Au Revoir!

So the end is near...and by near I mean tomorrow! I cannot believe that almost three months has already gone by since I arrived in France. Today was LDOC (last day of class for you non-college students) and tomorrow I leave for Munich, Germany. Then Monday night I'll travel from Munich to Rome by train to meet Chrissy's parents, then from Rome to Florence that same day. I've never been to Italy so I cannot wait to see it! However, I really do hate that I have to leave France. Luckily I know that I will be coming back. I don't know when, but I know that I have to. In French "au revoir" means goodbye but "revoir" means to see again, so when I say au revoir to my professors, French family, and new friends it doesn't actually mean goodbye forever. It means that I'll see them again! So that's what makes leaving not so sad (except it is still pretty stinking sad).

I realize that I haven't written a post in two weeks. Don't worry, I'll do a wonderful recap now.

Two weeks ago we visited the Musée d'Orsay and it was wonderful! I saw a ton of impressionist work that I loved and discovered some new impressionist artists that I didn't know before (that would be a lot considering I know Dégas and Money and that's about it). It was a great, sunny afternoon in Paris. The weekend after that the Furman group travelled to Strasbourg, the capital city of the Alsace region. Alsace used to belong to German so there was a ton of German influence in the food, the buildings, and the Christmas decorations. YES there were Christmas decorations and it was beautiful, even if it was a little early for me for Christmas. We visited the Museum of Fine Arts, the Alsatian Museum, la Petite France, and just walked around the city. It was such an interesting city because of German influence. We ate a lot of sauerkraut, sausage, and mystery meat and even tried warm wine which tasted like red wine and apple cider mixed together to make a magical drink. It was delicious! I even found some cute sparkly ornaments (one being a sparkly owl!) in a little Christmas store. Unfortunately the Christmas markets hadn't been set up yet because it was still a little too early for them. Fortunately the Christmas markets are up and running in Munich and there's a 90% chance of snow on Saturday so it will be wonderful!

A week ago from Wednesday we had a free afternoon to visit wherever we wanted. I decided to go to the Musée Rodin and the Musée Marmottan Monet and it was spectacular! The Rodin Museum had a special exhibition of Camille Claudel's work and it was beautiful. We even got a picture of the original "Single Ladies" (S/O to Beyonce)! After that we headed over to the Marmottan Monet museum where the whole basement is dedicated entirely to Claude Monet.  After that we made a trip to an all-American product store properly named "Thanksgiving". I got all of the necessary ingredients to make chocolate pie (for the second time), chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin pie! The chocolate pie was for the Family Party we had on Sunday, the chocolate chip cookies were for my French brother's 10th birthday, and the pumpkin pie was for Thanksgiving, of course!

Since Thanksgiving obviously doesn't exist in France and I can't be home to celebrate Thanksgiving my French family made me "thanksgiving dinner" last night to celebrate. My French mom made chicken with mushrooms and peppers because turkey is almost impossible to find unless it's closer to Christmas. Then for dessert we had the pumpkin pie I made. I'm not so sure if my family liked it because they had never tried pumpkin before (I don't know how anyone can live without having tried pumpkin),  but I know that I sure enjoyed it. It tasted like Thanksgiving on a fork. We had a great time and it really made me realize how much I am going to miss them when I leave to go home. Lucking tomorrow won't be the last time I see them because I'm coming back to Versailles for one night after Italy to say goodbye and have dinner with them. So leaving tomorrow isn't actually too sad! But it is sad that my semester is already over. I can't believe it has gone by so quickly!

It's been such an amazing experience and I cannot wait until I can come back to France to stay for an extended amount of time. I have seen and learned so much during the past three months, but there is still much for me to see and learn here! I'll post an update when I get back to America to let you know how all my travels to Germany and Italy went. I'm sure they're going to be great!

Au revoir!