Système "D"

I love the feeling of exhilaration when shit gets done. It's a nice contrast to yesterday, when laziness and a lack of transportation prompted me to stay home and do pretty much nothing all day. Luckily, yesterday was a mess of travel plans and bookings and research, so technically I do have something to show for it. Matt and I are in the final stages of our winter break travel plans. So far they look like this:

December 17 - 26: Matt is in Paris, staying with Stephanie and maybe myself as well.
December 27 - December 29: Amsterdam. We still have to book the bus and the hostel, but I'm pretty sure this will happen.
December 26 - January 2: London. Originally we were going to go to London from Paris, so now we have to switch the tickets to leave from Amsterdam. And here supposedly we're staying with friends.
January 2 - January 6: Barcelona. Originally it was supposed to be Berlin, but I'm actually excited to maybe have some sun and to see the Mediterranean for the first time. Plus Matt is fluent in Spanish and neither of us speaks German, so getting around there is preferable to Berlin.

I have all of these damn breaks and they're all inconvenient. Basically, I have a week off every six weeks for both work and school, but only twice (first week of March and last two weeks of April) do these coincide. Otherwise I have lots of time when I have no school or no work. I guess it's good for everyday life, but not for traveling. So perhaps there will be some long weekends. I would like one of these to be in an apartment in the South of France. Who's down? There's also the issue of my two week spring break, which of course does not coincide with Matt's or Lauren's. Although I think I'll spend some of it in Rome. I'd really also like to go to Greece, but I can't seem to find a good way to get there. Trains are just totally expensive and the cheap airlines aren't completely comprehensive. I would very much like to see Venice as well. Matt and I got really cheap tickets to Barcelona because of a Ryan Air sale, so maybe they'll do another one when I've got a better idea of where I want to go and who wants to go with me.

In other news, I had an advising meeting at MICEFA today to map out my course equivalents at SFSU. History of Paris, History of Franco-American Relations, and my job all sailed through, but my oral and written expression classes were iffy. Although I have taken three upper division French classes at home and received two B's and an A in them, and I got a B+ in the advanced preparation program, I tested into level 2 at Nanterre. Frankly, the test was in a strange format and not very symbolic. PLUS, when signing up for classes, we either sat down with a male or female adviser in the little office. The male encouraged people to sign up for more advanced courses, while the female told us we were stuck with what we got. So fine. I'm in level 2, which technically is upper division according to our student guide. Anyway, Rosalie agreed with me and wrote down upper division credits. I'll switch into level 3 at the semester.

Next order of the day is to attempt opening a bank account. The bank I want has a special expatriate account where you make an appointment with and English-speaking agent, but it takes forever for them to confirm the appointment online. My idea is to show up with all my crap and ask. Only problem is there aren't really any account-opening guidelines on the website, so I don't know how much money I need to open it, or in what form. Hopefully I can just use cash. I don't think I can write an American check. Whatever, I need this so I can get paid, folks. I'm putting all of these travel expenses on my credit card so I can pay them off when I get paid. I'd like to do that all at once.