I am officially leaving Toulouse the 21st of May… Wow! I can’t believe that after a year here it’s all ending in less than a month. Toulouse has definitely been a rewarding experience and I am glad that I spent the whole year, but I am definitely ready to come home. I miss a lot of things—my family, my cat, Chipotle, to name a few—but the thing I miss most is being comfortable.

Obviously I don’t mean that in a literal sense. Figuratively, I miss being in an environment where I am sure that I know all the rules and the norms and the do’s and do not’s. Having been in France for almost eight months now (what??!!), I’d say that my grip on the language is pretty solid. I think that most of us who have been in the program for the whole year could say that we’re fluent comprehension-wise and certainly capable of expressing ourselves without difficulty speaking-wise. And having been here for eight months (sorry, I’m still not over it), I’d say we all have a pretty good handle on French public cultural norms—i.e. when and how to enter and order from a restaurant, where to sit/stand on the metro or how to approach and start talking to someone. Being capable is not a question anymore. Being comfortable is.

What I mean is that in France I can never be sure that I’m not breaking one cultural taboo or another. What I mean is that I can’t wait to go to a restaurant in Vermont and know for certain exactly what is expected of me, how I’m supposed to act and how others are supposed to act in response. I’m excited for little things like, for example, when it gets into the 70s in the US I know that most people will ditch their tights and/or pants and opt for bare legs. But last week when it hit the 70s here in Toulouse, I left the tights at home and I swear I have never gotten so many dirty looks from old and middle-aged women before in my life. Just standing at the bus stop I received several pointed glares aimed at my legs like I had intended to visually assault these women. And even beyond the old women at the bus stop, I noticed that I was practically the only one baring my shins, even among people my age. Most were still wearing jeans or even tights. And it’s possible that because this is the south of France and the weather gets considerably warmer during the summer, maybe the locals think it’s cold still? But the point is that I, as a foreigner, had no idea that this cultural norm (on sunny days, we still wear pants) existed and therefore accidentally breached it. And I think that’s part of the point of study abroad—to make you feel like you aren’t comfortable and to make you push yourself. But at this point, I just can’t wait to know, to be absolutely certain that mid-70s means shorts and skirt weather—or, at the very least, capris.