"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for all of Paris is a moveable feast." -Ernest Hemingway

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Le dernier mois

Salut! I feel bad leaving you with such a long post that I'll try to keep up with shorter ones as the time I'm here comes to a close. One more month. I can't believe it. And I only have two more weeks with NYU--I'm staying with Emily at her apartment for the last two weeks of May. It only hit me this morning that it'll be summer so soon, I feel like normally the start of summer means going home. Not this time. The next two weeks are filled with finals, field trips, goodbye "mandatory" garden parties, wine and cheese at profs houses, last meals with Beatrice, a final Wine Wednesday (until New York), goodbyes (even though it feels like we're still saying hello), and...moving out of Beatrice's. That last one might be the hardest.

It feels really weird. Last year, I was counting down the days until I was flying home to the States. This time, I'm still not ready. Last year, I cherished and missed everything that was American. This time, not so much. The only thing I miss is a big mug of tea, and that can merely be solved by getting my lazy self over to IKEA. But we'll see. Perhaps once I'm forced to accept that this program is, in fact, ending, will I be ready to leave Beatrice's. And maybe once I've eaten L'As falafel so much that I can't stand to look at it will I be ready to leave Paris. There are still so many things I want to do, parts of neighborhoods I still need to discover. We'll see if I'll ever be content enough to leave. Maybe there'll be another volcano...I kid, I kid. There are certain things that I'm excited about--I'm just not letting myself think about them until perhaps minutes before my flight home.

Also, I feel like I don't talk about Beatrice enough. If, while reading this, you slightly disagree, just ask one of my friends here and they'll tell you that we talk about Beatrice constantly. Always good things of course. She said a gem Sunday night at dinner: she felt really bad (as well as amazed and proud) that I did my biking trip by myself, like I didn't have anyone to go on spring break with. But I assured her that yes, I did have many options (I even turned down an invitation to Ghana...let's just be real here), but I wanted to do it by myself. And then she said that if Natty's flight had been cancelled because of the volcanic mess and/or if she had known I was going by myself on my bike trip, she would have invited me to her country house in Bretagne (that would have been fun, but honestly I needed a break from the kids). She is too cute. She also came back from Bretagne with personalized bowls for Julia and I, as well as another bag of the cookies she brought back last time. I'm going to miss her. When (not if) I come back to Paris, my first stop, mark my words, will be to head on over to 56 blvd Beausejour.

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