Au revoir, mes lecteurs

Week 30: 04/05- 04/14

Welcome to /miel/, a written account of my life and what my days hold here in France. Thank you for coming to read today.

Week 30. That figure just actually hit me. 30 weeks, 7.5 months, 210 days, 5,040 hours. A long time. And with that, my time here (officially) is done. Today was my last day of my contract. It’s bizarre.

Last weekend, it was my birthday! I am a big 24 years old, and as with all birthdays, half of me feels like that is the correct age I feel, and the other half still feels 14 years old sometimes. It’s a fair balance most of the time.

I went to London with Nicole, and Nicole’s friend from middle school, Julia. It was an amazing weekend! We flew into London late on Thursday night, after getting our flight redirected and delayed due to the strikes in France. Friday morning, we woke up to do a walk around a bit, and had a picnic in Kensington Park. It was a wonderful afternoon, filled with charcuterie, a park glass of wine, a baguette, and great conversation. Later that afternoon, we went to Camden Market, which is a huge outdoor market where you can walk and see many different things. We explored some of the shops and ended up in a tattoo shop… where all three of us got tattoos. A good birthday memory for sure!

Friday night, on recommendation from the tattoo artists, we went to a large club event called “Facedown”, and listened to super loud, crazy punk/rock/metal music for the night until late! At midnight, it went from Nicole’s birthday to my birthday! We danced, we sang, we yelled, we observed bizarre things, and it was absolutely wonderful.

A very late night indeed, so we slept in a little bit on Saturday morning before heading over to Covent Garden. Another large place where you can find anything you want, many shops, many cafes and restaurants, as well as many street performers and such. Nicole and I did a little shopping, before having an afternoon coffee and treat.

We met Julia at an Italian restaurant for dinner, where I had the best spaghetti carbonara I have ever had. It was delicious! We cheers’d with espresso martinis, before departing to see “Bonnie and Clyde: The Musical”. It was AMAZING. I loved the soundtrack, the production, the dancing and everything. I wasn’t too familiar with the story of Bonnie and Clyde beforehand, so I was pleasantly surprised and all expectations were exceeded. It was super fun and I was glad we were able to see a show.

We ended the night by going to a local pub to grab a beer. I convinced the security guard to let me bring a cookie in (I even pulled the “It’s my birthday…. Please can I bring a cookie in….?”) and it worked. We stuck a candle in the middle of my cookie and I made my birthday wish.

I love birthday wishes. They come once a year, I think they can be so special and they carry extra power… so I had to use mine wisely. Let’s hope it comes true!

Sunday, Julia had to leave back to the States, so it was just Nicole and me for the next two days. We woke up to go to Easter Mass (Happy Easter everyone!) at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the largest cathedral in Europe (I believe). The line was SO LONG, but somehow we got in just a few minutes before it started and because we were some of the last ones we were placed in the second row from the altar! It couldn’t have gotten any better. It was an absolutely beautiful service, with a complete choir, two organs, and a full staff of church officials in robes and all. It was incredible to have my favorite annual church service to occur in a cathedral of this magnitude. I could hardly stop smiling!

Afterwards, we hit the Tate Modern, which was a little too modern for me, but was still a good experience. Even though I’m not a large fan of super modern art, I do enjoy looking at it and seeing how it challenges my views on art.

Then, we went to see Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and those things. It was packed full of people, but it was pretty alright. We walked to Buckingham Palace, saw the guards, and I have to say… Hot Take possibly… I found it all… underwhelming. It was pretty, undoubtedly, it is fun to know the Royals live there, but I was frankly unimpressed.

Monday morning, we got up and hit the Wellcome Collection Museum, a museum focused on human body, anthropology and archaeology. It was really interesting! They also had a temporary exposition on “Milk”, which I was unsure what it would be about, and it exceeded all expectations.

It discussed everything from the chemistry of milk, the advertising, the targeted advertising, the economics, milk production today, and also discussed the ins/outs of breastfeeding among different demographics and as well as formula. It was my favorite part of the museums. The exposition covered more than I imagined and I was very impressed!

We flew home to Paris that evening, safe and sound.

This week, I played a lot of games with the students as my final goodbye, I was asked for my autograph multiple times, and the students seemed genuinely sad to see me go.

I had all the goodbyes this week. Tuesday we had goodbye dinner with friends/professors from the high school, Jean Calvin, Wednesday I had dinner with my colleagues from Paul Eluard, and Thursday night I had dinner with colleagues from Louis Pasteur. They were all very pleasant dinners, full of memories, delicious food, and even some very thoughtful gifts from the teachers. Of course, it is all bittersweet.

I know I will see some of these people again, as I have formed real relationships with some. I know I will never see others ever again. It’s weird, goodbyes like this. It’s weird, we have made an imprint and an impact on each other’s lives for the last 30 weeks, and it just ends. Over, done with. I’ll have the memories but not the people. Quite odd.

This coming week I am working on packing all my things before I leave next Friday. It is a large task! I came with three suitcases… I think I might leave with more than that…

Looking forward, I have six weeks of travel ahead of me! I’ll be spending some time in north Spain, Albania, Ireland (with my family!), and hopefully Italy to end it all. I finally come home, my real home, on May 30th.

I think this is my last blog. I don’t anticipate much going on this week, I might do some day trips, hopefully see some more chateaus, but I think the number 30 is a good number to end on.

Thank you all so much for reading, for laughing, for crying, for enjoying, all these things with me. It has been such a pleasure to share my candid thoughts with you all. It has kept me sane to write this blog and to know that at least some people read it and look forward to it. For this, I am so thankful.

I plan to do a large summary of my thoughts once I get back to the US. The things I learned, the things I wish I had done, the things that I loved doing, etc. All the reflections. So keep your eye out for that final email in about two months.

With that, I will not do a TL:DR, because I hope you did read it. I hope especially you read the end.

I have learned so much about myself, about this place, about others, about everything. There’s so much more to learn and I am completely enthusiastic and curious to know more. I look forward to seeing you all soon, and to giving you my reflections in a couple months.

Thank you to all of you.

All the love,

Abigail

Below: an art piece in the Tate Modern. Violin handle with horsehair.