Ma vie en France

Hello all,

Since I told many of you I would blog about my move to France, I am going to attempt to keep my word.

For those of you who don't know, I am moving to Tours, France for the upcoming school year to serve as an English teaching assistant in a local high school. The school is a "technical" high school (I'm thinking junior college-like) so instead of normal high school age, the kids are 15-20 years old. Yikes. I just turned 22 in July! Hopefully they won't eat me alive. I'm going with a program called TAPIF (Teaching Assistant Program in France) that takes about 1,500 Americans every year to do the exact same thing as me, so I definitely am not alone! My teaching contract ends April 30th and my visa expires on June 17, 2012, so even though I'll probably teach over there for two years (they kick you out of the program after that), I will definitely be home in Georgia for about 3-4 months next summer, but I'm not coming home for the holidays or anything before that, barring any major catastrophes.

I fly out of Atlanta this Saturday night at 8:35 (officially tomorrow since it's after midnight!!!) and will arrive in Paris around 11:35 am their time, 5:35 am Atlanta time. I am planning on spending 5 days hanging out & recovering from jet lag in Paris in a youth hostel called Young & Happy. Really. It's located in the Latin Quarter, so not far at all from Notre Dame - a fantastic area of Paris! I'm planning on meeting up with a few other TAPIF participants placed in my region when I get there, so it'll be nice to see some friendly faces! Getting around when I first get there should be really interesting because I'm taking two suitcases AND a carry-on. And I refuse to take a cab from the airport because it costs 50 euros. I am just crossing my fingers that I can somehow acquire superhuman strength before Saturday because it's probably going to end up being about 150 lbs of luggage. Ugh. Pray for escalators EVERYWHERE. But I'll manage and it will be so worth it!

After hanging out in Paris, I'm heading to Tours via train on Friday the 23rd. When I first get there I'll be staying with another English teacher at my school who is kind enough to keep me while I look for somewhere to live. I'm hoping to find an apartment downtown that will work with my modest salary, but September is supposedly the hardest month to find an apartment in France because that's when all the students go back to school, and they beat me to it. They've been back for about two weeks, but I'm sure I'll find something! And October 3rd is officially my first day of my teaching contract. As far as I understand, we have about a week of orientation and then we are thrown into the classroom. Luckily since I'm a teaching assistant, I'm not going to have as much responsibility as the actual teacher, which is good since I have no teaching experience. I'm usually going to be working with another teacher in the classroom, so I won't have to worry about discipline too much hopefully. My plan for the next nine months is to just have as much fun as possible while gaining some teaching experience and deciding whether or not it's something I want to pursue when I come back to the U.S. for good in a couple of years, which I hope it is, because there are not a ton of things I can do with my bachelor's in French, though I did love it. And of course, travel is of the utmost importance. A few countries on the list are Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. I'm thinking celebrating my Bavarian heritage during Germany's Oktoberfest sounds like a fantastic idea. It's going to be a whirlwind adventure, for sure. I am starting to get really nervous, but I really cannot imagine myself doing anything different with this time after college and I can hardly wait to see what awaits me over the next year.

As far as staying in touch, my American cell phone won't work over there, so facebook or skype are really the best ways to go! No idea when I'll have internet access again, but hopefully à bientôt, mes amis!