I HAVE A PLACE!!!

Finally, a significant development!

I finally got the name of the school I'll be attending, as well as my host family's address and the name of the person who will have custody over me while I'm abroad. I'll be in a little town called Mettray, which is just a few kilometres northwest of Tours. Here's a map: 

Going from the little map of the entirety of France in the upper righthand corner, I'm in the region of Centre, in the Loire Valley of central France, specifically in the department of Indre-et-Loire, and from there just outside Tours (imagine a little tiny dot there). 

I believe the family I'm staying with is headed by a single mother, given that she was the only one to sign the custody form, but other than her name (interestingly, she has the same name as my real mother) and address, I really don't know anything else about my host family.

Still, everything seems that much more real, now that I have a place and a name to refer to. It never felt as serious before, having to answer the question of 'So, where in France are you going?' with 'Uh...I dunno.' I've been dancing around all evening and bursting out randomly with, "I'm going to METTRAY!!!" All the vague nerves and excitement I've been feeling this past month have found their outlet. I was so excited that, when I sent off an e-mail to my French teacher telling her the news, I didn't realize until after I'd pressed 'Send' that I'd written half of the last sentence with the letters off by one on the keys, making it really difficult to read (the essential stuff I typed correctly, it was just the 'have a good week, Merry Christmas, see you on Saturday' that got messed up). 

A fantastic early Christmas present, in any case. And now I don't have to worry (quite as much) about getting the visa on time. We received the information via e-mail, in scanned documents, so we need to call the consulate after Christmas to see if it's okay to use these in the application or whether we need to wait for the originals. If the latter is the case, we may or may not have to delay our appointment, depending on when they get here, but at least now we don't have to worry about whether we'll get them before I'm scheduled to leave. 

So, yes. Happy Holidays, everyone! And, as always, updates as they come.