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One week from today I'll be leaving from PDX for France!

I don't really have a lot of time to update this blog right now although I do have some very embarrassing news.  API (the program I'm traveling with) emailed me the other day with the link to an online test to gauge my French reading and listening skills in order to determine which classes I should be placed in - looks like I am an "elementary French speaker!"  Pretty embarrassing news, but I could tell I was in a little ways over my head halfway through the test when everything started looking like jibberish.  Guess that's what three years apart from a language does to you.  So now I'm increasingly nervous for my trip because I know I'm a horrible French speaker, I don't just have to assume it anymore!

Side note: we have to send API a passport sized photo of ourselves for things like our student identification cards and meal cards while we are in France.  The only thing is, we aren't allowed to smile in them due to different customs and cultural expectations of the French (basically, smiling is considered a come on, or something you do only to people you love and know very well).  SO, here is my mugshot, this picture will be on any and all identification I have with me from Paris.  Hooray.