One down

Semester one is done tomorrow! It has kept me quite busy, even until the end. I should be working on an assignment right now, but decided blogging was more important. And more fun.

So, one final thing due tomorrow, followed by an evaluation that I hope lets us really make a difference for the next group of students in the program. Then a last dinner and night out with the classmates, followed by us scattering across the globe on Friday. I will head to Amsterdam for the day, where I plan to wander around the city and maybe check out the last few museums I want to see. My copious amounts of luggage and I will spend the night in a train-themed hotel, which should be interesting, but was cheap, directly across from the train station, and had an elevator (a rare thing in Amsterdam). Then, Saturday morning, I hop on a train to France! Woohoo!

Fear not--there will be pictures of me moving. I have been told I look somewhat like a sherpa. When I moved out of my dorm on Sunday I could barely move it all. I did repack though, and am now down to one large rolling suitcase, a duffel bag, a backpack, and ONE side bag. There were two side bags. I consider that a major success. I accumulated so much stuffffffffffffff without ever realizing I was doing so. Just a few books, a pair of shoes, a scarf or two...I need to stop doing that. Or stop moving. Or get rid of a bunch of stuff. Or all of the above.

I've realized that I liked moving much more when I was moving across town and could just load the car up haphazardly several times and never had to worry about getting things in suitcases and heaving them all over the place. I like this kind of moving much less. It looks, however, like due to restrictions from the various universities, I'll have to stay in France for a year to be able to get the required double degree, so I may get a reprieve from moving every six months. I also, however, hear murmurings from classmates who have already arrived that our French dorms rooms are miniscule, so I may be prevented from acquiring anything in France anyway. Or maybe I'll just send everything I already own home with my various visitors. Yes, that means you :)

This semester has gone both fast and slow, like most things. It's still hard to believe I'm leaving in two days. In the midst of a crazy packing weekend, it was beautifully sunny for a while Sunday afternoon, so I took a break and went for a long walk by the river (which is actually a large canal). Sorry, I'm on a really slow connection and can't upload pictures. But it was a gorgeous day, and it kind of made me wonder what it could have been like here if things had been a bit different. I hope I get more of a chance to enjoy France and am not so frantically busy or stuck inside by crappy weather. We shall see.

Onward! I'll report next from France!