Last post from France! My parents arrive today, and after that I’ll be too busy I imagine :)   So I’ve compiled a list of things I’ll miss and things I’m excited to go back home to.

What I’ll miss:

Cheese: Good, real cheese. Camembert, chevre,

Breakfast: Fresh loaves of bread from the market with a bit of butter and homemade strawberry preserves had with a bowl of coffee while looking outside the window, over the rooftops of Strasbourg.

The Terrasse: Eating dinner outside and watching the ducks and stork fly by at eye-level while the sun sets behind the church.

Dinner: Gruyere cheese smothered over everything.  Having an entree, a main dish, the cheese/salad, and then dessert — all cooked for me, every night.

Dessert: Sometimes home-made mousse au chocolat or apple tart, and always the yoghurt, fromage blanc, petit creme, et petit suisse.

The walk to school: passing the cathedrale then walking past the cute courtyard then crossing the little foot-bridges and seeing all the tourists pass underneath in the sight-seeing boats.

The height: feeling perfectly at home and seeing plenty of women 6′, 6’2” and the men even taller.

French: I’m just at the cusp. I can speak perfectly fine and get told I don’t sound american at all when I speak, but I feel as if I’m JUST at the moment where I start to really feel comfortable. If I stayed for a whole year, who knows how much farther I’d have advanced!

The Internationality:  I love the evenings when I’m the only american among a group containing british, german, turkish, french, serbian, spanish, etc, etc.

The Fashion: I love how people dress here. They put just a smidgen more effort into it (especially the guys). Plus, compared to other french cities I’ve been to, they seem to dress with more variety among them. Lots of dark neutrals still, but not everyone dresses in exactly the same style.

What I’m excited to come back to:

Food I know and love:  I have a deep craving for peanut butter on apples and bananas.  That and cheddar cheese with apples.

Having my own space: I can’t wait to be able to cook and bake and dress however I want. In other words, I can’t wait to feel completely at home in my home :)

English: It’s not like I don’t speak english while I’m here, and I don’t miss the language itself, really, but what I do miss is coming across as intelligent. I’m a different person in french — less quick to get a joke, less able to have deep conversations, and less capable of being myself with others.

My Phone: Call me dependent on technology, but I MISS MY PHONE. I miss having a camera, I miss being able to call people whenever I want, I miss the color, I miss that it flips open, but most of all I miss the keyboard. For me, texts are free here, and subsequently I text all the time. The only problem is that it is very difficult to text on this janky italy piece-of-crap phone. The keys don’t respond and there’s no T9.  God I can’t wait to have my real phone.

My friends in Portland:  They get me more than my international friends — I mean, obviously. I’ve known them for longer and everything’s in English. I love the people I’ve met here, but I can’t wait to just hang out, doing nothing, with everyone in PDX!

Also, I’ve thought about this a fair amount, and I think I’ve realized my favorite and least favorite part about my time here.  My least favorite part was the weather.  I just can’t help but feel that had it not been the coldest and longest winter on record (we’ve had a total of 6 days where it’s warm enough in just a t-shirt, and it is NOT normally like that in Strasbourg), I wouldn’t have stayed in as much.  There are so many parks and city-wanderings I could have done had it been pleasant enough to do so! It’s sad how something that out of my control can affect my stay that much, really…    And my favorite part has been the people I’ve met.  My non-LC friends here are amazing, and it will be so sad to leave them!  Hopefully down the road we’ll meet again :) And of the LCers I’ve become friends with, that has been an amazing experience too, and I really can’t wait to see them in Portland! (how bizarre to be there again!)

Anyways, wish me good luck getting home on time, and I will be in PDX and then GJ before you know it!

A la prochaine,

Holiday