A Huge Stack.

Of papers that is! This morning, as I don't go into work now till my mom comes home to pick me up, I cleaned out my super messy room and assembled all of my papers for France. It's a huge stack of about 50 pages. Pretty ridiculous. But then again it is a life. All those papers are needed, plus more, to prove you are a person in France.

On the way home from work last night we stopped off at the bookstore and I finally found a good guide book for the south of France. Most only include Provence and Cote D'Azur. Not what I need. And the books that typically include the Languedoc have only a page on Montpellier. Even the Michelin only had three pages with very little info on things I'll want to check out.

But Cadogan Guides publishes a pretty informative "South of France" which includes all of the south. I mean from Spain all the way to Italy! It was only 20$, compared to tiny guide books that are a few bucks more that have so much less. It has 13 pages on Montpellier, including a full-page map of the city center. I plan on getting a city map from the tourist office or buying a nice one when I get there. I wish Moleskine made a city guide for Montpellier. I used one in San Francisco over spring break and it was the handiest thing ever. It had places to write addresses and reflections as well as really detailed maps with every street marked.

Anyway, this guide also has a hefty front section with local history and culture for the south. Pretty handy if you ask me! I'll definitely read it when I get a chance.

I also picked up a tiny guide book for Paris. Only being there 7 days (after travel) doesn't leave me much time to see anything more than the really big sites, the ones I've learned about for years in French class. So I got a bare basics one made by Knopf in their Mapguides series. It has 8 fold-out pages of maps and the main sites marked. Plus a subway map and general info. For instance, the Louvre is free for under 26ers on Fridays. So I think we'll be going there Friday!

Last night I wrote down a list of the places I want to see and thought about how we could get to see them all. I really would like to see Versailles but that might be a stretch as it's pretty far away and kind of expensive. I think they're having a special event there while we'll be in Paris but I'm not sure exactly.

And by we I mean a ragtag group! Lukas from Germany is coming and meeting me in Paris and we'll be staying together in Hotel de Belfort, over by the Pere Lachaise cemetery. Kind of a bit east of where we wanted to be but it's a steal money wise. Then there's Sebastien, who lives in Paris and goes to the Sorbonne. He studied at Hendrix two years ago. Then Julie, another Hendrix student, is staying with Sebastien for the week. She's on her way to go study in Germany, at the uni of another former Hendrix exchange student, Dominik, who came the same year as Sebastien. Julie and Sebastien are going to visit him, leaving the day after I have to be in Montpellier.

There's also a slight possibility that there might be another Lukas, from Austria, to join us. I haven't heard back from him yet but that would be a lot of fun to see him. He was an exchange student last year and we took economics together. We were neck and neck for the highest score and ended out being exactly even at the end of the semester. Though we did make a little game out of it!

Still in the book realm, I finally got my copy of Cultural Misunderstandings by Raymonde Carroll. I sadly had to get the translated version as the French version was really expensive. I haven't read more than a page but it looks really interesting.

So today is the first of August. It felt like this month would never get here. August always seemed so far away. I've waited about nine years to go to France, ever since I first started studying it. My fantasy trip was never given an exact date till recently and until August hit, it sure didn't feel like I am really going away to France for a year.

I remember starting college and saying I was done studying French. I moved on to German. I sucked at German, more really studying German. So I switched to French back mid-semester. Hated the class because poor Pierre was sick and didn't really teach. Told myself I wouldn't continue. But I did. Huh, how about that?