idk about cell phones but I mean if you two already got computers you can easily talk to her through MSN or Yahoo completely free of charge using a Mic and Headphones, qaulity may not be the best but its the cheapest I know of.

First of all, i want to say that i know very little about cell phones, so please try not to get to technical on me. I live in the US, and my girlfriend is going to France to study next semester, i am in college, so i need to figure out the least expensive way i can talk to her. I am pretty sure she is getting an international cell phone, but i just have my regular US cell phone. I will also have my regular land line.
I am a little confused by all the options even after looking through different sites and the forums. I seem to think that some sort of prepaid minute plan would be best, but i have no experience with these. I would ideally like to get a similar package for my gf as sort of a going away present, but again, i have never done this before, so i don't know exactly what is required on both ends. It seems that most of the information is geared towards people trying to make calls from a foreign country to the US or recieving calls from the US, not making cell phone calls to a foreign country.
If anyone has any advice on some solutions, i would really appreciate it. thanks for your time and help