I finally received the much-anticipated phone call from Guillaume last night, while having coffee with friends, to inform me that he had arrived safely in the city of angels. It was about an hour after he arrived and you could tell his face was beaming with excitement the whole length of the conversation. The call was brief because he doesn't have a cell phone set-up yet and was running out of quarters for the pay phone. From what I gathered, he was picked up by two Canadians who he described as being "very, very cool" (a relief since I've never met a proper Canadian and was a little worried about what they'd think of a very American French guy...but, admittedly, my worry was slightly artificial, knowing that Guillaume gets along with everyone he meets). He said the flight was good and he's shacking up at the local Holiday Inn for now until he can arrange for an apartment (that's a whole other story that merits its own blog someday), but he made it clear to me that they were all going out to a bar and he was thrilled about it.
I was a little disappointed with such a short call, but I was very happy to hear that he arrived safely and was in very good spirits. I'm realizing, waking up this morning, that it's much more difficult to be apart from him when he's so freakin' close than when he's an ocean away. I've got to adapt for the next week to our new time difference. Instead of his schedule being 7 hours ahead, he's now 2 hours behind. So, for instance, waking up this morning, we'd usually have a nice long web-cam chat over Messenger or Skype, while he was in the late afternoon of his day; I'd go about my day afterwards, he'd go out with friends in the evening and we'd have another - much briefer - call anywhere between 5 and 8pm just as he was going to bed and I was getting ready to go out. Guillaume is, by no means, an early-to-rise kinda guy...he loves his sleep and could sleep for 18 hours straight if given the chance, so this new waiting game I'm going to have to play for the next week is going to be predictably torturous! Besides this, we will be in polar opposite mentalities this week as he begins a new job and exploring a new city, making new friends, while I'm wrapping up my time at work and with friends, hurriedly packing and preparing for interviews and the big move (which I'm totally unprepared for at the mo).
It's undoubtedly going to be a tough week, but I'll try to remain focused on the light at the end of the tunnel that's only 6 days away now. Wow.