France, Here I Come!!!

I received my arrete late last week!! Finally, I know exactly what town and school I will teach in!! I will call Charleville-Mezieres my home starting late September and I will teach at the Lycee Generale et Technique Monge which is in the city center. Hurrah!!

I've done some research on the city itself, to get myself acquainted with this new city I've never even heard of. Charleville-Mezieres is a small city of about 53,000 people and it is the seat of the Ardennes region. For those not well acquainted with the map of France, I will be about a half inch away from Belgium and Luxembourg. In fact, I'm closer to Brussels and Luxembourg than I am to Paris, which is a new sense of proximity for myself. Personally, I'm simply happy that there will be a grocery store and pharmacy located actually inside the city limits, not to mention a major train station. As long as I can get out if I want to, and I don't necessarily need a car to get around. Oy vey, if I need a car, I don't know what I will do.

I also did some research on the school at which I will teach. The technical high schools function more like magnate schools here in the US in the sense that I won't be teaching English to a bunch of carpenters. In fact, it works out quite nicely that my high school's specialization is in economics, business, and ISOM; I received my degree in Economics and International Studies in May. I get to teach them economics jokes!! The only slight problem is that I didn't receive any sort of contact information for a person at the school, just the school's address. I just sent an email to the head guy taking care of all the assistants in my region, hoping he would have more information. I need to make sure I can secure housing with my school or see if I can send boxes to them, etc. If I can send over one box full of toiletries and such, that would make such a difference in baggage, etc. Of course that would also mean that I don't have room in my bags for the trip home for all the stuff I will get at the soldes. Yay Soldes!!!

No news yet on what exactly I'm going to do with Dean. I'll figure it out.