As I am leaning up against the South African Airways and Aer Lingus ticketing counters hearing airport employees drag line markers across the airport ticket check-in floor I can’t but think about the home and the life I just left behind. I am about to embark on a journey of a lifetime. I am beginning my European adventure today, a seven-month excursion in France that might lead me to other places as well. I will be starting off in the John F. Kennedy International airport however, for at least five hours. Apparently the lines for ticketing and thus the ticketing counters don’t open until 2pm, it is 12:57 and my flight from Burlington got in at 12:15. I could wait for them for open up the lines, but frankly that doesn’t sound like something I’d really like to do. When I got up this morning, around 7:14 it was the last time I will ever wake up in my bed at 2353 _________ in Vermont. Alas, it has been a long time coming, but the reality is much more impressive and is quite the rude awakening than I’d every imagined. After my seven month adventure, I’ll return to an environment that I know because I’ve lived there all my life, but similarly, a place that I haven’t gotten the chance to really know.

My foreign adventure will begin when I land down in Dublin, Ireland at 5am, after what will be a brilliant flight on Aer Lingus. From then I will debark, and take another plane to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. Upon arriving at CDG, I then will take myself to the TVG, the French high-speed train system, where a woman from l’Institut d’Avignon will be waiting with my ticket to France. I am going to spend six weeks in Avignon, in the region of Provence in the south of France. There I will take two classes, one in French grammar (greatly needed) and the second in the European economic an increasingly important subject matter. During the summer in Avignon there happen to be various theatre festivals, the “In” and the “Out” festival and I am excited at the opportunity to absorb a true slice of French culture as well as being completely immersed. The opportunity to watch theatre is something I haven’t found great interest in here in the States, but perhaps the added exoticism of the French will cause me to have a different opinion.
Concurrently with my six weeks in Avignon, I also plan on visiting my great uncle __, who as an astronomer, lives in the south of France by an observatoire. It will be great to see him as I haven’t seen him since the beginning of this century.

After Avignon, I will be traveling with a friend of mine, SL, to Nice, on the Côte d’Azur, also known as the French Riveria. We will be traveling for a few days, hopefully catch a few breaths in Monaco, and some time in the beautiful Mediterranean. From that vantage point, I will then hope on a train up the countryside of France to Normandy, where I will be WWOOFing, a volunteer farming program. I will be working on organic farms for room and board and enjoying a new French region.

Finally I will end my seven months, or rather split, half way, in Paris where I will spend my semester studying abroad and various Parisian universities.