And the journey begins in four days...

If you're reading this, you probably know me and know that I'm going to be away for eleven months studying abroad.

I'm spending six weeks studying in a town in France called Grenoble, and then after that, I'll be spending several days in Nice, Cinque Terre, Florence, and Rome. After that few weeks, I'll be studying in Seville, Spain for several months, then another several months (hopefully, the application isn't even open yet) studying in Paris, France.


It hasn't really hit me that I'm going yet. Partly because I've been sitting on my butt watching Netflix all summer so far and trying not to think too much (I've done other stuff, too, I promise...) , and partly because my travel plans never seem to hit me until I stick a toe on the actual ground in the country. Even then, it still doesn't feel real.

However, some things have been poking at me and making me realize that I'll be on a different continent in a few days. For one, I've been emailing my host mom in Grenoble. I can already tell that I'll love her. She's been so nice over email, and she just sounds like a cool person in general. Sylvène, my host mommy, has a son who's a year younger than I am, and I also will have a host sister, Karen, who is Colombian, and a host brother, Hassan. I really can't wait to meet all of them.

Another thing that's making my upcoming journey more real is all the technical stuff (that I wish I started about a month earlier, but I've never been known to do anything more than two weeks from the deadline...). I did already get my visa for Spain and book my flights way in advance and book hostels a few weeks ago *pats self on the back,* but as far as buying euro or setting up a way I can get money without huge FTFs so I can not be broke when I go to a foreign country? I'm a bit behind. For those reading that want to go abroad soon, do that at least a month to two weeks before you go. If you want to apply for a credit card with good traveling benefits (I'm eyeing you, Sapphire Preferred...), that process might take a month give or take. Getting euro is about a three or four day process depending how you go about it. I went to AAA. You have to place the order, then wait two business days for it to come, then pick it up. So.... start earlier than I did.

I still think I'm going to be booking train tickets for traveling after my Grenoble program as I need them, but I'd appreciate any advice anyone might have of course.

For the initial planning, I've found that STA Travel has the BEST prices for student flights. Some other things I've been finding useful lately is this info about converters and adapters, random youtube videos about how to pack for studying abroad (just google them), and people I know that have already been there, done that.

In the next few days, I'll be doing a lot of packing, so I'll have a post about that when I'm done and think I have everything figured out. It's a bit harder for me though, because I need to pack light to travel after my program, but I need things for a year. Let's just see what happens.

If you have google+, you can follow this blog so that way when I post something, you can see it in your feed. Just click here, copy the URL, go here, sign in (if you have gmail or a umich account, use that to sign in, you'll automatically have a blogger account), and click "add" under your Reading List, and paste the URL.

I'll have tons of pictures up, and I'll try to post about once a week. I'm going to try to minimize facebook use while abroad, so this blog might be the best way to contact me.

I'll miss all of you guys!