Goodbye!

Time flies when you are on exchange. Especially the last month was over before I realised it. During this month I had to study for my exams but I also wanted to see and do still so many last things in Paris. One of these things was of course Disney in Christmas style. During this last month also friends from the Netherlands dropped by and did we organise several events with my friends in Paris.

The exams in Paris were quite different from what I was used to in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands it is more clear what you have to study and how they want you to use the information.That was mostly not the case in Paris which made it so much more difficult especially since we sometimes had no books neither.

After my last exams, I still had a few days left to see my newly made friends before all of us were returning to their own countries. On the last Friday in Paris we celebrated Christmas and had a special Christmas dinner. We celebrated it with “Secret Santa”, you pick a name a buy I gift for them. Afterwards you had to guess who bought you the gift. It was a great night with a lot of international elements. There was even a homemade gingerbread Eiffeltower. Sadly this was the last night with all of my friends and we all needed to say goodbye to each other. Luckily for me, the next day a friend from Holland came to Paris to pick me up. Together we had a few last days during which we walked through Paris while enjoying the countless Christmas lights and markets. on Christmas Eve we drove back to the Netherlands together.

It is already 3 weeks ago since I am back in the Netherlands. Off course it was very nice to see all of my friends again. But at the same time it was also a bit strange to feel like that nothing back home seemed to have changed during the time I was gone .

Looking back it feels quite special that I have been in the opportunity to discover the metropolis Paris in a totally different way. During brief visits, the focus often is more on the touristic highlights while you know that the city is so much more. Now I had the opportunity to be much more part of it.
But off course my exchange would not have been that awesome without the people I met there. It has been so interesting to meet so many different people from so many different parts of the world.

Not everything was easy. Especially organising the right courses caused some constrains and stress. What is the exact content ? Will they be approved or not ? Will I get my credits, etc. This sometimes was quite difficult to understand and organise, especially when it appeared that deadlines to do so already had passed. But at the end everything fell in place. Going on exchange is something I would recommend to everyone, it is super fun and very interesting to live in a different place in the world. I had an amazing time and met amazing people. For sure when there will be another opportunity to study abroad, I won’t hesitate to do so.