Goodbye again...

And so it begins: tomorrow is the day. My two-week stint in Poland is coming to an end, and the real reason I flew over the Atlantic is beginning. I’m excited for a few things:

Being able to stay in one place for more than a week, finally being able to unpack all my stuff, no more driving or flying for hours and hours (I counted roughly how many hours I've spent in planes and cars so far, and the number exceeds 48).

I also really, really, really don't feel like going back to the UW. At least for a while. I won't be spending two hours of my day in a bus which is awesome (although I'll probably miss the crazies... The crazies always liked me).

Mostly I really want to stop leaving people: my family, my puppy, my dad’s side, now my mom’s side. Here, I’ll mostly miss my grandma, especially what I guess I can call our tradition of staying up for hours talking about everything. We talk in the living room, then decide we’re tired, get ready for bed, then I somehow end up in her room, and we talk for another hour or two until we can both barely keep our eyes open. 

One of my favorite pictures depicting our little ritual....

Mostly I’m nervous. I told myself that when I was in Bydgoszcz I would at least read a bit of French every day, I even brought my grammar textbook from when I was taking 300-level French to study up a bit. I did not study up a bit. In short: I fell utterly unprepared, language-wise. I did watch some French television here though, so I’m not a complete failure.

On the subject of language though, I do have to say I that I feel like my English has worsened a bit after two weeks of not using it much. On a few occasions I've looked at something and completely forgotten what it's called, or I’ll forget something in Polish and remember it in French instead.

Anyways, overall I’m ready to have the flight, Bonjour je m’appelle Ola, unpacking, and piles of paperwork stage over with; reaching a point of general stability will be nice.

I don’t know: I’m worried about my French, I stress easily, I make friends slowly if at all, and I’m not a fan of change in general. I expect the first month to be difficult.

But at the same time, everyone that I speak to that has done the same exchange program (or any other exchange) has labeled it one of the best experiences of their lives. Apparently I won't want to go back home after the semester. We'll see. 

For now I guess I’m not too horribly stressed. I have perfected to art of lying to myself. Lie du jour: we aren't packing and going to France for four and a half months far away from friends or family. So I’m artificially calm.

Tomorrow we get up at 5:00 am for a five-hour drive to the airport, and I should land in Montpellier by 7:25pm. Here we go.