I Made It!

Bonjour! Bon Matin!

I had my first French crepe this morning as well as my first French train ride and my first French walk along the beach. I also chased my first French pigeon.

The plane rides were pretty awesome. One old man sitting next to me even gave me Juicy Fruit and showed me pictures of his son's wedding. I have to give props to Bryan for securing me the emergency exit row for the extra leg room on the flight from ATL to JFK. Since I last flew with Delta, they have installed personal touchscreen televisions on the backs of the seats for us to watch most of the Oscar nominated movies and also good television series like Dr. Who. They even had games and a much improved music selection, including the Best Hits of Yanni, of course it was under spa selections.

We landed this morning at the Nice airport and then made our way to the hotel by cab, which are fancier and cleaner in France. No creepy yellow buses or dingy taxis here! The downside was that it was a national French holiday today so the fare was hiked, or so they told us. We were sure that they were just trying to trick us for being naiive American tourists, but it turns out they were telling the truth.

Our group settled in, unpacked, and then found the train station so we could venture out to Cannes to scope our the territory and take advantage of some good photo-ops. I practiced my star-spotting and thought I saw Jennifer Morrison, Dr. Cameron from House, but she had red hair and wrong-colored eyes. Gotta stay alert. I will not miss the celebrities, in fact, I may see more of them than there actually are. Unless Jennifer Morrison really did decide to dye her hair and get contacts... which would mean I was right. I was probably right.

Besides seeing a famous actress, I saw a two-story carousel and Roman Polanski's hand print. There were a bunch of workers setting up stages and whatnot while getting ready for the festival (WHICH STARTS IN 4 DAYS! Ahh!), and so we watched while some men fixed up lights for the red carpet.

Most of us, finally feeling the effects of staying up for many consecutive hours, fell asleep on the short train ride back to JLP, but we're still going to fight to stay up until about 9 to try and avoid jet lag.

I'll try to add pictures to this later, but right now there are about ten of us all trying to connect to our intertubes and things seem to be running slowly.

T-Minus 43 Days: A Bit on Passports

Hello readers!

I've started my first in a series (hopefully) of travel blogs since I'll be kicking it to France this May for the Cannes Film Festival through Grady's Study Abroad program at the University of Georgia. That was a lot of proper nouns, I know.

Since I have begun my serious preparation for departure on May 7th, I thought it would be appropriate to get warmed up for the trip by pre-blogging with travel tips and other general things of interest that I come across in the process.

things to know about... PASSPORTS

1. I know everybody says it but, if you are going to need a passport and you don't have one already, GO TO THE POST OFFICE NOW. Especially if you need it within a few months. Trust me. Don't assume that because the predicted time of your passport's delivery is 4-6 weeks, you can afford to wait until 6 weeks before your flight to go apply. It's not worth the stress of worrying whether or not you're going to get it in the mail on time. Same philosophy applies to renewals.

2. If you were under the age of 16 when your passport was issued to you, you are going to have to reapply for a passport (Form DS-11) instead of applying for a renewal (Form DS-82).

3. Cost of obtaining a brand new passport - $75, plus a $25 execution fee

    Cost of obtaining a renewed passport - $75

    Cost of getting your passport pictures made at the office - $15

4. Expediting your passport generally gets it back to you in about 2 weeks and costs $60 in most cases.

5. You can expedite an already-applied-for passport by calling the regional office and making an appointment or calling the National Passport Information Center (1-877-487-2778) for more information.

6. You need a passport number to reserve a ticket for international flights with some airlines (but not with Delta, I have found). If you are going to need to reserve your tickets anywhere in the immediate future, but you also need your passport renewed, it's difficult to change the passport number on your ticket reservations without having to pay a fee or re-reserve your tickets, which may also bump you to the bottom of the waiting list. So be careful and get your ducks in a row with the passport first if you aren't flying Delta or another airline that doesn't require a passport number for international flights.

Don't try this at home... or anywhere else:

Remember those bizarre beauty tips you used to read in magazines when you were still playing with Barbies and My Little Pony, like pressing your lips together to bring blood into them so they are nice and cherry red for your passport picture instead of pale, ghost lips like your mother frequently mentions you have? Well, it not only gets you awkward looks, but will also prompt the post office worker to ask you to stop so she can take your photo. Just bring chapstick. 

Fun Fact:

The Cannes Film Festival was forced to close in 1968 during the French Revolution when most major French directors withdrew their films from the competition and the jury resigned.