France is everything you want it to be.

I have officially been gone for just over a month. And status report—I love it here. France is everything you want it to be. People walking around carrying baguettes? Plenty. People drinking Perrier? Of course. Couples awkwardly rolling around on top of each other in the park? Welcome to Europe.

I don’t think I have any real complaints. Everything is a little different, but if you’re not expecting that to happen, you’re an idiot. I’m just really enjoying doing something different with my life. For the past three years, I was juggling full time school, one full time job on breaks, one part time job on breaks, summer classes, winter classes, and one “part time job” during school that took up way too much of my time/energy/sanity. So I haven’t had a real break in a long time. Even though I got dressed up every day this summer and went into an office, it never felt like work. The Capitol was too magical a place for it to feel real.

So this is my vacation. I get back to the States a college graduate who has no plans to go on to graduate school (unless someone reading this has $40,000 laying around that they’d like to send my way, then—yes, please!). I need to find a real job and start earning real money. But that’s a scary topic to handle another day. In a nutshell, I’m returning home to another crazy schedule where I know I won’t get a real break for some time. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to Europe…politics and fighting for people’s rights doesn’t pay very well. And I’m totally fine with that, it just means I really need to enjoy it extra while I’m here.

My classes are all going well. I can understand most of what the professor says, which helps a lot. Sometimes I forget my lectures are in French. Then all the sudden I look around and realize that I’m going to school at a French university sitting side by side with French students and I’m happy. If anyone is curious, I’m taking French as a foreign language, comparative political institutions, history of the European Union, political sociology, American political society, and comparative law. They’re all super interesting.

With the exception of my mandatory French class, it’s really awesome that all my classes are poli sci. Students here don’t have to put up with the bullshit that the American system puts people through. They don’t have to take art, cultural diversity, science, etc. They just take what their program is. I told some other foreign students that I could have finished my degrees in two and a half years if I hadn’t had to deal with the stupid general education requirements and they were astounded. Maybe that’s nice for students who need to figure out what they want to do, but I would have preferred another two years of heavy poli sci training.

Either way, it’s done. I’m done with the American system, but not America. Don’t worry about that. I will be coming home in a few months. I’ve started to get a little homesick, but there are ways to make it better. Last night some friends came over and we cooked American breakfast for dinner, which consisted of chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, and orange juice. It was amazing. Ketchup, even though it didn’t have red dye or preservatives in it, still tasted like America. We also had a meeting with the study abroad advisors from the offices in Indiana and Madison yesterday, who were in town to check out the program and evaluate it. Those nice people brought bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups with them. Pretty sure I squealed when I entered the room and saw them. It’s the little things such as those that can make all the difference.

No more updates for now. Maybe later this week.