One week left in Paris.

I can't believe I'm really down to the last week. The semester as a whole has flown by, but these last weeks have really been dragging because I've been so excited by the idea of going back home and back to WashU. Even though I have a ridiculous amount of things to cross off my to-do list in these next 7 days (including one paper, 3 finals, Anne's visit, a musical, a movie with my host family, and as much of my Paris to-dos as I can fit in), I know the days will continue to go by far too slowly. At the end of each day when I get to put a line through one of the boxes on my calendar, I know I'm one day closer to going to Finland and going home, both of which involve seeing people I love and being done with the semester. Don't get me wrong--on the whole, I've really enjoyed my semester in Paris. But right now, with end-of-semester work/exams, the cold weather, and Christmas coming up so soon, all I want is to be with the people I care about back home. And that just cannot happen soon enough...

I do have a life update, however. I spent Dec 4-Dec 7 in Barcelona, Spain with Jasmine, Heather, and Pierce and had a really great time. First of all, the weather was amazing...it was between 15 and 20 degrees C every day. =] There was a little bit of tension within the group having to do with differences in opinion about what we should do, what time to leave the hostel, etc, but once we got over that everything was wonderful. We saw some of the major attractions in the city (Las Ramblas, the beach, the pier, Park Guell, Gaudi architecture, Casa Batillo, Sagrada Familia, Place Catalunya), but we decided to mostly take it slow since we had 4 entire days to see everything. It was the perfect get-away from finals stress and chilly, rainy Paris. We drank sangria with every meal (except breakfast), ate tapas at least 5 times, and took loads of great pictures. I think we all needed that break, and I loved spending time with such a great group of girls. Traveling with people really allows you to grow closer to people, and I'm so thankful for that. I'm dreading the day that I'll have to say goodbye to the amazing people that I've met on this program. There are at least 5 people that I can say I now consider very close friends, and that's so special and amazing considering we only just met 3 months ago.

Countdown updates:

Helsinki in 7 days.

Atlanta in 13 days.

Christmas in 14 days.

Nathan comes over in 23 days.

This week needs to hurry up and get done with!

I think I'll go get McDo now (it's a blessing and a curse to have one literally right next to me).

Bisousssss