An American Girl in Avignon

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It’s been a week and a day and, here I am, finally finishing my blog and finally beginning to overcome that oh-so-nasty jet lag, listening to French music and reminiscing on my time in France. It’s an odd feeling putting your whole life on pause and then going to live abroad, leaving behind everything and almost everyone you know and love. You want to know an even weirder phenomenon?: going back. Did I have a life before France? It sounds weird, but it’s almost like you forget that your life “pre France” existed, and now that I have been home a week, it’s like France was all a dream. Or at it until I look at my pictures, hold my souvenirs, and go back and read my blog, and realize that it was for real! It happened. And even though it seemed too good to be true at the time, it wasn’t. It happened. All of it. France was an answer to prayer and exactly what I needed at exactly the right time in my life: an escape. Funny how this always happens. God always knows. Never fails.
I still feel the effects too, because the other day at the Chinese restaurant, I felt like a complete moron when I started speaking to the waitress in French.
As said, studying abroad couldn’t have come at a better time, and I still firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. My Minor is completed, and I changed while I was overseas. Got some culture, opened my mind to new ideas, saw and experienced so many new things. I think I grew not only in the area of French, but as a person. My character developed. I saw a commercial on TV today that said: “it seems when we get to a place where no one knows us, we become more ourselves.” Truth. I have changed for the better. I feel more condiment, almost empowered, to go after what I want and achieve my dreams. If you can live in a family that doesn’t speak English for three months and survive in a foreign country on your own, the sky seems to be the limit!
I was reflecting over my life these past two years and realized that God put everything in its perfect place at it’s perfect time, and although I may not have realized why certain things were happening at the time they were, and would constantly ask myself and wonder, “Why is this happening, God? I don’t understand,” well, He had a plan bigger and better than my own. He always does. I get it now.
My experience in France and my experiences abroad in China, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, England, Spain, and Germany (but especially China and France), have taught me that there is something bigger out there that we should all be fighting and striving for. I really feel that I am headed towards a career in international journalism or news. I’ve been bit by the travel bug, and it’s not going to die down anytime soon! Sure, it will be a hard life, but there’s so much to see and so much to learn! We’ve all been blessed with one life to live, so we might as well make the most of it.
So here’s a toast to France, to finding out who we all are (which doesn’t necessarily take traveling across the globe to find), and to opening up to new ideas. If you ever get the chance to study abroad, don’t let anything hold you back: money, love, attachment, fear. Drop it and…Go! The experiences you will have are life changing. You can’t put a price tag on anything I did these past three months, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. So, “vive votre vie.” I was just an American girl living in Avignon, vive-ing ma vie (living my life).