Before our departure, two of my American friends, Zach and Larry, decided to have a party at their apartment called “Fancy Dress Ball.” It was a pretty good excuse for everyone to get really dressed up and have a great time for the last time together. My friend Steph and I got ready together, both wearing dresses, even if they weren’t that fancy, and we headed off to the party drinks and snacks in hand. We bought a bottle of vodka that said “bling bling” on it and thought it was pretty hilarious to find that in France. We took a picture with it in front of the Christmas tree because we are that lame.

The party was amazing and we got to see everyone in our program throughout the whole night (and a few Frenchies that managed to make friends with our crazy bunch over the course of the semester). We all had such a good time talking about how amazing the semester had been and saying things to each other in French back and forth, but I have to admit that we spoke English for the most part. We took a ridiculous amount of photos that night, thinking of how much we were going to miss one another, and each of them is priceless to me.

My friend Karen wrote a song about us to the tune of the Hanukkah song, and it was really hilarious, talking about all of the problems that we went through and how dumb we have looked sometimes in a foreign country.

Everyone loved it. Fancy Dress Ball lasted about a billion hours; really it went from 8pm until about 3am, and I loved every second. I cried a little on the walk back to my friend’s apartment to spend the night just knowing how many cool people I had met that all live so far away from me at home (especially the ones from France!) But, I guess if I wasn’t crying a lot toward the end, it wouldn’t have truly been a success now, would it? The truth is, I love it here; my friends, my life, my new language. I love it. I don’t want to leave. But, I have a lot of people waiting to see me at home, and I surely can’t wait to see them either. I think having mixed feelings like that toward the end of a long journey is normal, at least I’m telling myself that.