Travels begin!

So it's 12 days til I touch down in Paris (or 11 maybe with all the time changes), but I feel like I'm already off. My family and I left for Washington DC on the ninth to go to my cousin's bat mitzvah, we leave today for the North Carolina shore, in a week I'll be off to Philadelphia and then New York for a few days to visit friends, and then I'll fly to Europe out of JFK. But I'm living out of suitcases the whole time. Packing was an absolute nightmare. I had to move out of my apartment in Berkeley so I had to bring all my stuff to Idaho with me to store in my parents' house. When I got to Idaho, I sorted through everything and packed what I didn't need in their basement. That left me with two huge bags of stuff for my year in France. When I packed them into suitcases, each ended up weighing 49.5 pounds (the limit is 50 pounds). It took endless rearranging and re-weighing to get each bag to weigh 49.5 pounds, as you can imagine, and then when I got to the airport I found out that our scale wasn't perfectly accurate and had re-rearrange. But I made it this far in one piece, as did all my luggage, so no complaints.

I'm trying to keep up my French, but it's hard, even just for a month. I was taking two classes in French last semester, and by the end had really gotten a lot more fluent. But today it took me five minutes to remember how to say "on the way to" and I keep second-guessing the gender of words. I'm re-reading Kiffe kiffe demain but reading is not speaking. One part of our brain seems to control our understanding of written language, and another part seems to deal with language orality.

Anyway, DC has been good: lots of museums and bat mitzvah parties. The rabbi got mad at me for talking during the rehearsal (my sister and I started playing the penis game, but instead of saying "penis," we said "rabbi" -- great fun), and I got pretty trashed at the party in the evening, so I'd say all in all it was a success. I've also bonded with lots of cousins I never see and am currently dodging my grandmother who's assigning housework to all idle guests. There's a brunch starting in about half an hour and a little packing (packing, packing, I am always packing) left to do.

A toute a l'heure! (no accents on this computer)

Blogging? Let's do it!

Hello everyone!

I haven't really started my travels yet (44 days til I leave!) but a few people recommended that I create a blog as a more-legit-than-facebook way to stay in touch with people. So I'm trying it out! The idea is that I'll write something here every few days about what's happening. Although I do want to write in French (I desperately need the practice) I'll make sure to provide an English translation. It will serve a dual purpose: to inform those of you who speak English, and to explain my garbled French to those of you who speak both.

So far my travel plans are this:

June 24: leave for Paris, stay with Guillaume, hang out in the city for a weekend, drop off my stuff

June 29: leave for Denmark, volunteer at the Roskilde festival with Johannes (still waiting to find out if I can do it)

July 5: leave for Nice, farm in Puget-Theniers, chez Colette, Claude et Kin

Mid-September: return to Paris, begin my studies with APA (taking general classes in the Parisian university system, live with a host family)

First two weeks of January: break! Come visit! Travels! Couch surfing!

Mid-January: begin my studies with CIEE (taking intensive critical theory classes through the CIEE program, live in student housing)

I expect lots of visitors (that means you), especially second semester because I will be able to give you a place to stay. As it is, I'm still working on getting my visa, packing, learning the subjunctive (I didn't really take French 3), and ironing out plans in Denmark.

Any suggestions? Requests? Thoughts?

Love,

Rachel, une américaine (almost) à Paris