Advice on how to make your start to France unneccesarily stressful:

1. Speak little to no French beyond "please", "thank you" and "a little dog". 
2. Arrive after a 13 hour flight at 6.30am to ensure limited sleep.
3. Leave wallet on plane. Don't realise until you have taken a train to the main terminal. Explain in broken French to Air France representative what has happened.
4. Whilst waiting for wallet to be found, break zipper on carry-on luggage.
5. Decide to drive 4 hours out of Paris in rush hour traffic.
6. Realise there is no room in budget to hire GPS. Hope poorly detailed France map will suffice along with advice from Hertz rental man who just might be the same person who plays Jim's Dad on American Pie.
7. Complete above in manual car (it's been a while).
8. Complete above in car with controls on the left - aka backwards. Remember to drive on right.
9. Accidentally stall on motorway off-ramp to keep adrenaline flowing.

Give all credit to God when we arrive!