After telling a friend about the wonders of a travel bookshop I’d discovered in Nantes’ old quarter, she asked me if I spend most of my time walking around Nantes looking at things.  No one had ever pointed out my exploration habits before and perhaps I just thought that’s what everyone did on study abroad, but I’ve come to realize that my relationship with Nantes is very different from that of some of my fellow IES classmates.

I have been on a little hiatus lately due to the crazy last few weeks I have had in Freiburg. But, now I am sitting at the Zurich airport hotel and thought a great way to cheer myself up would be to finish my last blog duties and look back at the semester.

These are a few photos from our part of town, the Fudan dorms and the Tonghe Student Village.  This is where we began every day and ended every night, and after 3 and a half months it felt like home!  Hopefully this gives you all a sense of where we lived the past few months, and  helps you imagine our experiences a bit better.

On the eve of my departure, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about things I’ll miss and the people I’ll miss (read: sobbing). This amazing chapter of our lives is coming to a close. Rather than continue to dwell on what I’ll miss, I think it’s time to look at what I’ll be coming home to.

I just finished my last examen final!! YAYAYAYAY

I had the most terrifying final exam experience this Tuesday. It was for my “Instituciones y Derecho de la Unión Europea.” There were so much material to study because we pretty much covered all the major institutions and organs of the European Union plus the principles of “derecho” that the Union abides by. I won’t have worried too much if it was a normal, written exam that I’m used to. The scary part was that it was an oral exam!! My first time taking an oral exam, and that in Spanish.

Never in my life did I ever expect to be happy about getting a 68 on something. I imagine that this is a sentiment echoed among many over-achievers: getting less than an A (or, urghf, fine, A-) on an assignment has been known to make me nauseated. This being the case, it’s a damn lucky thing that I was in the soc room last Tuesday, or I may have collapsed in front of my very startled tutor when I picked up my history term essay on Wednesday morning .

Coming home can be a time of mixed emotions for a lot of people. Leaving the culture, food and friends you’ve grown accustomed to while abroad can actually be a lot harder than you think. Here are some tips for making the transition back to your native culture easier.