au revoir

Yesterday was my last full day in Marseille. Today I'm going to go to the train station in Marseille and take the train to Paris along with the rest of the AFSers from PACA who are going to the end of stay orientation. Tonight will be spent with AFSers from all over france. Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn, The other Americans and I will head to the airport to catch our flight back to New York. I will then take a flight back home.

Remember those posts back in August? Where I was just too sad to leave my home? Well this one is going to be very similar. Marseille has become chez moi. I don't want to leave it! Granted, I have had quite a few perks...you know, like living in walking distance from the beach, having one of the nicest parks in Marseille right next to my house, the beautiful weather...but it's not just the superficial things which I'm going to miss about Marseille. Over the past ten months Marseille has become my home. I finally learned which exit goes where at the metro stop in the old port. I know how to get around the city by bus, by metro, by foot and by car. I've made some of the best friends of my life here and I know that we'll stay in contact. I have another mother who will hug me when I need it.

Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back. Will I just go back to my day to day life? I don't think so...I could never just forget an experience like this. I really grown up this year. I've changed so much. I'm no longer that little girl who said goodbye to all she knew last August. They say that coming back will be an adjustment "that can sometimes be difficult". I believe them...It's just hard to imagine being back home when here in Marseille it's also my home.

Where did the time go? Its funny...I seem to remember saying just last week that is was so sad "I only have six weeks left." How did that change from six weeks to a couple of hours so quickly? There was a while where I wasn't ready to go home, but that feeling has passed. It's not that I don't want to go home, I just don't want to leave...does that make sense?

As usual, I'll leave you with some pictures. These are a few snapshots of the visit from my brother and his girlfriend.

La France va me manquer. Il y a tant des qui m'ont vraiment touchés, et je ne les oublierai jamais. Il y aura toujours une place dans mon coeur pour Marseille et tout le monde qui m'ont accueilli chaleureusement. 

My going away party

Fêtes de Noël!

After my birthday party, Julianna stayed in Marseille through Wednesday. On tuesday, Julianna, Emma and I went to Aix-En-Provence and met up with some other AFSers! I can never express how amazing it is to be with the other AFS PACA students. I don't know how common it is to be incredibly close with all the students in your region, but the ten of us  form what we like to call "awesome-groupness." Whenever I see our PACA group, I feel renewed and like I can keep going when I'm feeling down. We understand exactly what the others are going through, and because of that we've bonded so quickly, and I know I'll have this awesome-groupness for life.

In Aix, we ate lunch together and spent the day enjoying the great christmas atmosphere, shopping, and just talking about everything that had happened since the last time we had seen each other. We even had time to take a ride on the carousel!

Julianna and me on the Carousel!

On Wednesday Julianna left for Nice, and Thursday Emma and I went to la patinoire (the ice rink) together with some of her friends! It was the first time I'd been to the ice rink since March 2010, and I felt so free. It's been really hard to not have hockey as an outlet this year, so to finally be on the ice again meant that I was finally back in my rightful place. I can't explain how good it felt to be able to just leave everything behind and skate for a couple hours. 

In France, Christmas Eve is sometimes just as big as Christmas day. In the morning, I went over to Tashina's to helo with the preparations for the feast that night. I got the task of decorating les bonhommes en pain d'épice. 

Hard at work!

les bonhommes :)

That afternoon I prepared for the next day by wrapping all of the presents. It was the one occasion throughout the holidays where the nostalgie really hit me. I realized that I would be doing the exact same thing at home, wrapping presents for my family in my room and making sure that anyone didn't come in. Here, I realized that I was wrapping presents for a different family, and it made me realize how lucky I am. I not only am able to have this amazing experience, but I'm going to come away from it with not only one, but two families who love me. Despite the moment of sadness, I finished the task of wrapping the presents with a smile on my face. 

We finished the night off with a big Christmas Eve dinner at Greg and Tashina's. The night started off with champagne and foie gras (yeah, I'm definitely in France). Foie gras is very traditional for the holidays. Since I was the youngest there, I was given the task of toasting the bread for les tartines.

After appetizers, came the traditional Christmas Eve meal: raw oysters, and raw shellfish in general. Since I'm here to try new things, I dug right in! I ate two whole raw oysters! I was pretty proud. They're definitely an acquired taste. Luckily, Tashina, who is a vegetarian, made a soup and happily gave me some (I'm pretty sure she made extra knowing that that would be the case).

After dinner Béatrice, Tashina and I went to a Midnight Mass. It was definitely a night of firsts! Church at midnight in French didn't make for a good combination for understanding what was going on, but it was still really nice to see everyone in the Christmas sweaters and sing along to the somewhat familiar Christmas songs that were in French instead of English (imagine that!). 

The small street with the church at the end

On Christmas day, Nicole and I went to Tashina and Greg's around noon for presents and dinner. Dinner was just like Thanksgiving! We had a turkey, stuffing (though it was the french kind), gravy, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes; all of which was absolutely delicious. 

Though I followed different traditions from my own, I had an amazing Christmas, and every day I am thankful that I have the chance to experience all of this in france. 

What's cookin' good lookin'?

Turkey, that's what! That's right, I cooked a whole thanksgiving dinner (Friday night) for my French friends and family: Nicole, Beatrice, Danielle, a friend of Nicole's who gives me French lessons, Emma, and my friends from school Marie, Axelle and Roxanne. I made a turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, cranberry sauce, gravey, and a pumpkin pie!

Thursday evening, I did the grocery shopping for the "grand repas". Who knew it would be so hard to find the things I needed for a Thanksgiving dinner? The hardest to find were the cranberries for the cranberry sauce. After about ten minutes of trying to explain what cranberries were to the sales associate, we found some dried cranberries, so I decided to settle. The next was the pumpkin for the pie. I went to four different stores searching for a "citrouille", and by the last "épicerie" I just decided to go with some butternut squash. It wasn't exactly like the classic pumpkin pie, but it was still delicious (if I do say so myself :)).

Friday afternoon, I started cooking at 3h and didn't stop until after people started to arrive at 7h30! I had never cooked a turkey before, let alone a whole Thanksgiving dinner, so starting off I was a little intimidated. Once I got going though, things went smoothly. It's really amazing how many things can go wrong with a thanksgiving dinner. It's truly a miracle that everything went smoothly for me, in fact it didn't just go smoothly, it was fantastic! Everything was perfect (which is amazing, considering how lost I am in the kitchen.)

When people arrived we had appetizers and I showed people a little bit about my life back home. I showed everyone my school yearbook, and my scrapbook, and everyone had a fun time looking through them. I also recounted the classic story of Thanksgiving that we learned in second grade to everyone.

When the time for dinner rolled around, I explained to everyone that it's traditional to go around the table before you eat and say what you're thankful for. It was at the point where I realized how thankful I was to be sitting in France eating a Thanksgiving dinner with my French family and friends. To me, Thanksgiving is about being with the people you love, and I was. I really couldn't have asked for a better night.

La Dinde!

In other exciting news, two weekends ago was the AFS weekend! I love getting together and seeing all of my AFS friends. Our AFS PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côté d'Azure) group is really close, so we all look foreword to these get-togethers. At the weekend, there was also AFS returnees, and AFS hopefuls. It was really neat to see the "three generations" of AFS, as well as disconcerting to realize that I was in the AFS hopefuls' shoes a year ago. It seems like so long ago!

awesome groupness<3

Today, Nicole and I decorated the sapin de Noël! It was a bittersweet moment, but it really turned my day around to get into the holiday spirit! It's really crazy to think that it's already December! Christmas is right around the corner. That's a scary thought! It's hitting me that I've been here for three months, which is so hard to believe! The time has flown by!

There's no place like home

Sorry for the late post (I've been trying to update every other Sunday) but it's been a crazy past few weeks. Vacation ended last week and thursday was my first day back to school (yes, it was Thursday, and yes, I think it's weird too). The vacation was really nice. I was off from October 23rd to November 4th. It was a nice break to catch up on rest, hang out with some friends, and catch up on school work. On the weekend, I had a party for Halloween/birthdays of some AFS friends. Most people from the PACA region (my AFS chapter) came and we spent a couple days in Marseille. It was very interesting to celebrate Halloween in France. Halloween isn't a big deal here at all. Some of the younger kids will go out trick-or-treating, but not all houses participate. Most teenagers get together for a party or just to hang out, and adults, unless they have children, don't really participate.

The party with the other AFS students was great though! It's amazing how comforting it is to have someone to talk to who know's exactly what you're going through. We traded experiences and made sure that everything we were going through was normal. Nicole gave us our space by going to Greg and Tashina's for the night. I was so surprised by the amount of freedom we were given. All we had to do was have the house looking the same when when she got back the next day, and we had the house to ourselves. I wasn't used to so much freedom, but I wasn't about to abuse it!

I went for a bike ride around Marseille the other day, and I realized that Marseille is my home now. When I think of home, I think of Marseille not Maine. Don't get me wrong, Maine is still my home but for the time being, I live in Marseille. In Marseille there's my home, not just any old house, my school, not just a school I go to, my favorite park, not just a park near my house, and my favorite stores not just any old shopping center. I can make my way through the city on my own without thinking twice. I've setteled into a schedule and it's nice to think that what once seemed so bizarre has now turned into my daily life. I've come to accept the good and the bad about Marseille, and I thnk that allows me to be able to call it my home. I'm past the honeymoon stage where everything is amazing, and I realized that Marseille has it's faults just like anyother city, and that's what gives it character. Despite the bad parts, I still like Marseille because it' my home.

School is slowly getting better. Bad grades are slowly being interspersed with some good ones, and that always boosts my confidence. Every day I get comments on how my french is improving! I'm starting to even think in french! Parts of the grammer that I thought I would never be able to understand are slowly but surely making sense. There are times when I have a full conversation with someone without having to ask them to repeat something, and (as far as I know) them understanding me, and it just makes me feel great. It's one of the greatest feelings to finally be able to communicate (somewhat) competently.

While my french is progressing, my english is digressing. It becomes really apparent when I know what a word means in french, but I can't think of the translation in english (if that makes any sense at all).

I'm off to study for a maths contrôle (math test), but I'll update again in the next week.