time to say goodbye

misty paris

The semester is dwindling to its last legs now, and every conversation I've had in the last two weeks has been punctuated with someone saying "I can't believe it's ending so SOON!" and everyone falling into momentary depression. One of my friends has taken to yelling out at random points whenever it hits him that his days left here are in the single digits. Everyone is busy running around and cramming as much as possible in to one day in order to finish their to-do list.

Personally, it's a rather odd mix, because it’s the end… but not quite. I'm terribly sad that the semester is almost over because it's been the most fun I've ever had in college by far. Since the programme is so tiny – 150 people in total - NYU in Paris has all the closeness of a tiny liberal arts college. But by virtue of being in Paris, this semester not only gave us the chance to explore one of the most amazing cities in the world (I’m just a little bit biased), but a springboard to the rest of Europe too.

But it’s not quite the end of Paris for me either, because I’ll be returning in the fall. However, it’ll be with an entirely new group of people, which by all accounts, makes for a vastly different experience. I have a feeling it’ll be slightly odd to come back after spending four months at home. Things will seem so familiar, yet not. Moreover, most of next semester's students will never have been to Paris before. Things that will seem incredible to them will be things I've long since gotten used to, while everything new to me will be compounded with the question, “Why have I never seen this before?”

Whatever happens, I'm glad I'm coming back, because I'm not done with Paris yet. I’ll be able to do the things that I always intended to do this semester but never got around to, and rediscover my favourite places. After all, there're still a thousand museums to see, arrondissements to explore, cafés to discover and the rest of france to conquer.