*SIGH*

The highlight of my week was packing.  I feel like I am a refugee as I am going to be living in another country for such a long period of time, and I can only bring a limited amount of stuff.  Imagine going through the entire closet and trying to decide which clothes are the favorites?  I had to stand and stare at my wardrobe for minutes and think about which clothes that I loved dearly.  The ones that were my favorites, I packed them in my pink suitcase.  Yes, my suitcase is PINK!  What an unusual color for a suitcase?!  I purposely picked an unusual colored suitcase so that I could identify my suitcase easily when I pick it up at the airport, and also, so that the host families with whom will be staying during part of the trip can search for me easily.  I’m telling them all, “Look for the girl with a PINK suitcase!”

The hardest part of packing was picking out shoes.  Women know what I am talking about.  There are too many different type of shoes for different types of events.  I started out with perhaps ten shoes in my suitcase.  Of course, my suitcase was overflowing and overweight.  So, I eliminated five pairs of shoes.  I’m bringing:

• Sneakers – Good for walking and hiking
• Chaos Sandles – Good for hot days when I have to walk a lot
• Flip-Flops – Good for beach and to use as slippers
• Dressy shoes – Good for party events and shows
• Cute brown ballet looking shoes – Good for any dressy casual events and they’re too cute not to bring them!

While I will be in France for two seasons, summer and fall, I am bringing mostly summer clothes, and my family will ship a box of fall clothes to the campus where I will be studying this fall.  The box of fall clothes along with my art supplies is all packed up and ready to go too!  There was just no way that I could drag heavy sweaters and a winter coat for two months as I will be moving ALL over the country for the first two months of my trip.

*SIGH*

I’m just now finally breathing and feeling relieved that I have everything that I need to head off, including my VISA .  I sure do have a few touch ups to do such as updating my baby (iPod), but other than that, I am READY to head out of the door!