Le départ

Well, le jour de gloire est arrivé, mes amis. I’m quitte-ing la France. All that remains for me is a nebulously-defined checkout procedure with the fruitcake-eating securityman, an hour-long trainride to CDG, and a long plane ride. Also, a croissant may occur in there somewhere.

I’m sad, obviously. For all the fairy-tale crap and intense angst that is the prescribed right of the Student Abroad, it was actually an amazing time. I learned Things About Myself. And things about l’articulation d’un paragraphe, I suppose. And I saw more castles than my memory has room for.

So what have I got to show? I don’t know yet. A better accent, let’s hope, and a hard drive of 1700 photos. I don’t really want to be sentimental yet, or maybe ever, because as much as I ended up liking being here, I know that I want to be home.

Looking at these pictures for 11 weeks is not the same as being with people. Studying in France is like being in a long distance relationship with everyone I know in North America, including my dogs. It’s tough. And they are awesome, let me tell you (the people and the dogs).

Bon. Thank you for reading this. I really liked writing it. I know that blogging (ugh, what a word) is an inherently narcissistic endeavor, and that yes, I just did it because my mom asked me, but every time I heard that someone enjoyed some dumb post I wrote about baguettes or getting a fork stolen by a security guard it made me feel like I was actually making something nifty and worthwhile.

And so I leave you, but only to come back to you. À bientôt, everyone. Can we go to Wawa on the way home?