Preparing for Paris
I thought I had it under control, but boy was I wrong. It was a little short of 6 or 7 weeks out from my trip and I realized that I needed to book an appointment with the French Consulate in my region. The first complication was that I wasn’t even in my own region. I was in New York City for an internship for the summer. The second complication was that the first available date for New York City and South Beach Miami were a glorious 8 weeks behind the date of my pending arrival in Paris. After a frantic call to the assistant at Hollins, I resolved to check the website scheduler obsessively. Not only did I book an appointment in New York, I was able to find one 3 weeks before my trip in Miami during the same time I would be there on vacation! Crisis avoided. Wrong. Once I arrived in Miami, I realized all the documents I needed were prepaired incorrectly. Hollins not only misspelled my name twice, but also used female personal pronouns throughout the entirety of BOTH acceptance letters. I noticed this in June and requested to have corrected versions be sent.. but these were the “corrected” versions. Fortunately, I also received an acceptance letter from Hollins Paris, which was accurate. I arrived to my appointment with the consulate early, and after a trying 3-hour ordeal of retaking photos and having everything assessed, the process was completed. After that, it was all quite simple. I bought some new luggage, and nearly cleared Target out of all the toiletries I use. Three suitcases and 1 carry on later, I boarded my United Airlines flight.