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