It's official: I'm moving back to France. Once again, I will be living again in the land of croissants, cheap wine, and high fashion once more. As some of you might remember I lived in France (Paris to be exact) during the Spring of 2015 to study abroad(you can see the blog posts here). To say that I fell in love with France would be an understatement.  Since having arrived back to the United States, I have been trying to find ways of returning to France. I looked into being an au pair, finding a rich European man, and international internships. When I was studying abroad one of the staff members gave us a list of options of how to return back to France one day. Unless we were a EU citizen (which in my case at the moment I am not), only one option seemed doable: teaching. So I applied for TAPIF (Teaching Assistant In France) with the French government in October- patiently waited until April to know what my fate was- and prayed to God that I would somehow be let into the pearly white gates of France once more. 

For those of you who might be unaware of what TAPIF is here is a brief explanation for you from the French Embassy of the United States: 

The Teaching Assistant Program in France offers you the opportunity to work in France for 7 months, teaching English to French students of all ages. Each year, over 1,100 American citizens and permanent residents teach in public schools across all regions of metropolitan France and in the overseas departments of French such as Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion.

Cool right? In addition to the 1,100 Americans citizens teaching as English assistants in France, many other countries around the world participate in the same program with the French Embassy to get a diverse cultural experience in each school. The only requirements to apply for this program are that you know French (B1 level or higher), having some teaching experience with kids, 3 years of higher education, and are between the ages of 20-35. 

During the application process each applicant is asked to select their top three choices of academies in France and/or overseas departments. There are some rules about selecting your top three choices of academies which means that you can't select every single major area of France (for example Paris, Aix-Marseille, and Strasbourg). But I'll explain this process in a later blog post :) My top three choices were Montpellier, Bordeaux, and Dijon. Why? As a Minnesotan I am tired of the cold, so having the option to pretty much opt out of negative 40 windchill meant selecting academies in the southern region of France. My next criteria was that I wanted to live close to larger towns that had direct transportation to Paris and other major cities within France. The last factor was my friends. Many of us from study abroad had applied for TAPIF and dreamed of one day living in France all together so we selected several of the same academies in hopes of being close by one another. 

So where did you get placed in Sabrina?

Drum roll please.....I will be living in Montpellier! I'm really excited about this because this was my top choice. I wanted to live somewhere that had a large city, was warm (there are actually beaches here!), and that is a hub to other major places in France and around Europe. Though I don't know too much stuff about Montpellier I am excited to learn about this area of France and of course blog about my whole TAPIF experience with my lovely blog readers :) 

So get your passport ready, because we're about to go another European adventure! Until next time,