La Fin.

Messieurs et Mesdames,
Demain, je serai encore aux Etats Unis, où je pourrai trouver la bonne salsa et les margaritas et conduire encore! Wahoooo!
D'accord... j'ai dit... tomorrow, I will be in the US again, where I can find good salsa and margaritas and drive again!
I am really happy to be coming back to the US, its been a really really good two months but I'm ready to be back. Of course there are many many things I will be missing greatly when I come back home.
First off, speaking french. I haven't gone more than a few hours during the day without saying a word of french and I know once I get back there will be days at a time that I won't say a word of French and that worries me. The last time I came back, I decided to learn Spanish, which was sort of a good idea because I picked it up really easily but I wasn't practicing my French too so as my Spanish improved... my french went waaaaay down. I don't regret it because I can still understand some spanish and reading it comes pretty easy to me, but its very hard for me to speak it. I'll pick it up again some day for sure.
Secondly, I'm really going to miss the French way of life. They find pleasure in different things than we do, like longer meals with family, good wine, having an aperatif (a drink) before dinner. Things move slower, stores close at lunch, there is much less go-go-go and which is how my life normally is so it was a nice break.
Thirdly, the cafés. Here, you can sit down at a café, order a coffee or an apero, and sit outside on the terrasse for hours, talking with friends, reading, people watching, smoking cigarettes (not me, but I'm talking about the French in general), I suppose that kind of goes along with the "slower way of life" idea, but still.
Fourth, I'm going to miss Pastis, I might have mentioned it before, but its a liquor made in Marseille, very traditional to the south of France. I'm bringing a bottle of it home, and you can find it in the states, but It's going to be very different not having it in a café or with ma famille d'acceuil or host family.
Fifth... The teachers and staff. At home, I go to a huge university, my professors might know me by name, might know what I'm studying, that I've studied abroad (typically the french professors), but they don't really know me. Here, in 6 weeks, I've gotten to know both my professors very well, have had a drink with them, one on one even, and feel very comfortable talking with them, going to them in the future if I ever need any help. Same with the staff. They all will come out with us at night, go to the bars, dance with us at Coco Bongo, the only place to find dancing, and joke with us. It's wonderful. I'm going to miss having that kind of relationship with my professors, it's just a really nice change.

(the picture on the right is Martial, our professor for the history of Immigration, wearing my stunner shades and on the left is Bertrand... he also works for our program but he's staff, and hes a big goof ball... and he'll probably read this. love you Bertrand!)



Now as for things I won't miss...
1. Toliets: Paying for them, not having seats, smelling like urine... basically, public restrooms are not a positive experience, in Europe in general. Clean, free, public toliets will be a nice change.
2. The restaurant experience. Okay, Now this might sound kind of funny as I just said I loved the cafés, and I actually love the restaurants too. What I don't love is that the servers don't work for tips. While it's wonderful to not have that extra fee to pop on to my bill, they don't really give a shit when they're serving you. If it takes forever, if they forget something, meh. Its not like they won't get the same amount of money, that can be very very frustrating.
3. Sweating. Constantly. I'm from Wisconsin, I love the summer time since we have a long enough winter, heat isnt even that bad... although there is NO air condition, except like going in the grocery story part of Monoprix, and I just constantly felt... sweaty. Not cute, and well... some people did not smell so good.

I know there are other things to add to this list, but I feel as this is already long enough. I'm coming home tomorrow and look forward to seeing everyone ASAP!

Love to all!
Bisous,
Maura