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Published: December 14th 2006
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Stockholm from a boat
Everything was beautiful, moreso in sunlight. But that's to be expected. Whew, 7 days left to leave Nantes, 8 days till Chicago.
But first, quick recap on Sweden. I'm sure you're all excited to hear how beautiful it was, about everything I saw, how the sun hit the waters . . . and of course I'd tell you, if only there were more than 5 hours of sunlight per day. It's the kind of thing that everyone jokes about, and I don't think anyone really takes it seriously. Oh no. It's serious. The sun sets at 3:30 in the afternoon. That being said, I spent most of my time there in darkness. It really throws off one's internal clock. I really can't tell you what I saw because, honestly, I didn't see much. I guess the hardest part about being alone, at least compared to Belgium, was that I could understand everything in Brussels. But here, I didn't know a lick of Swedish aside from
God Jul and
morgon. Everyone there knows English and were insanely helpful, but I still felt completely isolated. But anyways . . . I stayed at a cool little hotel in the middle of a forest, I took a canal tour around some of the islands,
T-Centralen
I ended up here a lot, it's the subway. I saw reindeer, and I ate reindeer. Oh yeah, drank some
glögg. That was good. Lifted the spirits a bit. Made me feel a bit more Swedish. Dad, I expect a batch this Christmas (and by the way, I wouldn't mind some
lussebulle either, long story short, I had some today at IES). Thankfully, I foresee that weeklong family vacation to Sweden being a little more definite at this point.
Things are better here, in Nantes. For some of those who talked to me in the past week, things seemed quite dire, and as evidenced by my recent posts, I desired a speedy return to Chicago. Now, things have slowed a bit; for one, tonight's dinner with my family was very enjoyable, we had a lot of conversation and my mother finally told me that I've made a lot of improvement (I mean really, after awhile, I feared I hadn't gotten anywhere), and I actually got along with the little brat tonight. I miss being revered by Melissa's friends.
Well, one final is done with, Phonetics Lab (there's 2 more phonetics finals, we're the only course lucky enough to have 3), and it went surprisingly well, especially after
Solna Hotel
Yes, it was adorable. Yes, it was the middle of nowhere. Billy and I did some last-minute transcribing. Tomorrow will be the bane of my existence; it's Grammar. I dunno even know what to say about that.
As Katie put it today, "I'm going to think fondly of the cobblestones, but I won't necessarily be missing them." Je suis d'accord. I'm trying to mentally file away what I'll miss, the list is a bit longer than last time. I don't think I'm going to have too hard of a time re-adjusting, but hey, famous last words. It's not necessarily Nantes itself that I'm going to miss; it's all the people and experiences that have made Nantes what it was this semester. Every so often, I find myself re-reading a list that some student, some time ago, created in regards to the memories of Nantes. It's the same sort of list as, "You know you're from Chicago when . . ." A sampling:
if you spent fifteen minutes just trying to figure out how to get into Atlantis from the tram stop
if you remember the guy with a dachsund who drew murals with chalk on the sidewalk
if you have ridden the "Ligne 2 vers... Orvault Grand Val"
if
View outside my window.
There's some Swedish trees for ya. you've had galettes at la Creperie Sainte Croix....
if your zipcode was ever 44000
if you remember Beatrice, Jessica, M. de Beranger, and surtout Mme Rouchet
At the beginning of the semester, I didn't understand any of it. But now, I can say there's only about 3 things on that list that I still don't get / didn't happen to me / most likely won't happen to me. It's going to be hard to tell everyone what it was like, photos just don't do things justice. . .
. . . so on that depressing note, I truly must be off to study for the
enfer that is tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll be writing again soon, to give you all one last look at
la vie nantaise.
PS . . . I finally figured out how to put videos up, so next to the map (at the beginning), there's a little icon to click for the video.
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