Happy holidays!

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and what a wondrous holiday it was. The turkey arrived just in time and I dined in Chambéry meets America style. It started snowing during the feast though, which was not exactly what I bargained for. I've had to make some wardrobe adjustments since being here to be able to walk through slush and snow without getting frostbite on my poor little helpless toes. Plus part of the remaining pumpkin pie in the box I was carrying did not fair well in the wet, slushy, cold, unwelcome rain/snow/hail/slush/ice-water.

Now the pumpkin pie is all gone and has taken with it the remaining feel of Thanksgiving and fall. Now it's time for Christmas and winter. I have already started the month long process of making paper snowflakes, decorating baby trees, coloring Christmas trees, drinking Christmas tea, and watching Christmas movies. I think my favorite holiday movie is The Family Stone and I've already watched it once. I'm sure I'll watch it many more times before it's even Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas - I've started arranging my holiday plans and I couldn't be happier about them. Gunther is flying to France and we're going to Colmar (a town which I will tell you more about once I've actually been there) and possibly taking a day trip to Strasbourg. After that we/I am/are heading south to spend a good portion of break with Mélodie and I'm so excited about that. She's incredibly gracious and kind to let us spend the holidays with her and I'm lucky to have made friends that can house my homeless student butt over the holidays.

I'm also working on maybe a trip to Rome. This one is less confirmed, more just an ambitious fantasy of mine. I already know when the flight out is and where I would stay if it happens. I've done my research. Because I've been so excited about all this I've started a Europe bucket list for my remaining time here. What if I never get to come back to France? I want to make the absolute most of the time that I have here and see all the things that I really want to see, just in case.

On a related holiday note - I'm not dealing too well with the fact that my friends are leaving me. They aren't just leaving for break though, their leaving for good. I don't know who I'm going to come home and ramble in English to, who I'm going to to shopping with, or who I'm going to have lazy weekends with. I'm sad about it, but note that the France postal service will be getting a lot of business from me because I'll be sending them a million things.

Holidays - sad, right. I'm sad because there are things I miss from home. Little things. I kind of miss Christmas shopping for people. I miss walking downtown during Christmas time, the smell of chex mix in my kitchen, and putting up the tree. BUT walking around Chambéry (and eventually Colmar) during Christmas is going to almost trump walking around downtown Knoxville. It's going to be worth a holiday away from home.

PS - I'm going skiing/snowboarding this weekend and just you all wait until you see my ski pants. They will blow your minds.

THANKSGIVING!

The time has come, friends, for all things delicious. Just because I'm not in the states for the solely American tradition does not mean that I won't be celebrating it as close to the book as possible. There is a turkey, there are pumpkin pies, and there are a lot of people who just enjoy each other's company and want to be together tonight. That's pretty much all it takes to create the perfect Thanksgiving, I'd say.

Yes, I'm sad that I'm missing Thanksgiving with my family, but I'm just having it with a different family this year. There will be pictures, so don't fret. I'm about to run to the store and buy some last minute things.

But first, in the tradition of Thanksgiving, here's what I'm thankful for:

-My family
-My friends (both home and here)
-The fact that I'm in France right now
-The food that will soon be presenting itself before me
-My health because I don't know enough French to deal with doctors yet
-The insane opportunities that I've already had and that I still have yet to come
-The fact that I actually have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving

PS - I hardly ever get feedback on my posts so it's time to get interactive! Tell me what you're thankful for!

A lot on my mind

It seems that my animal instincts have kicked in and my body has started preparing for hibernation. There's a crisp chill in the air, not quite cold enough to burn your nose when you breathe or turn your lungs into crystals after a deep intake of breath, but it's heading in that direction. It gets dark early, it's cold throughout the day and night, and quite frankly I have a really hard time convincing myself to move from my warm harbor of a bed and out of my oh so comfy pjs. It's hard, friends.

Another big part of my not wanting to step out into the light of day (aside from that society driven desire to be a vampire - thanks, Vampire Diaries, thanks) is that I've been feeling a lot of emotions lately that have me unwilling to go outdoors and face the world. I think that's almost like the opposite of what I should be doing though. Staying cooped up all day leaves me with myself long enough to dwell on all the things that have been bothering me. I don't come to any conclusions or resolutions. I don't find myself at ease with anything on my mind. I've been told that becoming disconnected is part of the fun of studying abroad. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. That has actually been the hardest thing for me. Coming from someone who only has a limited number of friends as it is, realizing that maybe my absence falls under indifference for some people has knocked me breathless. With distance comes clarity, I believe they say. If nothing else I learn who notices the void I've left from being out of their lives and who fills it so quickly and easily that I couldn't have made that much of an impression as it was. I would have had to learn these things eventually.

So personal goal now - let go. I feel like I want too much for my life to mean something to people and for my absence to mean something too that I get incredibly too let down. I need to let go of the majority of my connections with people and start anew. This means I stop sending desperate postcards and pleas to deaf ears. I need to stop putting forth effort for a while because it only stresses me out and keeps me from missing out on all the opportunities here. I'm letting the ties I have to people hold me back. Maryville College functions incredibly well without me. It's a fine establishment that my enrollment neither makes nor breaks. They've given me so much, but I will go ahead and predict that re-adjusting post study abroad is going to be incredibly challenging for me. It will be worth it, but it will be hard.

A little taste of November

It's only the 16th of November, but already so many things have happened. I should be at a Shakira concert right now, but I took the French transportation system for granted and couldn't get to Lyon to make it happen. To make up for that, I proceeded to go with Bridget to our pizza place and order my usual pizza (an order that the owner now knows by heart because I am a regular - success).

Shakira concert bust aside, I just came back the other night from Paris and I fell in love with that city all over again. I think it may be that I'm just getting more comfortable in France in general, but it felt different this time. I didn't feel as lost or confused. Plus I was watching some of the greatest names in tennis play in one of the greatest cities in the world. I was pretty bummed out that Nadal wasn't there, but I think I started appreciating other players more because of that. I wasn't so focused on that one player so I got to witness the potential in other players. I loved Llodra, the frenchman, because the French crowd went CRAZY for him. It was like I was at a rock concert or something. It was amazing. The trip was also a huge success because Mathieu was awesome enough to let my friend and I crash at his place for the weekend. I got to kind of experience Paris as more of an insider than an outsider looking in and even tried my hand at a French house party. I'm moving on up, friends. I can't wait to go back and hang out with a familiar Maryville College face in Paris very, very soon!

In other news, I think I'm really starting to pick up on the language. Definitely not speaking it, but I did catch myself writing something in French that I had intended to write in English. It's one small step for man, one giant leap for my overall comprehension. I'm hoping that it will be a domino effect and everything will just start falling into place with that one little push.

I don't know if I wrote about this yet or not, but I also spent the weekend before Paris in Nice. That was incredible and warm and all coast like. I loved the coast and could have stayed there a lot longer than 3 days. I also hit up Cannes and Monaco a little bit while I was there, but the weekend is not long enough to spend anywhere in France. I need a long time to just soak it all up.

It's getting close to Christmas time too, and I know Thanksgiving is first and all that, but they don't do that here so they're in Christmas mode meaning...so am I. I'm super excited about spending Christmas with Melodie and super grateful that I have friends here to spend Christmas with at all. It's going to be hard being away from home for Christmas, but it feels good knowing that I always have a place to stay here with someone. I love it.

There's my update for now. I feel like I leave so much out, but it all happens fast that if I continuously write about it I might miss out on something else.

Halloween

Let's be honest. I never expected Halloween in France to be anything like Halloween in the states. I knew that there wouldn't be trick or treaters and I knew that the freaks wouldn't come out of the woodwork at night. I was well aware that no zombies would walk down my street and no pumpkins would be aglow as I walked through the neighborhood at night. I wouldn't even get to see a normal looking pumpkin, let alone get my hands on it to carve it. And yet, even with all of this in my mind - I was still disappointed in Halloween. I had even lowered my expectations drastically and was still let down. I saw a handful of people dressed in costumes last night and no one that I knew. I spent all of an hour out waiting for something awesome to happen and it never did, so I was in bed on Halloween by midnight.

Pathetic.

If I'm being honest - I miss home. I miss being spooked, I miss people going all out, I miss pumpkins, I miss candy, I miss Mountain Dew, I miss friends, I miss working at the Riviera, I miss seeing movies, I miss 24 hour drive thrus, I miss businesses being open on Sundays, I miss my sister, I miss my brudder, I miss MC campus, I miss my parent's cooking, I miss everyone around me speaking English, I miss cars, I miss it all. It's always there, but sometimes when I get into little tiffs with people or things around me make me feel as though I'm being turned on - I start to miss home even more. It triggers this chain reaction of anger, sadness, and then homesickness. But if I'm still being honest - that's what made me want to leave home too. I would have arguments with people or lose people and I would just want to run away from it all. That's all I ever want to do - run away from my problems. It's difficult to run away here because there's no where for me to really go. I just shut myself in my room and wait for the feelings to go away. They usually do, it just takes some time to convince myself that this is what I've always wanted and I can't let a little hurt feelings make me think otherwise.