Where did the last 8 months go?

I am leaving Bordeaux in a few hours. I will be back in Illinois in a little more than 36 hours. Now what? :(


I already miss these people beaucoup.

Laura gets sentimental, and sentimentality leads to referring to herself in the 3rd person

I have been working on a list of things I am going to miss about Bordeaux. This is a work in progress.
1. ALMOST everyone that I have met here, especially Anya, Randall, and Pat.
2. St. Michel market on Saturday mornings
3. cheap wine
4. bread
5. cheese
6. the abundance of Indian restaurants (lots of food on this list, no wonder I got fat here)
7. coffee
8. the quay
9. my super comfortable bed
10. people saying hello, even if they don't mean it
11. the beautiful clothes, even if I can't afford them
12. my toy cell phone
13. churches
14. the Vival party, morning, noon, and night
15. Kebab
16. long afternoons in the Jardin Public
17. beautiful flowers everywhere, even in the winter
18. the sad, snowless excuse for winter
19. Euros are pretty
20. cheap flights to cool places
21. the convenience of the train
22. crazy people EVERYWHERE
23. La Grasse Bande, especially their Michael Jackson medley which includes the Thriller dance
24. the Spanish guitar player offering "grand services"
25. the accordion player making everything feel so stereotypical and wonderfully French
26. Monday nights at La Comtesse aka Big Balls
27. The Monday night bartender (Philou?) at Big Balls
28. 2 hour coffee dates
29. People's glasses
30. The St. Michel Market bread lady and her bad attitude
31. school and the super cute kids there
32. the glass bottle recycle bins after the weekend and the wine bottles in a 5 foot radius around it
33. salted caramel ice cream
34. plotting
35. Place de la Victoire and its vast array of sketchiness
36. lots of reading time
37. playing "my team" and wondering what percentage of Bordelais has been claimed by one of us in the months since the game started
38. crazy drivers with no regard for their cars or the cars of their fellow drivers
39. people wearing scarves while out running
40. lighting the oven with a chop stick
41. the musical selection at La Fromentine
42. living in a country with an official language, even if I can't speak it
43. impossibly blue sky
44. the white cat belted to the table along St. Catherine
45. random people telling me "Obama is my brother"
46. making bets
47. everything that took place at Quinconces
48. the rainbow of Vespas on the road
49. the free newspapers at the tram stop each morning
50. French guys' hair
51. the beautiful buildings
52. cobblestone
53. the hand dryer in the bathroom at Karl
54. French people's accents while singing English songs
55. hot dads
56. being anonymous
57. having a weekend
58. protests
59. the singing pirate
60. being less than an hour from the ocean
61. no screens on the windows
62. the peach beer at Lucifer
63. soft spoken people
64. 6 weeks work, 2 weeks vacation
65. early spring
66. not having to wait until late spring for strawberries
67. seeing something that made me say "wait, what?" every time I left the house
68. Milos and its bartenders
69. the sound of wine/beer bottles shattering on the street
70. the abundance of goat cheese
71. trying to figure out what the guys across the street do in that building
72. sweeping the kitchen floor without a dust pan
73. French guys are beautiful
74. the zoom lense on Randall's camera
75. Chartrons on Sunday
76. the creeps along the quay
77. the window displays in the stores
78. playing "push screw marry"
79. Spotify (does it work in the US?)
80. keeping our paper products in the dishwasher to keep them from being stolen
81. seeing Maryse's car pull out of the garage and knowing it was safe for at least a while
82. being able to walk everywhere