Paris, I'm going to miss you

 Oh my I just realized that I've lived in Paris for 10 months and I don't have a picture with the Eiffel-tower! It's something to add to my never ending "to do"-list :)

Last time I told you how I miss Finland. Well, this post is dedicaded to all the things I'm going to miss from France!

First of all I'm going to miss the language. Especially in the beginning I got better and better every day and I really liked that. Now when I start a new conversation with somone they don't even start talking in English like in the beginning. I guess that my French is understandable :) of course I don't have as much vocabularly as I would like to have but I just have to sturdy, study some more and use the language. For some reason I loved to have the lessons in French but if I could chose I'd have the exams in Finnish...

I'm going to miss my job! I've been a babysitter in a French family and it has been such a joy to see the children grow and see how the younger one learns new things all the time. I'm happy that I'm going to see them a couple of times before I leave France and I hope that they'd visit my family in Finland some day like my family and friend have visited them. I'm really grateful for them for doing stuff with me outside of babysitting. The picture of me playing piano is from their place.

I'm going to miss French food. All this pasta, snails, sea food, pain du chocola (that I hated in the beginning and now I love it), French onion soup, baguette and all these delicious desserts. I'm really French now since every time I eat I HAVE to get a dessert :) and oh my God all the cheese and creps that I'm going to miss in Finland. And macarons! All and all the bakery here is so different from the Finnish one that I can't tell in detail all the things that I'm going to miss.

Here I love the fact that I live near Paris but not exactly in the center. Orsay is really safe and I can hop in a train whenever I want and be in Paris in 30min. In Finland I live in the north and the closest big city is like 6 hours away. I can't describe the joy that I feel when living here because I can find everything I need from Paris.

Of course I'm going to miss all the friends I've made here but I miss my Finnish friends too! And now all my Erasmus friends have left for their homes so they aren't exactly here in Paris. But I really with to see them at some point :) I've made plans to go to Germany and Mardrid, I just have to see when I have money and time to do that. I hope that as many of them as possible will visit me in Finland.

I'm going to miss the train and metro system. In Finland we have metros and trams only in Helsinki, not where I live. Of course they have had many strikes here and the trains are late a lot but still. In Oulun we have only busses which go once in 30min or an hour. I've became so impatient here! All my friends laught at me when I go "Shoot!! We have to wait 2 minutes??" because in my hometown we go "Oh nice only 15 minutes to wait". I love living in a bigger city.

I'm also going to miss all the stuff we can do here. In Paris you can just take a metro and go to a new location and there is something to see. In Oulu you call your friends and you are like "yeah... well.. I don't know.. How about a coffee?". With my friends we even drive out of the city to get a coffee somewhere far so that we can pass the time that way. I'm going to miss this city so much...

Oh yeah and then a bit off-topic: They payd my CAF (it was about time..) and I didn't have to pay my rent this month :P Les Halles here I come! I'm going to buy all the books that I want.

Feeling homesick

I have less than 2 months left here and I'm feeling a bit sad. But also today I felt something for the first time in France: I'm homesick. I miss Finland. I miss exams in Finnish. I miss my pets, my friends and my studies. I miss winter! The winter here was so lame that I was almost depressed. I miss Finnish candy. I miss exchange students in Finland and having fun with them. I miss life where my grandmother was the only person to come to me and say "I don't like the pink part in your hair".

I'm sad that I had to realize that it was a wise decision to color my pink hair partly black before coming here. France lacks some kind of tolerance and is too old-fashioned for the hair that I had for 5 years. I had a friend who after 6 months came to me and told me that now she was used to my hair. I still have friends who say "it's not natural, dye it brown". I'm happy to go back to Finland and I'm already thinking of dying my hair pink again :) I miss a country where my personality was more important than my haircolor.

I miss knowing what I have to do when I get sick or something. I miss the feeling of knowing that the system works. I miss speaking a language that I can actually speak. I miss knowing that I'll pass my exams if I study. I miss having 3 hours to do each and every exam. I miss being able to have pets in my student apartment. I miss Finnish food (karjalanpiirakka!!). I miss less expensive calls and text messages. I miss a system where being on strike is rare. I miss a system where everything is based on trust and people want to help you.

I miss a system where they inform you if a class is cancelled and you'll find all the information on the internet. I miss being able to do my exams as many times as I wish without any penalty. I miss being able to surbscribe to exams and courses over the internet. I miss Finnish flexibility alltogether when it comes to studying. I miss people speaking foreign anguages. I miss a country where you can say your opinion about religion without someone getting hurt.

Well. I think I could come up with a longer list but I give up :) that's how I see Finland now. Open-minded, understanding young people, flexibility with studies and a working system. I'm not saying that I wouldn't live abroad anymore, the contrary :) I would love to live in other countries again some day. This is just a fraction of all the stuff that I'm going to miss when I leave Finland. Maybe next I'll do a list about what I'm going to miss from Paris :)

The cats in the picture are my future roommate's (but I <3 them so much)