"That's How You Know You've Really Got a Home... You Just Miss It."

So I was catching up on my American shows this week, when Once Upon a Time punched me square in the heart -- "That's how you know you've really got a home. When you leave it there's this feeling you can't shake; you just miss it."

Well if that isn't the story of my life. All week I've been reflecting on what it means to have a home, and where my homes are (and how fortunate I've been to be able to make myself a few different homes).

As I packed up my apartment, bit by little bit, I felt equal parts relief and sadness. Honestly, even though this year as flown by SO fast, and even though there were so many things that I didn't get to do while I've been here, I am ready to go back to Michigan. I feel like I've learned a lot this year, and maybe I've grown a lot too (and found some things that I need to grow a bit more in). It was a wonderful year. Wonderful, exhilarating, lonely and terrible all at the same time. I think most wonderful things are. You need the bad things to highlight the good; you need to learn your limits and to do that you're probably going to overstep them and it's going to suck (Geneva, I'm looking at you). Unlike 2 years ago, I'm ready to move on. I've got a new adventure waiting for me.

But leaving Dax was also incredibly sad. My little studio is the first home that I could call MINE. Sure, I've got a home in Michigan (which has less to do with the place, and more to do with the people). I've also got a home in Orléans. But the place I rest my head in Michigan is not mine -- it belongs to my parents. (Luckily they're pretty cool about letting me decorate my room and stuff, but it's still not really *mine*.) And the home I've got in Orléans belongs to my host family, not to me. Sure, I had dorm rooms at Central, but they were always shared. A compromise -- "I'll bring the futon if you get a TV".  But my studio in Dax was mine. My very first apartment; my very first home all to myself.

Honestly, I was not very excited about my apartment when I got to Dax. I don't know if I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but the first thing I did when I moved in was cry. I walked in, set my stuff down, faked smiles for the woman settling me in. When she left, I took one look around and started crying. My studio was NOTHING like what I had envisioned myself in. It was more a dorm than an apartment. I was 4000 miles from anyone I knew. I was completely and utterly and inescapably alone. And I cried for a good 10 minutes before picking myself up and getting stuff done.

I was not really happy about moving into the Résidence. It was so far from the center of town, I thought. Not charming. Not typically French. But at the end of the year, I don't think I could have made a better decision. The people who work at the résidence were unfailingly kind and welcoming -- right down to my very last minutes in Dax. Tuesday night there wasn't the typical atélier cuisine because they were showing the residents how to declare their income (for tax purposes). But when I asked about it, they decided to throw together a little dinner in my honor afterward. So Tuesday night I had a wonderful dinner with some of the workers and other residents. Wednesday, Alain drove me to the train station so that I wouldn't have to take the bus with all my luggage.

This year has been a lesson in life not meeting expectations, but turning out pretty awesome anyway. Having had friends who have done the TAPIF program, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how this year would go: I would have super motivated classes, I would spend the year eating baguettes and cheese, I would meet people who would become friends for life, I would live in a super chic little apartment and wake up to the smell of baking bread, etc etc. Life, I thought, was going to be GREAT.

Well, turns out none of that happened (okay, I DID eat a lot of baguettes and cheese). With the exception of a few of my younger classes, my students couldn't have cared less about learning English (some of them were pretty awesome anyway, some of them were little horrors about it).  Instead of really meeting people here (other than a few of the professors I worked with), I became closer with people back home.

Mostly this year has taught me to avoid expectations. (Or lower them, at the very least.) It's been a lesson of learning that I don't have control over everything (case in point: France's airline workers decided to go on strike today, so my flight to Dublin is delayed). It's been learning that being alone doesn't necessarily mean being lonely, and that being lonely is okay. It's been coping with big life decisions and doing what's best for me even when it hurts. Learning to let people go. Getting closer to people I love.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to come back to the States yet. Many of the other assistants are still here, traveling around the continent and generally having a blast. There are so many places that I still want to see (the blessing and curse of traveling -- the more you see, the more you realize there is to see). There's a part of me that wants to drop off my baggage in Michigan, stay for a few days to hug my parents and watch my mom graduate and then pack up my backpack and keep going.

But there's another part of me (the old-lady part, I think) that craves going home. I'm not as young as I once was (23 and SO OLD) -- my knees can't take the walking they used to (I swear I walked like 20 miles a day in Rome; now I do like 10 and am completely dead), living out of a backpack is less appealing, I get tired more, I'm learning to appreciate solo travel AND traveling with people (HOLLA to the best travel buddies: Vanessa and Melissa). Mostly I just want a solid home base. It's nice to come home to MY bed to sleep. As much as I dream about taking off and backpacking for a year or two, I'm not sure I could handle it. At least not yet. Maybe in a few years.

I think I'm ready for my next adventure. Or at least, I'm ready for a bit of calm before the storm. I've got two months to cuddle up with my mom and my cats and my puppy. Two months to pack up my life. Two months to brush up on some basic French grammar (irregular verbs WHY). And then it's on to Tallahassee.

It's time to make myself a new home. (And how fitting that it's Tallahassee -- the city two of my favorite characters from Once Upon a Time wanted to call home.)

The Stuff of Legend

Right after Vanessa left on Monday morning, I met up with my friend, Melissa (from OU), and we flew from Paris to Manchester, and then caught a train over to Cardiff. The countryside was spectacular, and I'm actually really glad that we couldn't get a direct flight from Paris to Cardiff. It was too much fun staring out the windows. (We got in pretty late Monday night, so we headed right to the hostel and got some shuteye.)

On our first day in Cardiff, we went to the National Museum in Cardiff -- a wonderful combination of natural history and art. First we wandered around the natural history part before taking a quick guided art tour. While wandering around, I noticed a familiar staircase....

From "Vincent and the Doctor" (Doctor Who) -- my favorite episode

After the art tour, we got to take a behind-the-scenes archaeology tour where we were led to the basement of the museum and even got to handle tools as old as 400,000 years!

The front of the National Museum

The architecture in Cardiff is absolutely gorgeous

We turned in a bit early on Tuesday so that we could plan for the next couple days (and also get a nice spot of afternoon tea in the hostel common room).

I really need to get myself a fancy tea service

Wednesday morning, I headed off to Cardiff Bay to see the Doctor Who Experience, which was amazing -- part interactive show, part museum. I had quite a bit of fun here, and then met Melissa for lunch.

Outside the experience, waiting for it to open

TARDIS on the bay!

Costume of Professor River Song (I hope I get to wear outfits this cool as a professor)

The costume of the First Doctor

The Second Doctor

The Third Doctor

The Fourth Doctor

The Fifth Doctor

The Sixth Doctor

The Seventh Doctor

The Eighth Doctor

The Ninth Doctor

The Tenth Doctor

The Eleventh Doctor's Costumes

In the TARDIS

Fighting off some Daleks

Protecting my TARDIS

Falling out into the time vortex

Cyberman

Whole bunch of daleks

Weeping angel (and cherubs)

Rose's Outfit from the 50th Anniversary

With the 3 TARDIS'

While I was experiencing Doctor Who, Melissa went to an open air museum, and then we met up in the bay for lunch before heading back into the city to see the castle.

Millennium Center on the bay

Gorgeous red brick church

Chilling in front of the bay

The original keep

The medieval castle that was added around the original keep

A most exquisite fireplace

Fables and fairy tales illustrated on the wall of the kids' playroom

The banquet hall

The fireplace in the banquet hall

A pretty spiffy bathroom

Rooftop garden

LIBRARY

The "nut" in the monkey's mouth is actually a button that would ring the bell for the butler downstairs

Mr. Peacock showing off

(Now he's sulking because the female peacock ignored him & his fabulous plumage)

This was one cranky owl -- but so adorable

A little kestrel

HEDWIG

We got to see this guy eating his dinner

Inside the keep

On top of the keep, overlooking Cardiff

The Welsh flag flying from the keep

We accidentally stumbled on a little WWII museum underneath the wall surrounding the keep (a place that was used as a bomb shelter). All of a sudden, a siren went off, and there was the sound of dropping bombs. Scared me half to death before I realized it was just a recording.

The next day, we hopped a train to Newport, where we caught a bus to Caerleon (pronounced "Kay - lee - on" apparently). Caerleon is the site of some ancient roman baths, the remains of a roman barracks, and the remains of an amphitheater. There's also a pretty sweet museum (and it's all free -- hooray!). The coolest thing about Caerleon, though, is that it is, according to historians, one of the potential sites of King Arthur's Court (like legit and for real). So that is SO AMAZING.

Some flowers that were growing outside in the garden of the museum

a 10 minute bus ride and we're already this far out from the city, and it was awesome

The amphitheater -- it looks pretty small, but was actually HUGE

Don't mind me, just climbing into some of the ruins.

In the middle of the amphitheater

To give you an idea of the size (that little dot down there is me)

The barracks

This side of the barracks was for the centurions -- you can tell because of the different layout of their rooms compared to the other soldiers

In the baths, trying on some roman gear (I'm SO ready for battle)

It was really dark and therefore hard to get photos of the ruins of the baths themselves, but they were pretty impressive

As we were walking around, we found this little courtyard called "Ffwrwm" (Welsh for "a seat" and derived from the Latin "forum") which has got a bunch of little crafty type shops as well as some cafés. It's also got a bunch of stuff representing King Arthur.

A giant Welsh love spoon

Arthur fighting Mordred

Athur's Throne

There's just some statues in a field and I'm not sure why...

It's pretty cool, though.

After returning from Caerleon, we spent the afternoon in the shops making fun of the 90s that have apparently decided to make a comeback in British fashion (seriously -- crop tops, scrunchies, plaid shirts tied around the waist). Then we went over to Pettigrew Tea Rooms for afternoon tea and it was AMAZING.

The most British invention to ever British -- the travel tea kettle

90s fashion here to save the day

Delicious lemon and lavender cake

Traditional Welsh cakes

Lavender earl grey tea

(the type of tea they used -- I almost bought some, but figured I'd search in the US when I get home)

 After tea, we headed out to a pub for dinner, and then went back to the hostel to taste the local beer -- Brains.

Dragon doing Thriller

Brains -- it was SO good

We left early on Friday morning, taking the train back to Manchester, then flying into Paris. My train back to Dax was pretty late in the evening (at 10 to 10pm), so I met up with a friend who happened to be in town. It was great to see Stacie since I hadn't seen her since we studied together 2 years ago at Orléans -- we caught up over a drink and then she headed off to meet the friend she was staying with. I wandered over to the Centre Georges Pompidou to take in the Paris skyline one more time, and then I walked down to Notre Dame to say my final farewells since I don't know when I'll be returning to her.

I took the overnight train from Paris to Dax, but this time I got an actual bed instead of the reclining seats and managed to get a pretty good night's sleep, all things considered. Finally rolled into my apartment, exhausted, at about 8am.

The last week (since I got back from Cardiff) has flown by. I had my very last two days at the middle school which passed really well. My very last class even nearly made me cry -- one of the students made enough little American flags for the whole class, so they all came in smiling and waving their American flags. THEN, they had made me a giant card, which the whole class had signed. AND THEN, about half the class got up and presented me with little handmade notes and cards. All in all, it made for an incredibly sweet send-off, and I'm hoping to keep in touch with the students via a special "assistant" email account I made just for them.

Thursday morning I hopped on the train and headed to Orléans to visit my host family. It was a wonderful few days filled mostly with game playing. I also got to meet their current host student, who is a really sweet American girl who grew up in the Ukraine. We spent quite a bit of time talking together. I can't believe how big the girls have gotten! Philou has just started learning how to read in French, and so she read me a story on Saturday morning (or rather, most of a story; about 3/4 through, she went "I'm TIRED of reading" so I finished reading the story to her). We played quite a bit of Rumikub as well, and it was just really wonderful to see them all again.

Now I'm back in Dax for about 10 days before I ship back to the US. I am currently frantically trying to pack and clean my apartment. Also upload as many photos as possible to the blog since, as of tomorrow, I will have to cut off my internet line (which means basically no internet in my apartment).

For those of you who don't know, I will be moving to Florida this summer to start my graduate studies at Florida State University. (I've got just enough time to get my France stuff unpacked and pack up my entire life at home in MI basically, then I've got to move down to the Sunshine State).


That's pretty much all for now. I'll probably try to do a "Year-In-Review" post or something en route back to the US, or when I get back. Until next time, DFTBA.