And so the final countdown begins.....

*gasp* it's Wednesday evening. Do you know what that means?? All the tests are done. The apartment is almost completely clean. The bags are almost completely packed. Just 2 more days in La Rochelle, one day on a train and at an airport hotel, and then *gasp again* a long plane ride home. We are in the final stretch people!





And I must say, as happy as I am to get home and see you all, I will really miss France. I love La Rochelle. I love being surrounded by history all the time. I love walking past the insanely old tower every day on my way into the city. I love crossing the bridge and looking out into the ocean. I love the food. The sandwiches, the coffee, the bread. I love hearing the language spoken all around me. And I love it when I need assistance at the Post Office/Grocery Store/whatever and without even thinking of what I need to say, I say it. Because my French is that much better.





I'm terrified of going home and forgetting everything I learned!





My French Avon lady, Sandrine, dropped off my Avon order. And I felt so awesome, because after I paid her, she stayed and we chit-chatted for a little while. And it felt SO great to be able to have a regular conversation with her! In French! Like I'm actually able to communicate now and I have to leave.





Don't get me wrong. I desperately want to come home. I just wish I could still be surrounded by the language. I will be listening to tons of French radio when I get home. And watching French movies. And reading French books. And I guess maybe I should get a membership for the Alliance Francaise de Buffalo, so I can talk to and interact with other French speakers in Buffalo. I seriously feel SO close to being completely fluent, and I'm SO scared that coming home and being once again surrounded by the English language will ruin all my hard work :( At least Francoise says she plans on calling every few months, so I have a reason to keep up with speaking/listening to French! I need to be able to understand her over the phone!





Yesterday was l'Examen Oral for the CUFLE program. Woo. I was so nervous, but it was like....nothing. We randomly picked a question (the lady had them all upside-down so we couldn't read them), and then we got 10 minutes to brainstorm and could even take notes. My question was pretty useless. "What did you bring with you for your stay in France?" Really?! Too easy. Maybe the nice teacher lady who graded me thought so too, because after like 3 minutes of me talking about what I brought, she started asking me random questions about what I liked about La Rochelle and if I thought I benefited from being here and stuff. And then before I knew it, my 10 minutes of "torture" were over! Seriously. I am never going to freak out so much over a speaking test ever again. What was also funny is that my CUFLE teacher had totally told us we'd be doing the test in front of a panel of teachers, and here we just talked with this really nice young woman. More like we had a conversation than anything.





Today I had my last exam, for Sources Antiques. Easy. We originally weren't supposed to use dictionaries, and then the other American girl must have said something to the teacher, because then the teacher asked if there were any other foreign kids, and I raised my hand, and she asked if I had my dictionary, and I said yes, in my bag, and then she announced that the foreign kids could use dictionaries as long as she approved them. So I got my dictionary and she just checked to make sure it was just a language dictionary, and then yay! We only had to answer one question, and it was "what were the 3 priniple locations for spectacles in ancient Rome? What are their architectural characteristics, what are their origins, and what sorts of spectacles went on there?" SO easy! That's the only material I studied for this exam too, because I had a feeling we would be tested on it. And just in case you are wondering: theatre, amphitheatre, and cirque.





Did my last bit of grocery shopping at Monoprix! I will have to try to get a photo of that store. It has been very helpful to me these past 3 and a half months! Didn't get anything to cook with though. I've decided to buy sandwiches for the rest of my meals here. They are so good and I will miss them terribly. Just so's you know.....when I get home, we will be spending hours and hours and hours trying to recreate them. Especially that chicken curry sandwich mmmm! I'm totally serious too.





I went Christmas shopping yesterday and have almost everything that I wanted to get :) I also today mailed home a big box of my clothes. Tomorrow I will buy another box to mail home my notebooks and books. They would probably fit in my suitcases, but I'm worried about being overweight. (not me, I mean the bags!)





See you all soon!!





And Marsha, look what I finished last week:
I LOVE them!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grosses Bises,
Kelly