My first time in Newark...

Oh man, what a huge airport. I landed at gate 107, deplaned quickly (seat 1A -- woohoo) and checked the 'Departures' screen. I saw my flight to Geneva was going out of gate 95 - sweet! '107' and '95' are close numbers... aren't they?

Wrong. I walked about three-quarters of a mile from 107 to 95... carrying my oversized backpack and bearing a 20-lb. bocce ball set as a gift for my French friend. I swear, the French better still play jeu de boule, or else I'm going to lug the bocce set up into the Alps, stand at the top of the tallest mountain and create the biggest avalanche the world has ever seen. Jeu de boule - hah! More like jeu de cruel.

My flight leaves in an hour and eighteen minutes. I'm going to go grab a couple bottles of water, peruse the bookstore and take a picture of New York City... it's right across the river! Here's individual pictures of me with Mom and Dad. We had a group photo, but it turned out blurry.

Last Minute Packing

It's 7:14am. I have to leave for the airport in three hours and I don't have anything packed in my suitcase -- because, upon attempting to open it, I discovered that the code on the little rolling numbers lock has been changed to some unknown number. Every family member was consulted, and a couple tried their hand at unlocking it, but we still came up short. Mom and Dad are out trying to find something suitable, at a major nationwide discount store.

Mom and I spent $84 yesterday at the same store, on things like yellow legal pads, a new Garfield movie and Reeses Cups. Actually, I'm only taking one of those items with me - the other two (along with a dozen more) were for the youngest member of the family; we had a surprise birthday party for him... in Dad's van, which he adores because of its flip-down TV and comfortable floor. No joke. He was thrilled when he opened the sliding door and was greeted with shouts of 'Surprise!'

I sold my car last night, too. Please be respectful and observe a moment of silence for my fallen Bavarian beauty. Thank you, brothers and sisters. I had Dad take a couple pictures before we left, so I'll post one of those sometime. Don't laugh.

I think I have a roommate lined up - she's a 24-year-old human resources student, likes to study in a quiet environment and enjoys hockey games. I'll be paying her cash under the table, and my name won't be on the lease, so I'll have to stay on her good side if I don't want to be evicted.

During the course of my stay, I will never have more money than I have right now... and I'm going to spend it all, without any real way of making more. Uh-oh. It's going to be a first few weeks of frugal living, I suspect. I'm looking forward to getting my student card; with it, cafeteria/on-campus restaurant meals cost a mere 2.50 euros. (At current exchange rates, that's $3.06 USD.)

I received an e-mail this morning from easyJet, the discount airline I'm taking from Geneva to Nice. Here's what it said:

easyJet has been advised of road closures around Geneva Airport between the hours of 00.01 until 05.00. As a result the French entrance to the aiport will be closed every night until 26 August 2005. We would therefore like to advise passengers flying with easyJet from Geneva to Nice or Paris Orly to leave sufficient time to travel to the airport.

If you don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I'm stranded in Geneva.

The countdown continues

I only have 64 hours left in Indiana before I begin my junior year of college abroad in France. On Tuesday, I fly to Newark and then Geneva, and then catch a flight on discount airline EasyJet to Nice. There, the sister and roommate of a penpal I've been corresponding with for almost two years will be waiting for me, to take me to my friend's family residence in the French Riviera resort town of St. Tropez. I'll spend a few days there -- I think. (My friend uses a fair bit of French slang and I often have to ask him to re-phrase certain expressions.) I'm fairly certain that the destination is set in stone; it's kind of hard to mistranslate St. Tropez into something freaky like... Bratislava.

I've begun packing... barely. Everyone thinks I should pack as light as possible, so I'm going to strive for the bare essentials. A few pairs of jeans, several nice shirts, a bevy of boxers and socks, two swimming shorts and perhaps three or four pairs of shoes. Besides my clothes, I'm bringing my laptop, iPod and digital camera, a notebook, tape recorder, French-French and French-English dictionaries, toiletries and the latest Economist and Atlantic Monthly. The temperature there is still pleasant - I need to convince Mom and Dad to ship me my winter clothes once it starts getting chilly.

The whole idea of leaving still feels surreal. I don't know when the reality will set in. Hopefully I can suspend any feelings of homesickness until I at least have a place to stay in Grenoble. Heh. Procrastination (coupled with French regional housing agency incompetence) has left me in a transient state, but I plan on compiling a list of possible apartments/roommates and "interviewing" them after I book a hotel for a few nights.

I plan on just taking my American credit/debit cards and using them to obtain optimal exchange rates. ATM fees should be nominal, if I only use them rarely. Fortunately, the euro's dropped about 8-10% over the summer, so that aids my financial situation, too. I've already purchased my cellphone off eBay and I simply need to buy a SIM card to activate it in France.

Mom's calling me, off to my... third-to-last dinner at home.