Traveling Adiva

It's that time again. The time of me having awesome friends who currently are living (or wanting to travel) elsewhere and have invited me out with them. This time I'm going to be visiting the lovely Adriana, who is currently living and teaching in a little village in France known as Limours-en-Hurepoix according to her, which I will believe.

I'm in my last semester at school and have a week off in March for spring break, at which point I will probably be wanting to get as far away from college as I possibly can. SO WHY NOT EUROPE? Adriana was kind enough to extend an invitation for a visit back when she first moved to France, and I have yet to change my opinion of, "when given the opportunity to travel, do."

At the moment I have just finished booking my flight! It's through Airfrance (le gasp) which is a new company for me, and I'm leaving March 7th (to arrive the next day on the 8th) and returning homeward bound on the 16th (to arrive a mere 4 hours later, thanks to time zone jumping). The (nonstop!) round trip cost me $1,129 and I'm already freaking out about it, but in mostly a good way.

I've got a little more to do to prepare for this trip over my other international flights because, while I don't need a visa to travel like China did, I will need to submit for a new passport, having gone through a name change. I'm not bothering with trying to deal with the little gender letter because that really shouldn't have much of an impact on my trip, past boarding. And it'll be a good run through to see how this all works, trying to travel as a person whose presentation might not match their written documentation. (All I want is an 'O' for other option. Is that so much to ask?)

So right now my plan is to update my passport, which requires:
Get a new passport photo taken
Fill out/print respective forms
Assemble other documentation needed, such my court-ordered name change
Fee
Putting that all together and mailing it out

Then it's a waiting game until I get it back. Upon retrieval, I need to log back into Air France and put in my passport info. Then I think I'm good to go until the date nears! Adriana has promised to keep me updated on the weather, so I have an idea of how to pack.

So France is in my future! I'm excited. It's been a while since I've gone off into the wild blue.

Make yourself at home. Well, as much as you can, this being the internet. Here you will find varied accounts of me going places. I used to have a journal over at blogspot.com but I like the format here better.

This is my introduction post in general, but also an introduction to the very first journey I'm taking and documenting here. I'm going to...JAPAN. I love the culture, the country, and many of the various things the people there produce and I'm super ridiculously excited to actually be going. And to think that it all started out as a joke. A joke that was made by my friend Donna, with whom I will be traveling. We've known each other for years and still are planning an international extravaganza together. Our relationship pretty much stands at she's the Canadian, I'm the American, and together WE try not to get deported FIGHT CRIME. She's got her own document-y journal at lamora to write down her versions of our adventures.

Every so often I will be updating here detailing whatever adventure that was had (probably starting with the 16+hour airplane ride truth be told) and maybe even including pictures. Pictures will display by a journal cut ( like this one. Click me! Click me! )

Since I want this journal to be relatively accessible, most (if not all) of my entries will be public and, taking a leaf out of Donna's book, anonymous comments will be allowed. That means that you get to see my journal and comment on entries without having to sign up for anything. Pretty cool, pretty cool. You may want to let me know who you are though, if you leave a comment and then expect me to know who you are.

That's it for now. My next update will be made on Tokyo time!