Normally I loove planning travel...

But not so much recently.

This past spring semester I bought a couple raffle tickets from my friends selling them to benefit their Latin Hip-Hop night. The morning after their event, my friend called me up to tell me I won a trip to Costa Rica! Of course I have been in a fantabulous mood for the past few weeks because whenever I think of something bad, I say to myself, "But Sarah, you won a trip to Costa Rica!"

Arrangements have to be made by this coming 15th of June, so I went into STA travel, the student travel agency, a couple weeks ago. I told them that while I'll go this summer if I need to (I mean, it's an almost free trip to Central America for christ's sake!!) it would make my life that much easier if I could go next June, after I come back from France. I need to work and make money this summer and while with all the money I can afford to lose out on the $1500 or so to go on the trip, I would rather not. She, the agent, said she understood but I'm kind of at the whim and whimsy of the airline and tour company, which I understand. I left the agency happy :-D

Skip ahead a couple days and my agent calls me back after checking with the tour company and said the tour company actually discontinued the tour I was supposed to go on. Now, don't get sad or anything, because they offered me two other choices: a tour through Mexico starting in Mexico City and going on to Cancun, or a tour starting in Cancun and ending up in Guatemala City. I'm leaning a lot towards the second tour, the one going from Cancun to Guatemala City because I wouldn't stay in just the one country. The tour runs from Cancun down through the Yucatan Peninsula, to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and then I would fly out of Guatemala City. Excited!!!!

If only it were next June. There are a few problems with going this summmer:
a) I currently don't have a passport. I would need my passport in order to book a plan ticket and possibly the tour as well. No telling when I will get my passport and if it will be enough time to get visas, etc.
b) It would be a pain to get money for this trip. While I can just take it outo f whatever I'm making this summer, I would rather not as that's going to France. There are other sources aside from my parents from which I can draw, but I would rather not. But then again, I'm going to Guatemala for heaven's sake. When would I go again? It's not like my family and I go to Central America every chance we get.
c) Time off work is hard. Maybe I can get a shorter tour?
d) My parents are freeeaaakkking out about me going on this trip. They are convinced that while there I will be kidnapped or meet another horrible fate. While their fears are not entirely unfounded, I think they should back off a bit. It's not like I'm going alone-if I get kidnapped, they would have to kidnap about 30 other people as well, a daunting task for even an experienced hit man.

All in all, if there are no dates for next June, I'll probably go in about August. That gives me plenty of time to work and make money, and then come back in plenty of time for France. Phew!!

Ahh, Something to Do!

A few weeks ago, I recieved my arrete de nomination telling me that I was hired to teach English in France! Hurrah! I will teach in the Academie of Reims, which means that I am teaching somewhere in the Champagne-Ardenne region. This does not mean, as my dad wrongly considered, that I am teaching in a big school known as the "Academie de Reims" and didn't believe me when I said I didn't know where I would be teaching exactly.

Every day at work I'm doing something that has to do with France. I check expedia every day for airfares. I check the France Language Assistants website to see if there are any new developments that will help me. I've even chcked the samsonite website to see if there are any sales on luggage right now. The other day I realized that I checked expedia for fares for probably the fourth time that day. It was pretty bad.

Tying in my title of this post, the fact that I have something to do come October is more than many people can say. Aside from my friends who are continuing on to graduate school or another equally as noble venture, I am the only one who is doing something of this nature. Teach for America I don't count. They get paid more than I will. They will quite possibly also risk their lives going into school every day. Me, on the other hand, won't. The French are not known for their ruthless violence towards each other. While some may bring up the recent riots as evidence against, no one actually got hurt during those riots. Just stuff. You can be violent against inanimate objects, I don't care about that. But I probably won't have a gang problem at my high school; if it is, it's a French gang. I have more street cred than a French gangster.

Everyone is pretty excited about me going to France. I don't have tickets yet, but my parents already have tickets to come and visit me over Christmas. My friends are all planning on visiting as well, for which I'm quite happy. Hopefully I will live in a place that has room and that will allow me to have overnight visitors. Hopefully I will find a place to live.

More later.