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.