Some News

My French teacher had an apt simile this afternoon for how AFS gives you information-- little by little like drops from a eye-dropper. Anyway, I received two little drops today:

First: it does turn out that the French consulate requires the original documents for the visa, but AFS just notified us that they're shipping them overnight to us and we'll get them tomorrow. A relief, since our appointment at the consulate is on Monday. So that's a load off my mind. All the other forms are set, the appointment and the flights are confirmed; all that's left in the process is to actually get the stamp in my passport.

Second: AFS also just gave us some more information about my host family. As well as the host mother, Catherine, I'll have a brother who's my same age named Louis. In addition, AFS sent us their telephone number and encouraged breaking the ice. So, that'll be happening within the next couple of days, and I'll post again about how it goes. I won't lie and say I'm not nervous-- this will be the first time I'll have had a sustained conversation in French with a French person-- but I'm also excited to finally start getting to know the people I'll be living with the next six months (and I bet they feel the same). 

Four weeks from tomorrow, I'll be off to New York. Wow. All this planning is finally going somewhere concrete. Exciting, yes, but just hard to believe, since it's all happening so fast...