Getting ready for France

I got my Visa on Monday. I only got sent out to get something once. I was expecting at least one mistake on my application, and sure enough, I was right. My passport photo was not right. The guy behind the plastic wall sent me to find a place that takes passport photos. The CVS that he sent me to didn't have a working machine, so I had to drive around looking for a place. I finally found a Kodak store. I told the guys working there that I needed photos for the French Embassy. He took a decent picture (Well, it was, I suppose pretty bad, but after my original passport photo, my standards have been lowered drastically) and I trotted on back to the embassy. All in all, pretty painless.

When I went to the consulate to have the French copy of my birth certificate notarized, however, things didn't go so well. The lady took a look and the original and the copy and informed me that I had to translate the whole thing, even the useless paragraph at the top. My French is pretty damn bad, especially when I can't even understand the thing in English, so a self-done translation is out of the question. I sent a copy to my former French teacher and asked her to help me. Poor teacher--she had no idea what she was getting into when she helped me with my application to teach in France!

Today I went to my bank to get a letter reporting how much I have in my account. The lady printing off the letter told me a cheerful story about how a 15 year old girl in her church died when she went to France. I wanted to cry.

I know that I've got things pretty well prepared, but that doesn't stop me from feeling frantic. I can't believe that I'm doing this--that I will be in France in a week and a couple of days. It feels so sudden.

!!!