See Ya Later Alligator

Guess who dug their unnecessarily ginormous suitcase out to start packing up the coolest semester they’ve ever had and ever willlll?? Me ):

Talk about end of an era y’all. 

I’ve been saying a lot of goodbyes this past week. This weekend especially. It’s weird because life in Nice isn’t really my real life. My family's not here. My close friends aren’t here. I literally struggle to do basic stuff like groceries here all the time. It’s just, yeah, it’s not like life back home. And yet I feel so sad to say goodbye to these people I’ve known for less than 4 months. 

A couple days ago on Friday, I went to my place of worship. We have a big celebration coming up tomorrow actually, and so on Friday we did our prayer stuff but then we had this huge dinner after. I don’t know if any of my other fellow brownies have ever felt this way but to walk into a room with a fully South Asian spread of food almost brought tears to my eyes. Yeah the gyros and pasta and wings are cool but I don’t know. Something about seeing gobi and sambhar really tickled my heart. Food from your home just hits different. 

Well we’re doing this dinner right and it’s not at all like our usual festivities. The community in Nice is really small and on an average Friday we’ll get like 5 people who show up for prayers. Which is totally cool. But this last Friday, there was like 30 people in that room. I’m meeting lawyers from Nairobi who are genuinely interested in what I’m doing post-grad. They have so much cool advice and insight for me. I’m meeting doctors who’ve spent most of their life in Chile and India, and these super cool little kids who are trying their very best to string together the little English they know to enthusiastically ask “How long are you staying for?” Seven days. I’m here for seven more days. 

When I was in elementary school I had like..no friends. Like I was just terribly antisocial and super depressed and yeah I had no friends. As I got older and entered high school, I met the coolest girl to ever exist and we had similar music tastes and she was just an amazing person. She could make killer chicken Alfredo pasta. I remember that about her. Towards the end of my revered high school career, we stopped being friends. And it sucked. Major. After that, I was terrified to make friends. I didn’t talk to anyone in college for weeks. When I came to Nice I didn’t want to talk to anybody except Allen. I didn’t really see the point. Not even trying to be corny right now I literally feel so awkward typing about my feelings but yeah, people leave. I don’t see the point. 

Go check out part 2!! Or don't :D

Things start looking up in that one.