27 July 2007

Woohoo for my visa!

I got my visa! I had to wake up at 6:20, and the train was late so for a while I thought I would be late, and then after handing in my documents I had to wait for about 3 hours (during part of which I walked around downtown and got band-aids for my seven blisters), but I have it and now I can go live in France. If only I believed I was really going!

Still on my to-do list:
- Find out about getting French health insurance, which I know is required but I have no idea how to get
- Confirm my acceptance of the housing offer they gave me. I know nothing about it more than the address, and the landlord hasn't returned my e-mail
- Finish shopping for necessities
- Get together all the documents I need to travel with
- Remember French
- Pack
Hopefully, when all this is done I'll be emotionally ready to leave, since for now it doesn't seem real at all.

I've found some interesting articles for people who have already read the seventh Harry Potter book. This one has a lot of extra tidbits about what may be happening with the characters after the end of the series.

For lack of a better closing line,

THE END

26 July 2007

Potter Puppet Pals

This video made me laugh quite a bit.

Recipes, Laughs, and Preparations

Recipes:
1) I decided that, since I like vanilla milk but am way too smart to buy it, I would make vanilla syrup. The recipe is:
Bring 1.5 c. water to a boil. Stir in 1.5 c. sugar and 1/8 tsp. salt, then boil that for 3-5 minutes. Take it off the heat and add a few tablespoons of vanilla extract. Let it cool, and put into a bottle. It takes about a tablespoon to flavor a big glass of milk.
2) I also decided that it's ridiculous to buy chicken nuggets when they should be easy to make.
Mix in a large Ziploc bag: 1 c. bread crumbs, 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese, and spices (I used oregano, parsley, mustard powder, garlic powder, a tiny bit of cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper). Toss nugget sized pieces of raw chicken in the bag to thoroughly coat them with the bread crumb mixture. Put them on a baking sheet, bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until golden in color and cooked through.
Both were complete successes! Yum.

Laughs:
A YouTube video, which I posted here.

Preparations:
Tomorrow morning I leave very early to go downtown and get my visa to go study in France. I think I have everything I need (and extras just in case) so nothing should go wrong.

First Post

It seems that I should have a first post on my blog, to say what I plan to do, before I actually do it.
I plan to use this for a number of little purposes:
1) A travel diary, since I leave in 31 days to study abroad in France for a year, and I plan to see as many countries as possible along the way and learn a whole lot.
2) A place to vent, if need be, about culture shock or anything that happens.
3) A place to record little things I think worth sharing, like observations, experiences, recipes, good movies and books, and so on.
4) A place to share tidbits about France and French, since I love both, with other people who love them.
And whatever else seems right!

Enjoy, and comment frequently- send me opinions, typo corrections, comments, encouragement or sarcasm, and whatever else. Or ask me to translate random foreign languages that make their way in here.

Cheers,
Kel Miller