1 week? can it be....?

Tomorrow is June 4th. I leave Montpellier for good June 11th. It's official: J-7. The final countdown.

I don't really know what to think. I'm having a hard time accepting that this part of my life is so very near to being over. I'd prefer to spend my retrospective reflections for after I get home and continue to "entertain" you with what's actually happening here, but I will say one thing that could probably cover at least a bit of how calling this time a "study abroad experience" doesn't quite cut it. I've had to remind several of my Montpellierain friends that once I leave this summer, I won't be coming back at the end of it...for example, unprompted while several of us were out on the town one night, a friend asked if I was coming back in the fall. I responded negatively. Caught that flash of disappointment before the other nimbly returned to the conversation. You know what? That really sucks. Knowing that they care enough to miss me, and unlike other friends who are in the same study abroad boat, they'll still have each other when I'm gone, and their lives will move forward. I'll be the only one separated.

Whoof. Better stop before I go on too long. Besides, why talk about sad things when you can talk about...

...FLAMMEKUECHE! (gesundheit?)

No, I didn't just sneeze. Flammekueche, besides being more than a little tricky to spell and pronounce, is also a French dish. More specifically, it's Alsatian - from the Alsace region up near Germany - and is delicious! It's a thin stretched dough covered with white cheese, lardons, onions, crème fraîche, and perhaps things like mushrooms as well. And it's deeeeeelicious! Basically, a friend and I went out to a real sit-down restaurant just because we could. The weather the past couple days has been grey and on-and-off rainy, so it was an excellent day to spend an afternoon. Conversation, trying not to slip and slide on the wet ground while trying to find the restaurant, and....

Fondant au chocolat! (melty chocolat cake, sitting in a bath of crème anglaise with real whipped cream on the side!)

Okay, sorry for the torture. I'll stop now! I guess I decided that if I couldn't go out for a run in this weather, I might as well do even more damage to my referee training and go the whole hog without feeling a single ounce of guilt. (I won't mention how many times I've eaten kebab in the last week...nor crêpes/gaufres, for that matter...)

Besides that, I've been spending a lot of time just trying to enjoy the city and life as much as I can. When I'm not spending time with friends or training or cleaning (ok ok, or eating), I tend to take lots of long bike rides or walks to my favorite spots or on the never-ending discovery of new places in this crazy wonderful town.

The playing field specifically reserved for players of boules, the favorite game of old French men :) In the shadow of the aqueduct!

A typical apéro in a plaza in the old center, on the church steps. Wonderful meeting place!

Life, despite the ominous looming of my departure, is good. Tomorrow, I'm actually leaving Montpellier for a bit - I get to visit one of my best friends from elementary school, in England! She moved back after 6th grade, and we've kept in touch, and I feel super lucky to get the opportunity to see her again. You know this is important if you can tear me away from my town for any amount of time this close to when I'm going home!

I think it'll be great, and probably a little surprising to be surrounded by English again, and in the coolest of accents! Well, I think the French accent while speaking English definitely wins my heart for cuteness, but I'd love to see what people in Essex (where she lives - not too far from London!) think of my nowhere, generic North American Female accent. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll be able to imitate that French accent and fool people into thinking I'm French. I think I may make that a personal goal of mine, actually. Hmm...

Anyways, until next time, toodle-oo! It's off to England!