Fin

I’ve said my Au revoirs and Mercis and I have my suitcases packed, train ticket in hand and ready to return to the good ol usa. (After a week in Paris with my mom!)
Although bittersweet, I can’t say I’m not excited to return home. I can’t believe how long I’ve been here- and it’s really only been about 4 months. I’d like to give a moment to appreciate those people who spend so long away from the people they love- for whatever reason- studying working or serving… And usually from months to years and years. It’s a brave task and when I think back to September, I’m surprised at how okay I was with “well only four more months!” I’m surprised by my bravery to come here, because if I had known how hard it would’ve been I may have talked myself out of it.
I would love to explain every detail of “what the experience is like” but I really can’t put it into words.
It’s like moving, only alone, to a place where you know no one and even when you try to make friends your communication is limited by the language (in the beginning)… You talk to your family maybe once a week, sometimes less… Your friends still talk to you about their lives and their high school drama, but you feel worlds away and although it interests you, you realize of how little importance it is in the scheme of life. You go to a new school and take classes spoken in a different language 100%… You come home and you do homework and go on social media or watch tv like normal, but at dinner time you sit with a new family and talk about new topics and eat new foods and have new rules and new routines. You sleep in a new room and a new bed and honestly homesickness isn’t even a little inevitable. You walk in a new town that looks so different from home that it makes you say “how cool is it that I am here, living this life so personal to me, so personal that no one I know at home will ever see or feel this life quite like I can” but at the same time you crave to be able to share it with someone, to live this new life with someone else.
I appreciate everything a lot more now, I’m more confident in who I am because I think I figured that out a bit too. I’ve realized what things matter and what things don’t.
Thank you to all those who supported me to have this experience; financially, mentally, emotionally…it’s been quite the journey, positives and negatives, I wouldn’t take it back for anything.

Now here for some photos :

Merci à tous!
Catch ya on the other side of the pond (;