All my friends are leaving Nantes within the next two days and I am already missing them! We finished our finals earlier this week, so the past few days have been dedicated to enjoying our time together, making dinners for our host families, and shopping in the Christmas markets. I have been taking beaucoup de photos of all the Christmas decorations throughout Nantes and also just of all the normal scenes that I walk by everyday. It all seems so familiar to me now, but this week is the last time I will walk past them for probably quite a while. We have been noting all of our "lasts" this week and the emotions are so different than those of our "firsts." Our last time in the IES building, our last bus ride, our last tram. My life in Nantes will soon be just memories.
This time of the semester is completely characterized as bittersweet. I would absolutely love to be in my home in Texas right now (I have played out my arrival day in my head so many times) because of course I miss my family and my friends and all the comforts of home, but I also completely love living in Nantes. Knowing that I will not be back here for a while is so unreal. In less than a month, I will be in the States where I feel completely comfortable, but I will no longer be in Nantes. It is hard for me to fully comprehend that. Three months ago I was just figuring out this foreign city, and now I cannot imagine being anywhere else.
We went to a petit restaurant this afternoon as a final lunch with our big group of close friends. It is called Black or White, and it is a little burrito bar owned and run by Americans. We walked in, took our seats on our stools, and then we heard English. If you have never lived in a country that speaks a different language, it is hard to fully understand how weird that was. We were in a little gem of a restaurant in the middle of Nantes where everyone inside was speaking English. For months the only english we have heard spoken is from each other, so this was such a surprise. I could not help but just sit and listen to the people around us. Until today I had doubted all aspects of a returning culture shock, but this made me a believer. I do not know how I will react when everyone around me in a public place is speaking English like me. In France, I can speak in English and assume that the conversation is staying only between me and my friends. I do not know how you can have a private conversation when everyone else can understand what you are saying! It is just unreal to think of how things will be so different when I get home in less than a month. I just do not know how I am going to go back to living in the States after I have lived in France (It is not a downgrade by any means, but it will be stepping away from a life of adventure for a life of normal).
My friends are all leaving before me so I am not experiencing the realness of actually going home yet, but I am surrounded by people who are. I know friends who are already back in the States and my best friends here are all leaving Friday and Saturday. These are people that I have been around literally every single day for the past four months. We somehow found each other early on in our first week in Nantes and have completely fallen in love since then. We have become so much like each other with our habits and sayings and accents. And it is a weird connection because we have been through so many amazing adventures together and have had to overcome the same french hardships which makes us even better friends. I feel like our connection is so strong and our personalities so overlapping. I can not imagine going back to school without seeing my Nantes friends every day. We have been talking about how everyone is going to want to know about our experience in France once we arrive back home and about how much we are going to want to talk about it (it is all we have known for the past four months). For most people, an "I had an amazing time, met lots of great people, loved my host family, and learned more french" will suffice and going into more detail will not interest them too much. But it is impossible to sum up living in France for a semester for someone who just asks "How was your trip?" I feel like you have to understand the progression from the beginning to the end of the semester, my fears and accomplishments and trips and gained knowledge, to even understand a piece of how this experience has made me feel. I know my family wants to hear all the stories and details and emotions of everything that is happening, and that's why they read this little bloggy. But in general, there is no one who fully understands how I have changed except my friends here. We have already pointed out this fact, so there will surely be skype dates where we can talk about everything French without worrying about seeming pretentious (and when no one else cares anymore about what we did or what we saw). They are a good support group for returning back home!
To celebrate our soon departure, tonight my friends and I made a Mexican dinner (chicken quesidillas, rice, beans, queso, guacamole, hot sauce) for my host family and they loved it. My host mom especially loved the velveta queso which was completely gone by the end of the meal. They had never eaten quesidillas before so we had to teach them how to eat them properly (you do not roll them, you can add guac and tomatoes on top if you want, and where to put the beans and rice on the plate). They loved the entire meal and the spices tested their spiceless, french pallates a bit. Again, it was a great bonding time for my family and friends who all got to finally meet each other and see our real interactions and conversation together. It was a great final dinner with my friends together.
With my bags all packed to leave for the other house on Saturday, I am feeling all sorts of emotions. I am really sad that my friends are leaving. I am happy that my host family is so great. I am sad that I will not be home for Christmas. I am excited to experience Noel in France. I am already really missing Nantes and my daily french routines. I am happy that I feel comfortable enough to truely call Nantes home. I am sad that I will not be in Nantes next semester. I am ready for three whole more weeks of living in FRANCE. I would love to be on a plane to Texas to see my family right now. I wish I could live in France longer and keep soaking in the french language. It is bittersweet indeed.
In the end, I feel so completely blessed right now. C'est bonne, la vie.
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