So, obviously I haven’t been keeping up with this blog and for that, I’m sorry. But it’s now the final countdown. I have just about 15 hours before I leave Aix-en-Provence.

This semester has been absolutely life-changing. I know that I’m going to say that exact phrase so many times that it’s going to start to sound hollow, even to myself, but if you could feel what I’m feeling right now you would know the depth of its truth. I am not the same person that I was when I left the States - I don’t know how anyone could be. I’ve experienced so much, seen so much and felt so many new things. I’ve gained an entire new culture and even a new family while here. 

These past few days have been filled with goodbyes, Hannah and I finishing our Aix ‘Bucket Lists’ and revisiting our old favorites for the last time. Yesterday we had our last (real French) nutella crepes and today was our last Pizza Capri - which is what we had as our first lunch here in Aix. Tonight, after our last dinner with Caroline, we’re finally going in the Rotonde fountain… even though it’s been hailing all day here and will be probably be like, 50 degrees. There’s no way that we can leave Aix without doing it.

Then, tomorrow morning I’ll be taking a taxi from our apartment to the Gare Routiere, where I’m catching a bus to Marseille. My train at Marseille is leaving at 6:10 and getting me to Paris around 9-ish. I’ll be grabbing a shuttle (an EXPENSIVE shuttle) from the Gare de Lyon to the Charles de Gaulle airport. My flight’s are a little bit weird - I’m going from Paris to Iceland, then Iceland to Boston, where I’ll be meeting my mom. I’m arriving in Boston at 6:30 pm EST, and then we’re making the six hour drive home… so I won’t be getting back into my bed until around 6 am my time. It’s going to be a long day.

"You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, I told him, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again."

- ― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (via wewereinfinite88)

I have no idea what changed, by half-way through dinner I realized that I was following the conversation (in French) with a lot more ease tonight. There’s usually that few second delay where I’m listening and then thinking and then translating and then filling in words that I missed through the context and by the time I’m done with all that we’ve usually already moved on. It’s pretty exhausting sometimes, but I’m so glad that we speak French at the dinner table. Tonight was just an example of why it’s so important that we are!

It’s absolutely beautiful here this week. Today I didn’t even need my winter coat - it got up into the sixties! Friday is supposed to be mid- to high sixties with a ton of sun. Then next week is our winter break! We decided to take some day trips around the area and then on Thursday Hannah and I are flying to London for the weekend! Please don’t think it goes over my head how lucky I am. I literally still wake up every morning in awe that I’m here. (Well, okay, maybe not right when I wake up, because I am absolutely not a morning person, but you know what I mean!)

A tout a l’heure, mes cheries.

On an adventure to go find the supposed best pain au chocolate in Aix!