#rye1415

Morgan: Exit to the right, fall off the cliff, leads you back to your real life!

Jimena and her Mexican friend, Mariana (who happens to be a RYE student in Germany), arrived in Toulouse this afternoon and I got a chance to hang out with them. We had a lot of catching up to do in only a short amount of time. Because Jimena has already been on her Euro Tour, she told me some shopping advice. One of those little tips was that Kebab is only 3€ in Prague!!! Guess what DeMya’s eating for two days in a row!? But no really, that’s half the price of Kebab in France. Unfortunately, just the sandwich alone costs a total of 10€ in Switzerland so we know where I won’t be eating Kebab at! All in all, I had a really great time even though I walked around for an hour+ with a huge, VERY HEAVY, backpack (I slept over at a Rotarian’s house on a school night). It was a pleasure to meet Mariana and talk about our different experiences as exchange students in different countries. I hope we all get to meet up again like we said we would in the near future. I could always go for a good Spanish lesson from these ladies.

Paid for my Euro Tour!!! Any other RYE students in France taking the June 22 - July 3 bus trip? I hear it's popular with the southern hemisphere students.

So with all of the stuff happening in France right now surrounding Charlie Hebdo, believe it or not but I feel safer here than in the U.S. Like, have you seen what's been going on in the U.S. lately?

To any of the RYE students in France! My oldie told me about a JRJ meeting that happened last year in March. I don't really know much about it other than the fact that all the districts in France meet in Paris!!! It sounds so awesome! Does anybody know anything about us having one this year?

You know, Margot? The french girl from D1700 that's currently in my home district of D6860! The girl that I met back in August after she arrived and before I left! Well, in two hours time, I'll be leaving Toulouse to go spend the weekend with her family! How cool is that? I didn't realize this until like Tuesday. And while I have been working on my Christmas vacation stories, they're not quite finished yet (aka I haven't typed them). I promise I'll try to get them up when I get back, or sometimes at the beginning of next week! I'm thinking that making a video of the adventure might be more visual. I have both video and pictures. Maybe I'll blog about it AND make a video. What do you guys think?

When you can finally hold phone conversations in your host language without feeling like a complete idiot! ✔

Kirra (Princess of Oz) will be leaving for the airport in less than an hour!!! And it's so hard letting go because she was my first friend here! She was the first exchange student from D1700 that I met! She's been my guide when I'm lost (at some times literally)! And I knew this moment would come! But it's harder than saying "see you later" to my friends back home. It's different, because as exchange students we don't know when we will see each other again!!! When I finally do go to sleep, I'll wake up knowing that she'll be sitting on a plane waiting to takeoff! Ughhhh this is one of those "worst parts of exchange" moments! And in 6 months it will probably be 10x worst considering it will be me leaving, with all the other exchange students going back to there respective host countries as well! Lesson: exchange is temporary. We know this coming in, but we take things for granted. We take our time here for granted. We take our friendships and relationships made for granted. Hopefully, they won't be temporary though! And Kirra, if you're reading this: Thanks once again for everything!