Leaving so soon!!

So here I am just 2 days before I leave France to meet up with Trish and I have NEVER been so conflicted. I am SO EXCITED to see my family and friends in the US. After an academic year abroad, I know that it's been too long since I've been able to spend time with everyone and it'll be a relief to just be in the US for a while. But on the other end of it, I absolutely cannot imagine saying good bye to the people here and Rennes. I have a life here as weird as that sounds and I can't imagine not speaking French every day. I feel linguistically, emotionally, culturally and  gastronomically unprepared to leave France!

These past few days have been all about preparation though. I had the majority of my exams last week with one left for tomorrow. Thursday we had a big party for all of the host families, students and a few previous students. I gave a little speech about how much of a family we've become and how much I love my host family, but I hadn't told them beforehand so they were completely unprepared. My host mom came up to me after, crying and kissing me telling me how much she loves me. I turned around and another friend was crying. Then there was a photo montage and we all felt it. It was an overwhelming feeling of unity between all of us.
Afterwards we all went out to the bar and hung out just chatting about the semester, trying not to think about this week.

Friday I had my 2 exams, then I came home just to prepare to go out again. We had a party for all of the international students at the university at a dance club which was crazy. We had a really great time and it was so good to see everyone in the same place.

We decided to leave around 3:30 so my friends and I took a cab. I didn't get to sleep until close to 4:30, and I didn't get up Saturday until 11:30. My friend Denise who I studied with in Morocco last semester and is studying in Paris this semester came to visit me and see Rennes so we went to all of the places that my friends and i always go to like Haricot Rouge for the BEST hot chocolate that i've ever had, a walk along the canal here in St Gregoire, sitting in Thabor (a garden in Rennes) and a cider at O'Connell's! We walked all over the place and had so much fun! My host parents had a couple friends over for a barbeque which was awesome and we had a great time until my host dad drove us to the train station. But luckily Denise is from NY so i should be able to see her again this summer.

Since then I've been slowly packing my stuff and trying to get myself ready for Thursday. I said good bye to Stacy, the assistant program director today which almost made me cry. I have just one more exam tomorrow afternoon and I'm done! Tonight is the birthday of 2 of the girls on the trip so naturally we're all going out, but before that I'm making my host mom (host dad is going to his sister's) breakfast for dinner. So my friend had found a place that sold bagels!! I mean they're obviously not from A&B Bagel or Bagel Market, but they get the job done! So i'm making a ham egg and cheese sandwich with pancakes... not sure if it's gonna be banana or apple cinnamon. It's gonna be great! I'm so excited.

Il faut profiter

So there we were on the Corsica ferry that was trying to pretend to be a fancy cruise ship. We ended up doing what a ton of others did which is camp out in the lounge and sleep on a couch. we were pretty pathetic the next morning as we got in at 7:30am but that first view of corsica was..... incredible. we couldn't be cranky! so we got off the boat and found the bus right away. our hotel wasn't in the middle of town, so we took a fairly long bus ride. But we didn't know where the stop was so we got off and had to walk for like 40 minutes in the rain. But we made it. we had to wait for a while but the hotel put us in a room until ours was ready.

The hotel was absolutely gorgeous and the room was huge! we had a terrace, kitchen, table, living room and big bedroom. Oh and each night we fell asleep to the sound of the ocean because it was right across the street and our terrace looked out to the mountains and ocean and oh man. The next few days are kind of a blur because we just took it easy. I read both The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest along with Persuasion and half of sense and sensibility. We walked around and explored a bit, went to the beach and hung out by the pool. We didn't have the best weather every day which is probably a good thing as we fried in Nice and were still trying to recuperate from that.

So after 4 nights in paradise, we took a bus, then a train through the mountains to Bastia. I have NEVER had such an interesting bus ride. Ok I take that back as Morocco was pretty interesting, but I was surprised this time because I definitely did not expect it from Corsica. It reminded me a lot of the windy and narrow roads of Morocco. It was crazy. But we made it safely to Bastia and got on another boat to land in Italy!!!

We got off the boat in Livorno and jumped on a bus as the bus driver was an incredibly friendly guy who got us to a stop for a different bus to get to the train station. Revelation: I LOVE ITALIANS! It was shocking how different the feeling was in Italy than in France. In France it's not that people aren't nice, but they aren't openly friendly with strangers (although I'm finding that less and less true the longer I'm here) and they don't go out of their way for a stranger. But in Italy we had no idea where we were and how to get to the next bus stop so we stopped to ask a guy, but he didn't understand us so this random guy taps his wife (who was on the phone) saying that we need help and she spoke French and English. So she's got her phone on the side of her face as she's trying to explain to us how to get to the train station. She was so nice! So we made it to the train station, then on to Pisa!

Our hostel in Pisa ended up being a couple rooms in this guys house but it wasn't too bad and it was in a good location. Pisa was cute but I think the best part of Pisa aside from the tower is how inexpensive the AWESOME food was. We took it easy the first night as we were pooped from all the travel. I mean bus, train, ferry, bus, train... it was a little much. So we woke up the next morning and saw the tower which is pretty cool. We walked there and let me tell you, it's not very tall so you can't actually see it until it's right in front of you. it was pretty cool though. So we walked around, then made it to the train station and jumped on the next one leaving Pisa.... On to Florence!

Florence is breath taking. We had lunch, then went to see the Dome! We walked around, got gelato, then got in line to see the David. We got in, then took a quick look around before turning the corner and BAM. there he was. naked. The statue's HUGE and a little overwhelming so we sat down for a little bit.

After that we walked around the rest of the museum, then we went to Dante's house on our way to Porto Vecchio. We walked back towards the train station, had a coffee, then went back to Pisa for dinner and our last night in Italy. Only complaint about Florence is the overwhelming amount of tourists and constant crowds.
Kathryn left first, then Liza and I went back to the tower and walked around until we had to leave for Beauvais, then Paris, then the train back to Rennes! On our way to Paris we made friends with this guy from London, studying at an Australian university in Florence then parted ways when we had to catch our train. Liza's host mom met us at the train station in Rennes and that was it! Our vacation adventure was over!

The final countdown part 1

So here I am looking ahead to only 2 weeks left of this madness that is study abroad. But before I can look ahead, I've got a lot of catching up to do. I know I know I've been bad about this whole blog thing this semester. So here is the past month....
Exactly one month ago I had no idea how I was going to make it until the end of the semester. Classes sucked, I was fighting with Jason (always a bad sign) and everything seemed to remind me of home and the fact that I wasn't there. It's been gorgeous out, but that most certainly did not help my productivity. At this point I realized that no matter how much I like traveling (or rather being in new places as actually traveling stresses me out), I am not at all happy without my friends and family. And Jason. It may sound cliche and stupid, but he makes it incredibly difficult to be here and not there.
So now I have ruled out a few career paths.
1.) Peace corps. It's never gonna happen. After the village in Morocco and after not even a full year abroad all signs point to me hating it.
2.) Any job that requires me to live too far from family. I start to hate myself for not being able to be there for them. Maybe I'm not selfish enough (never thought I'd say that) but when I miss things or can't help out with family issues I get angry, then sad, then disappointed, then mad at Jason for one reason or another, then sad again. No bueno
So after these reflections and 2 weeks of classes, we had a 2 week vacation for Easter. My host mom went to Montreal to visit their son who lives there so she, host dad and host sister went to Paris on Friday evening. I had the house completely to myself for Friday and Saturday so I naturally had a couple friends over and did what I always do... I baked. Friday I cooked rice and beans and Katy made lemon bars. Then Saturday I spent the entire day reading and sitting out in the sun. My older host sister surprised me by showing up and told me that we were going to have a bbq on sunday so I was only kind of surprised when Marine and Michel (my host dad and sister) showed up at 2am from Paris on Saturday night. But before they came back, I had done a TON of baking and made more lemon bars, carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies. Sunday I went to church with Ashley, which was great, then came back, hung out and had a nice lunch with the host fam. It was me, Marine, Michel, Annaise and her wife Charlotte. The bbq was not your every day bbq. Maybe it's just me, but I don't normally drink champagne at a bbq and I don't think I've ever had eggplant from a grill... it  was awesome! After we just sat out, then the girls ended up starting a water fight. This is gonna sound  really weird, but I was actually really happy when Annaise threw water at me. I know that they aren't over the moon about having a foreign student in the house, but it was like a sign of inclusion. I thought it was even better because just after she threw it, before she saw the look on my face (which I was already laughing as soon as I saw it coming) she said "laugh, laugh," as though she had no idea how I was going to react to it. She took a chance by including me, the risk that i'd be pissed that she dumped freezing cold water at me. I was actually impressed. But then again I could be over analyzing it.
In any case, I went to my friend's house and hung out with her for a little while until it was around dinner time. I came home and prepared for a VERY early Monday morning.
5:30am. That's when I got up, threw my clothes on, ate breakfast, ready to leave the house by 6. The train left at 7am, and Kathryn, Liza and I were happily settled by the time we pulled out of Rennes. A train switch and 8 1/2 hours later, we were safely in Nice and it took us another hour of walking to find the hotel but we were finally there. Kyriakos, a friend of my friend Meri who is studying in Montpelier, met us there and the first night we just got some pizza and hung out. The next day we set off for Monaco.
Monaco, just a 1 euro hour long bus ride, is absolutely gorgeous! The gardens, the flowers and the fountains! There were statues everywhere, the water was the bluest blue and the Monte Carlo Casino was magnifique! After exploring the outside of the casino we went to the beach and Kyriakos and I went for a swim, me in my dress, him in his boxers. Liza got her hair wet, and Kathryn put her feet in as she had quite a few blisters already. We waited until we were almost all dry again before hiking back up to the bus stop and got back to Nice. Just in time to get paninis from our now favorite place from the nicest guy.
Day 3 we woke up pretty early and declared it beach day. We were on the beach from 9am til about 4 when some nasty clouds showed up. By this time though the damage had already been done. Kathryn and I were pretty red. I'm still peeling. lol. But the sun pretty much drained us so we hung out in the room, then Liza Kyriakos and I walked around Nice for a while before going to bed.
Day 4 we got up early again and did some hiking in the old destroyed chateau, went to the market then checked out of the hotel. We left our baggage there so that we could wander around for a few hours, but we didn't want to wander too far. Liza and Kyriakos went and took some pictures while Kathryn and I sat in a park and read. I wish I had recorded it, but there were these 2 guys in the grass trying to teach each other break dancing tricks. It was freakin hilarious. When the other 2 got back, we went to a cafe and hung out until Kyriakos had to go get his train. We took our time getting our stuff, then we too left for the train station. We got to Toulon fine, found the port with only a few bumps in the road, and saw the boat right away. We had no issues with tickets and got on with time to spare. Liza decided to get a room as it was an overnight ride, but Kathryn and I didn't so we decided to venture through the boat to find a place to sleep for the night... and to be continued! I'll finish the story tomorrow!