I am writing this while on a ferry from Santorini to Crete. In other words, I’ve left Nantes, and along with it the family who has generously hosted me these last four months; the many friends that I’ve made and other great people I’ve met; the university and the program center where I took classes; the boulangerie where I bought a demi-baguette and a tartine chocolate several days a week and the countless others that I frequented for the more-than-occasional pain au chocolate; the bus that I took to and from class every day; the big fountain that served as a meeting point for going out on weekends or a backdrop for an afternoon espresso or vin chaud; the dark, cheap, student-filled bars where many a night began and the loud, packed, stylish clubs where many a night ended; and the endless other things that I did not realize I was going to miss until I was already missing them.

Based on my last several posts it may seem like Nantes was just a place where I left all my stuff while I was checking out the rest of Europe. But it was more than that. That city served as a temporary home, a place where I learned a lot more than French. I learned, among other things, how to be content without being busy; how a warm, chewy baguette and a jar of Nutella can be all it takes to make me temporarily but completely happy. And that a lot of the time that’s enough–those intermittent moments when I’m fully immersed in something that I love without thinking about what’s coming next. I learned a lot about myself too, about what I like and what gets on my nerves and what lies outside of my comfort zone, and probably a lot more that I won’t realize until I’m back home.

Thanks to finals and packing and all the stuff that I put off until the last possible moment, my last week in Nantes didn’t have the resolution that I would’ve wanted. I didn’t say goodbye to a lot of people, I never took any pictures of myself with my host family, I didn’t get one final night out with all of my friends, and I didn’t have time for reflection on what this experience has meant and what it means for it to be ending.

And maybe I’m in denial (which, considering I haven’t booked my flight home yet, is a very legitimate possibility), but, despite the sentimental tone of this post, those thoughts are far from my mind at the moment. I’m in Greece, walking around the white cities and the white beaches and having a hard time making myself believe that I won’t be going back to Nantes any time soon.

For now, with my mind on other things, it’s those smaller things that I miss, and they’re easily forgotten in the excitement and uncertainty of traveling. I’m in a place that I’ve wanted to visit ever since I ate my first gyro and it has not fallen short of my expectations. So, carrying four months worth of stuff in my backpack and feeling somewhat homeless, I’ve left Nantes behind me and have entered the final leg of my travels abroad.