30 days

30 days until my last day of class. 30 days until my parents and sister get on a plane headed to Paris. 31 days until I see them again. 38 days until I go home home, USA home. 30 days leaves a lot of time left, thank goodness, although it seems so short too!

I just got back from Rennes and visiting a friend there. I got to stay with his homestay family and it was wonderful! A home cooked meal again, though I realize why it is better I left the homestay I'd be huge otherwise!! Rennes was beautiful though and another small town feel. Definitely a college town though which was an interesting experience being in France and still feeling as if I was in a college town back home. Tyler and I went to Mont St Michel which is this huge cathedral/abbey at the top of a hill bascially. The most facinating thing is that there are times of the day where the tide is so high that you use to not be able to get in or out of the area. Facinating and I really loved it! Again it was wonderful to see a friend from Doane and get to know someone else better. We also went to a dinner with a group of French students and some Chinese students. It was a good Chinese meal and the experience was priceless. To hang out and discuss with other students in French was amazing. You could tell they were all in the process of growing up. One day they will have perfected throwing dinner parties and the conversation will be even more interesting. Amazing to watch it all in the making.

So it may sound like lately I've been mentioning my return more but it is simply due to a slight fear of coming back. I know that I have changed which means that others have while I was gone. It is so funny, but I know what to expect here now and I have no idea what to expect when I go back home! So 30 days left and I will live it to the fullest here but I don't think that fear can ever go away, not until I face it. But I simply worry that I will not fit in again! How silly I'm sure..but nonetheless that is the final part of this culture shock and experience and I am a little scared to face it but after all of this, it cannot be that scary!

I got a wonderful gift today from a very good friend back home Kacy! I got some skittles :) but also a note. So as I ate a slice of French pizza from the bakery I got to feel as if I was kind of back home again :) It was amazingly wonderful!!

My roommate is still wonderful and I really enjoy her company. I put up post-its around the room labeling items in French that I wasn't sure of what the French word was. She then was adorable and associated it with other things. So I had closet (le placard) and she wrote like Miss Belle's closet and then for hanger she wrote "To hang princesses dresses on." Things have been going very well for us. We might be getting together with some of her friends soon and I can't wait for my family to meet her :)

And yet again I forgot my camera thus no pictures. I really should work on that...! This weekend we are going to Chartres which has some beautiful cathedral apparantly. Otherwise, Thanksgiving is next week and then my 20th birthday in which I can legally drink for :) How funny! So birthday, then the 13th I will go to EuroDisney (the trip during fall break was delayed until Christmas decorations would be up.) So that is the run down. In between are a bunch of little trips here and there around Paris. I feel as if I live here and yet I know I have not seen everything or even a portion of everything, but I have plenty of time in my life to explore Paris and so many other cities and countries which is the beautiful thing. And thanks to every day here I know I have the strength and ability to do it all.

Love and miss everyone. And be seeing so many of you soon

Sarah Palin

Twice this week I have been told I resemble Sarah Palin! How strange and even stranger since she is now out of the spotlight... Anywho

Life here in France is going well. I got my birthday cards from my parents today! One of them included a birthday to-do list (very subtle mom) but nonetheless it was wise "Be true to yourself and to what you want out of life. Broken hearts heal, but broken dreams don't" And I realize what a dream come true coming here has been. Though no broken hearts have resulted from it, it is wonderful getting to achieve a dream. And now I get to start dreaming of something else, working to achieve something else. It is an increcible feeling living what you've wanted and knowning that there is still more to come.

I don't think I have sat down and really realized how lucky I am. I am not even 20 years old and I am spending a semester in Paris. Some people will wait their whole lives before even seeing another country, and I get to spend 4 months in one. While I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have family and friends and a boyfriend that supprot me, I also realize how attainable other dreams and hopes are with a little hard work and lots of love from family!

I am heading off to the north of France this weekend to visit another friend from Doane. The Doane reunions have been very nice! I'm excited to see another part of France though and I am still amazed that it will only take me a couple hours to go from the center to the north...what a small country!! I really do like it though. A lot of the girls going back at semester are starting to feel ready for it and I agree. Maybe after I get past Thanksgiving and my birthday I'll change my mind. Life just seems so much more like life now, though still a little exciting, it feels so much more normal! I am going to see the Lion King musical (in French) in December! I am pretty excited it looks like a blast!

New things I have learned:

There is a lot of time in the day when you don't watch tv
There is even more time when you don't spend it online
I like Accounting more than French
Studying one subject all the time gets very, very boring
In the markets, some meat (like birds) are sold with their heads still on!
I really like it here though!

I love and miss everyone so much and I can't wait for my family to come out!!

This Journey

One of my friends here is deciding to stay another semester. That, of course, had me thinking as to whether or not I would stay another semester. For me, I think that would be hiding though. There is much to do back at home and I cannot shrug my responsibilities. That has been part of growing up here. There is a difference between what I want to do and what is possible. But, for me, I also believe that my journey needs to continue back at home. There is still much learning to do. I have fallen in love with Paris and would of course love to stay but that would then be easy. The difficulty will be going back to the United States and adapting again.

I really do love life here. Things seem normal now and regular. I have managed to adapt to the life and I am very sad at the thought that it is less than 50 days until I go home. There just doesn't seem to be enough time to complete everything, but I have full confidence I will accomplish most of what I want in the time given. That is why I need to return home and use what I learned and readapt again. Though this probably seems silly and useless for others, it is hard to describe the feeling I get when I think about going home. I really have a hard time accepting it.

Otherwise. Germany was good, it snowed! It was so incredibly good though and I loved it! I hope to go back again someday and I am sure I will. Transportation took forever though! When I go back I plan to get a car so I can see more much quicker. It will be so much better that way! I will get pictures soon I hope.

I love and miss everyone!