I really can't believe that this will be my last full-week blog post for my time spent in Europe. It is Monday morning and I am leaving Wednesday night. That means I have only a little over two days left in France! As I write this, I am on a train from Brussels heading back to Paris. I haven't slept much this past week because I have been trying to do so many things, so I am pretty exhausted hahah. This past week has been entertaining and interesting and I have felt so many happy feelings, but everything I've felt has had this somewhat numb undertone that I think is my mind's way of hiding sadness. I'm just trying to prepare for the great change that will be moving home, but I am failing hahah. I don't know how I will feel when I get back and I don't know what I will miss here, and since I am so exhausted I don't have the energy to cling on to all the things around me that I think I might miss next week. Changing countries is a strange thing to do, and this will be my fourth BIG country-changing plane ride in the last three years. I think the best thing I can do is be grateful to have the heart to feel all these feelings and know they come from a good place. Feeling conflicted about leaving means that I have allowed something to matter to me and in doing so, found another way to connect myself to this universe! That HAS to be a good thing.
So, what did I do my last full week in Europe?
You already know that I got back from London last Monday after taking a night bus and I was prettyyyy tired. I didn't do much for the rest of that day other than work and try not to fall asleep!
On Tuesday, something very exciting for me happened. Cecile has been writing a chapter book for 10 year olds over the last nine years and this last week she asked me to do the honor of reading through it and doing some editing. I cannot stress how much this meant to me! CECILE, the brilliant mother/osteopath of Asnieres wanted ME to help edit her story! It is a little over 200 pages long, in French, and incredibly creative. She basically studied Icelandic mythology for 6 years and then decided to write a little novel that would intertwine a lot of the well known characters into one story for children that would both educate and entertain them. And OH MY GOODNESS, it is SO good! Like really Cecile, can you be a little less perfect? You are already brilliant and gorgeous so do you really HAVE to be creative, too?
I am serious, people. Her book is amazing. The characters are so vivid and there are so many secrets that you have to keep reading to uncover and AHHH it's just too good. When it gets published and then turned into a movie, I am going to force everyone I know to learn French and then buy it and enjoy it as much as I did. :D
The other cool thing that happened on Tuesday was that while I was walking through Paris and running some errands, I ran right into Jess! So I guess Paris really is home now if I run into people I know in public, right? And Jess was showing some of her Canadian friends around and I got to meet them and they were lovely!
On Wednesday I went grocery shopping with Cecile after work to get all the cake making/decorating supplies for the cake I would make on Friday for a competition at Prune's school. It took us quite awhile to find everything but it was kinda nice spending a Wednesday afternoon with Cecile and Prune because I hadn't done that in awhile.
On Thursday I met up at my blogging cafe with my Iranian friend, Moein, to say goodbye before he moved to Grenoble. As we drank coffee, he tried to teach me some nursery rhymes in Persian which was very fun hahaha. It was a relatively painless goodbye because over the year we didn't get many chances to meet up, but I know I will see him again someday! He has promised to show me Iran someday and I am pretty excited about that!
So Friday was the cake making day. The plan was to make a sandcastle cake for a competition at Prune's school. I literally spent six hours alone in the kitchen making that cake hahaha and by the end of those six hours I was soooo tired and it was time to go to work. At the park, Anastazja laughed a lot at how tired I was and I laughed with her because I was so punch drunk. I brought a table cloth to the park and did a little resting while Prune played. It was a beautiful sunny day and you could really feel the Friday-ness of it all. That night before going to sleep, Prunette helped me do a little packing. As I sifted through what I wanted to bring home and what I would donate, Prune picked out a couple things she wanted to keep. I don't know how to blog about how I feel about leaving Prune so I am not going to talk about it.
But gosh, I love her.
It could have been wayyyyy prettier hahaha.
On Saturday morning, I got up super early to take a 7am bus to Brussels for one last European adventure! I arrived in Belgium about noon where Michael was waiting at my bus stop. Together we took a train and a bus for about an hour and a half before we arrived in his hometown! Christophe and Michael had planned the whole weekend and decided not to tell me any of their plans. I told them that was fine as long as it was calm, and they really did an A+ job!
The first thing we did when we arrived in Hasselt was go back to Michael's place to meet his mom, her boyfriend, and their dog. Walking into their house, was like walking into hundreds of different countries and cities and cultures all at once! I was amazed by all the decorations that were just obviously soaked with the memories of years worth of exploring. Michael's mom had made soup for us and she had even prepared a special vegetarian soup just for me! That, in itself, was incredibly thoughtful, but the soup was also so delicious! As we ate our soup, we talked and I got to get to know Michael's family a bit. His mom's boyfriend, Jo, works for NATO in Germany during the week and comes back to Belgium on the weekends. He speaks flawless English, likes to be healthy, and is a good talker! Michael's mom was less confident about her English, but that was silly because she spoke it so well too. She impressed me with her openness when speaking about the places she had been. I really liked talking to them as a family and hearing what interesting things they had do say!
After the soup, Michael and I left to take his dog on a walk through the nearby forest. It was an absolutely beautiful place to take a walk in, even if it was filled with mud and Mosquitos hahaha! After walking the dog we stopped by Michael's grandma's house to meet his grandma and her boyfriend. At her house, we ate some cake and drank coffees together, and I was surprised that I could actually follow some of their conversation on Dutch! I definitely don't speak Dutch and probably never will, but there are some words that are similar to English, Spanish, and French and that really aided me in being able to guess the context of their conversations! I loved meeting this other part of his family and listening to their language, which I find beautiful.
Not long after that, we headed back to Michael's house to meet up with Christophe, who had ridden his bike across the little city to hang out with us. Michael and I got out some bikes to ride with Christophe and we took off so I could see the "few interesting things" that there are to see in their home city. We bikes through the center, and I got to see the oldest building on their city. We went up to the top of the tallest building and from above they pointed out where things were. It wasn't a huge impressive city. It wasn't Paris or London or Budapest but it was a small little city in Flanders and I had never been there before and it's where they had grown up and I didn't want to be anywhere else! I was so content to just be hanging out with them and seeing where they came from, I didn't really care what we did.
After getting another coffee, we went to meet up with Michael's parents for dinner. His family had chosen to eat at the only vegetarian restaurant in town for my visit! It was so understanding and thoughtful of them and everything on the menu looked delicious. While we waited for our food, they brought out little appetizer shots of soup and I took a picture because they were so cute hahah. We all talked and laughed as we enjoyed a delicious dinner together, which was followed by an equally delicious dessert! Michael convinced me to get the dessert that was a combination of all the desserts but like, mini versions of them, so I got to try everything! It was all so tasty and the company was even better than the food!
The rest of that evening was spent in bars with Michael and Christophe. We went to some places they liked and always did our best to find tables where we could hear each other enough to have conversations. I was so tired from my long day of traveling that came right after my long day of cake making, and at two when they seemed to really understand that I was going to fall asleep in public, we got on our bikes and headed home. I stayed in Michael's sister's room that has the most comfortable bed in the world in it and I was very happy about that hahaha.
He was a bit surprised by the flash...
The next morning, I got up and showered before heading off to Liege with Michael's family. I had no idea they had planned on taking me to another city, and I was excited to see another part of Belgium! It is a French speaking city so that was a little bit easier for me than Hasselt hahah. Like, I could actually read the signs! In Liege, we walked around in a huge outside market and enjoyed some pancakes in a super old cafe. We walked around in the market for a couple hours before stopping at a tea house that Michael's mom loves. I had some green tea and it was pretty amazing. After that, it was time to head back to Hasselt. Michael and I each took a nap because we hadn't had much sleep after our late night out with Christophe. After the nap, Michael's mom made us a delicious late lunch of eggs and vegetables and bread and cheese before taking us to the train station so we could head back to Brussels with Christophe. When we said goodbye, Michael's family said that maybe we would meet again someday and I told them that I really hoped we would. I think they are some of the loveliest people I have ever met!
Strange Belgian candy!
It took us a little over an hour to get back to Brussels, and once we got there we decided to go to Michael and Christophe's shared place to drop off our things before going back into the city. We spent some downtime at their place to have a coffee and shake off some of our fatigue and do some talking. When we finally worked up the energy to leave, we headed off to the Atomium because it was the only big touristy thing that Michael hadn't showed me last time we were in Brussels.
After that, we got dinner at a cute little yummy sushi place. I tried a weird spicy kind of sushi that had mango and coconut and spicy sauce in it and it was really tasty!
Then, of course, it was time for more coffee. During that time, Belgium was playing against Hungary in the EuroCup and you could hear the soccer fans going mad everywhere. We got coffee on a street filled with sports bars and got to watch all the fans singing and chanting and banging drums and dancing in the street during half-time! It was so lively and watching all those people care so much about something was really nice.
We were all pretty tired, but we decided to go get one last little drink before heading home, just to enjoy each other's company in public a little longer, you know?
We sat in a cozy place and I did my best not to fall asleep because I had slept so little the past few days!
When we got back to their apartments, we had one last important thing to do before bed: Skype Todd Hale. If you don't know Todd, he is a friend of mine in the U.S. and he happens to be the American version of Christophe and I had been wanting for them to meet for a long time! They finally met over Skype and it was pretty wonderful. They seemed to get along quite well and even made plans to visit each other hahaha.
Not long after the skype call, we decided it was time to go to sleep. Michael made a little bed for me on the floor and it ended up being sooo comfortable! For the first time in four days, I slept more than five hours and I didn't wake up once throughout the night!
This morning I felt much more refreshed than any of the other mornings. Before going to bed, I said goodbye to Christophe, who has weird sleeping problems and wouldn't be able to get up in the morning to say goodbye before I would leave. Saying goodbye to Christophe was awkward and funny because we really aren't that close at all but the situation felt so serious and he actually does matter to me, at least more than a little bit! But I know I will see him again. I'm positive! He's a cool guy.
This morning was not very eventful. I bought some chocolate to take home for Charlie and Joan and had a banana for breakfast. Saying goodbye to close friends never feels real, so I said goodbye to Michael very quickly before getting on the train. We had written each other letters and we are both motivated enough so I know I will see him many times in the future. Saying goodbye this time was weird because usually when we say goodbye, we have already planned out another adventure to go on together, and this time we both had adventures planned out, but I am not part of his and is not part of mine. I will see him again, I am sure. I am just glad I got to know him and see him so often this year. Another beautiful thing that is all thanks to Juliana hahah.
And now I have a little under an hour left until I arrive in Paris, where I will only sleep two more times in the bed I have slept in for the past 10 months. I haven't stayed in one place or in one bed for such a long time since I was 8, and I might end up missing that bed which wasn't particularly spectacular but was, nonetheless, mine.
I don't know where my thoughts lie on the subject of going home. People keep asking me how I feel, which I am used to of course, but I don't have a genuine or true answer to give. I am so excited to see my family and friends again. I'm excited to start college and enjoy the lovely Californian weather and get used to a new life in a new place.
My problem with leaving Paris is that it took me so long to feel at home here and to open my heart to such a cold and melancholy city, and now that I love it I am leaving hahaha. And all of this is normal of course. All of this is what the Rotex members told me told me I would feel when leaving my exchange in Chile, but I never felt this way during my exchange.
I am learning that changing as you grow up doesn't just have to do with developing new opinions or growing into your own skin or understanding more about the world. It also has to do with feeling new feelings and getting comfortable with the idea that sometimes it takes more than a few minutes to recognize those feelings or know what to do with them.
I knew I still had a lot to learn, but it never really occurred to me until recently that I still have a lot to feel. And I can't prepare myself for what I will feel in the future, really, I just have to trust myself and process my way through them as they come. :)
The next time I blog will probably be on the airplane, so I hope you all have some great summer days until then.
Thank you for reading!
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