Starting Out

Hi everyone, welcome to my blog.
I'm Julia and I thought it was about time I started something here considering that in 16 days I will be winging it out of New Zealand to spend just over 10 months living with a family in France as an AFS exchange student. I've done a little bit of research (AKA stalking past AFSer's blogs) for a bit of a guide what to do, and as it turns out, I seem to be a royal slacker! They all started their blogs months before their departure and kept up to date with all the preparations and pre-departure shenanigans. But c'est la vie, I am simply not that dedicated!

However, I've made a start before I leave so I'm not tooooo bad. To put it briefly, the AFS process has involved LOTS of paperwork (but that's okay, I actually like filling out forms), various meetings and orientations (which have been fun) and an almost spur-of-the-moment plane trip to Wellington for a 2 minute interview as a part of my Visa application. Each AFS labelled envelope has brought excitement, whether it be a bill for the programme fee (well that was exciting until I opened the envelope), or details of a host family placement!

Speaking of which, the host family I will be staying with consists of a Host Mum, Laure (who at 29 is younger than two of my siblings!) and Host Dad, Christophe. I'll be staying in an eeentsy teentsy village in the South of France, called Burlats, which you can find some stats on here. If you're too lazy to follow the link, Burlats is a village of 1879 inhabitants (soon to be 1880!), not far from a town called Castres which is where I'll be attending lycee. This is in the Midi-Pyrenees region, the largest region in France. Oh, and did I mention? It. Looks. BEAUTIFUL! I'm so blessed to be able to go to such an amazing part of an amazing country.

And here is where I'm at two weeks out: I have officially quit school, and am cleaning the bomb site that is my room. I'm still figuring out how I'm going to use my hard earned cash (travelex? debit?) and looking anxiously at the exchange rates hoping they are kind to me. Going to buy my suitcase tomorrow which means I can start packing! And now it is hitting me how much other stuff needs organising, but hey, it'll all turn out fine! I'm really excited and just want to be there already, but at the same time am really nervous about not being able to communicate as easily as I would like. And then of course I'm freaked out by how much I am going to miss my family and gorgeous friends. You guys aren't allowed to change too much, right? You shouldn't mess with that level of perfection!

Anyway, I hope this blog is an easy way to keep you all in the loop with my goings-on and I'll try to learn how  to add hyperlinks, photos and other fancy stuff to spice it up a bit. Hope it's not too random/boring for you!
Thanks for having a looksie, and feel free to ask me anything I've skipped over!
God Bless (:
xx