Anticipation!

One week from now, our Anna will be on an airplane bound for New York City, and a day later, to Paris. She is preparing to leave on a trip that she has been thinking about and planning for two and a half years, a six-month AFS sponsored study trip to France.

As you can see here, she's got some cash-money ready to spend on gorgeous French fashion, chocolat chaud and ink pens!

All of us have spent the last year attending orientations, reading handbooks, acquiring documents and paying tuition for this dream to come true. It's hard to believe that all of the planning is now done, and all she needs to do now is pack her one suitcase and one carry-on bag, and board the plane.

Just in the last week we have finally received confirmation of Anna's host family and of the school she will be attending. She will be living with a family in the small village Menetou-Salon, right in the middle of the country- indeed, in the Centre region of France. We have been in contact with the family- in fact, Anna is already Facebook friends with her host sisters!- and they seem like a delightful family.

Anna will attend school at the Lycee Alain-Fournier, which is in the city of Bourges, 20km from where she will live. Her host father is a mathematics teacher at the school, and one of her host sisters attends the same school.

We will miss Anna so much while she is gone, but it is good to know she will be with a family that seems so much like ours, and that she will be making friends and learning the language and culture in ways only living there afford, something I know only too well!

Anna will (hopefully!) be keeping us all posted on her experiences via her blog "ma vie en france". If you haven't already subscribed to it, do so, and as I said, hopefully she'll use her writing skills to let us know what her life is like in France!