Interim details

Salut! Since I last wrote, I have received my work contract, made my consulate appointment to get my long-stay work visa, and booked my flight to France. It sounds somewhat exciting, but really has just involved me obsessively checking Kayak, the consulate website, and the mailbox for the last month. I'm in the Facebook group for the Strasbourg académie, and saw people posting that they were receiving their work contracts about two weeks ago--could mine be on its way??? Sure enough, I received my contract that Saturday, which was soooo much earlier than I had been anticipating. I am placed in two lycées (high schools) in a tiny little village called Guebwiller. It's at the foot of the Vosges Mountains, about equidistant from Colmar and Mulhouse. At this point, I'm going to plan on trying to live in Colmar or Mulhouse and then taking the bus to Guebwilller when I'll be teaching as it's only about a 20 minute commute. I'll be headed to the French consulate in Chicago at the end of July with my mom-so glad this can be taken care of ASAP! I have been so anxious to get that appointment scheduled and out of the way.

I don't know if any of you have heard of the whole Brexit...thing? No? The UK is leaving the EU and I don't really understand the technical ramifications, but I dooooo know that it made the prices of airline tickets to France and London about $500 cheaper than they have been for the last month. Thus, this morning, I purchased a round-trip flight to France. I'm leaving September 21st and returning home in early May. I based the dates off of whatever was cheapest and closest to when I wanted to come and go. This means I'll have a bit more than a week at the beginning and the end of my trip to do whatever I please. The first free week will obviously be spent getting situated and finding an apartment, but the last week should be fun! I'm hoping to make it some kind of vacation or simply a relaxing getaway before I go back to reality. No such thing as being bored with free time in Europe, right?

Everything is feeling so real and official! I have 87 days until I leave for France. Utter. Insanity. More details to come later this summer on how I'm finagling all of the finer details.

Til then, à bientôt!