Introduction

Welcome to the one and only blog about my travels/studies through Europe in the Fall of 2009. As you know, I will be studying at the Universite Lumiere in Lyon, France, which is also lovingly and creatively referred to as “Lyon 2” (yes there is a “Lyon 3”). I want to try to keep up with all of you while I’m abroad, and so even though I won’t be in NoVA or West Philly, hopefully this blog will keep the conversation going. I don’t have a clue how often I will update this (depends on how interesting my life is), and I’m pretty sure you can opt out of email updates without me ever knowing, so feel free to ignore this/me.

So for a little more background, after being consistently called a “socialist” this summer while working on Capitol Hill, I figured I had to go to the place where they really do socialism the best: France. I’m off to Lyon, which is apparently quite similar to Philadelphia, and it is even one of Philly’s “sister cities”, although it is also paired with Dubai, Beirut and Gangzhou, China, so I wouldn’t look too far into that. One thing that it does share with Philadelphia is its fantastic food, as it is known as the “food capital of France.” Of course, this presents a strong dilemma for me, seeing as I am allergic to eggs, but hey, that should lead to some real interesting blog posts. I will be staying with a host family, the Rossis, and I’m already Facebook friends with the mother, so I’m pumped.

I’ll be taking classes at the University with all the French kids, en francais, in exciting subjects such as Economics and International Politics. There’s about 20 Penn students in total in this exchange program, which is a pretty small figure considering that we will be directly enrolled in a university with 27,500 people, or about 3 UPenns. The goal is to not stick out like an American, but considering my French accent, or lack thereof, it’s going to be tricky. Is my French ready? Probably not, but that’s why I’m going.

Of course, I’m not only going to Europe for four months just to study, and I want to get my traveling started right out of the box. The plan is to leave the 14^th of August, and embark on 12 days of travel that encompass Paris, Brussels, Venice and Aix-en-Provence with two other Penn study abroad participants, Brian Hwang (Barcelona) and Spencer Glantz (Madrid). However, the French bureaucracy and I are not getting along, and I do not yet have my Visa; we’re working on it. If it is not ready by the time I am supposed to board my flight, I will have to push my departure back and join the other 2 midway through the travels, perhaps missing out on a city or 2 (alright I don’t need you to feel sorry for me). If the Visa does come through, it will probably be a very last minute thing. My next post will be from Europe, when I will be sure to provide whoever sticks around with a full recap of the action, so stay tuned.

In the off chance you want to contact me outside these thrilling episodes of my life, you’ve got a few options. First, email always works worldwide, kitneuman@gmail.com. I’m personally a big fan of Skype, but can’t ever seem to successfully friend anyone, so add me if you want, my username is kitneuman (pretty tricky, I know). If for some reason you really need to contact me immediately, I will have a cell phone with me in Europe that has free incoming calls, even from the States, the number is 011-33-6-27-61-14-24.

Even as I’m out of the country for these 4 months, I want to try to stay in touch with you all while I’m there. I’ll try to keep the posts intriguing and insightful, and welcome any comments that you may have about any aspect of them. My idea is that these posts will help to keep me sane, keep my English solid, and provide some updates on interesting parts of my life along the way. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.