell. It seems a little bizare for me, but my friend Krista said it was just a part of the culture in Latvia. Also, drinking age is very different- here the legal age is 18 now (though nobody cares) and some girls from Switzerland were complaining because they were very happy that they had been able to legally walk into a store and buy beer back home (at age 16) so all the rules are much more lax for that. However, I was talking with an AFS volunteer and he says that they think it is better this way because everyone learns to drink in moderation and to control themselves whereas in America people get wasted and then still try to drive. Interesting conversation- he talked alot about the differences between our culture and theirs, for instance, here you can go to college for no more than 400 Euros.
I said good-bye to many of my friends Tuesday night, and the rest Wednesday morning. Everyone was very excited to see their families. My group left just after 10, and I never really saw a clock but I think, stops included, it took us 6 hours by bus to get to Anjou, a beautiful town that is very typical of what you think of for Provincial French towns. Sarah and her mother Malika were there to greet me with Rayanne in the car, and we all left very quickly. We got a little lost on the way home, but made it.
They/we live in an apartment in the middle of Lyon. It is very different from what I have seen in America, but very nice- I love it here. I don't think they have air conditioning, and I am yet to see fans, but you don't need it. They leave the windows open (they don't have screens either) and I find it more comfortable even than my house. It isn't as cold but I am rarely uncomfortable and I love to be able to lean out the window, here the cars pass by and look out over the rooftops.
I am slow to understand things, Sarah is the easiest for me to understand so far, and often when I don't understand something they will gesture to Sara who will explain it to me slower than they had said it. Everyone though is very kind.
I am no longer vegetarian, by the way, but it doesn't bother me here so much. I don't especially like it but Malika fixes everything herself and everything is very good although she gives me too much food.
Love and miss you all.