I get to stay in Paris until July fourth. I found a train for 39 Euros. I forgot how cheap traveling can be when you can choose your own dates. Until then I’m just trying to savor everything because it’s likely that Ader and I won’t see each other again until December. (The second weekend of July is a no-go.) There is a shred of hope though because he had an interview on Monday that he said went especially well, for a French company that often sends people to the States, even if there are no specific openings in the Miami area at the moment. If that doesn’t work out we’re running out of options. Our next best idea is for Ader to go to the open casting for a Walmart commercial that we found in south Florida.

Yesterday we spent the day browsing bookstores, cooking together and reading in the park. Today it’s raining, so we slept in, went to Chipotle, and now we’re at Bibliothèque Marguerite Yourcenar, the only library in Paris open on Sundays. Chipotle was basically the same as in the States, but even more expensive. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a restaurant smack in the middle of the world’s most touristic city was expensive, but 9 Euros for a veggie burrito? That’s…never mind, I don’t want to think about how many dollars that is. Also not surprisingly the portions were smaller because the burritos weren’t overstuffed like at an American Chipotle. They were easier to eat, but now I’m still kind of hungry, even though we got chips too. The rice tasted a little too healthy for my liking, but the chips were kind if limey, which I enjoyed.

This week we’re going to the movies to see Un bonheure n’arrive jamais seul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJD5-PS0yLQ) with our boy Gad, and another day Ader’s taking me to the aquarium (“si tu es sage”).  While he’s at work I’m going to tap into some of my self-discipline and go running and write as much as possible because I’m really out of excuses for not being productive. But mostly I just want to enjoy living en couple and having an incredibly cute ally and best friend with me who can make me laugh just by saying guacamole or making his yeux de gorilla. No one else in the whole world can do that, or even knows what I’m talking about. But going back to Germany won’t be all bad. Since I’ll be here to put money in my French bank account I won’t have to carry around a stressful amount of cash as I was expecting to have to. Plus I have my going away party to plan which should be pretty well-attended, before it’s back to reality.

Well, I’m in Paris. Sunday night we were driving home from Allgäu, and Beata told me that whenever I wanted to leave I could. I had originally asked if I could leave around June 16 and she had told me that I could if they could find someone to replace me. But then I didn’t hear any more about it, so I assumed I would have to stay until July. I assumed wrong. I looked online and saw that I could carpool to Paris for 40 Euros on Tuesday morning, so I sent Ader an email (“J’arrive mardi, d’accord?”). Monday I packed all my things and left. As I was packing, Beata said that no one was kicking me out and that I could stay longer if I needed to. I politely said that I didn’t. I planned on sleeping in a hostel, but then some French friends offered to let me crash at their place. I really owe them.

I was in the car from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 at night on Tuesday, but I got all the way to Paris for the cost of getting caught without the proper ticket on the Munich S-Bahn. Ader had to work late so I spent an hour at Starbucks. Not wanting to drink caffeine and mess up my sleep cycle, I got something with strawberries. Except even though it was expensive enough, it wasn’t made with real strawberries but some really artificial tasting red syrup. It was gross, just warning you. Then I schlepped my suitcase out to Montrouge to meet Ader at home. One thing I’ve learned from traveling around so much is that if you look pathetic enough trying to get an enormous suitcase up or down stairs anywhere in the world, somebody will stop and help you, guaranteed. Try it, if you don’t believe me…Maybe it only works for girls.

Tuesday night was perfect. Ader and I talked and folded laundry and made spaghetti. Then I fell asleep while Ader watched the soccer game. I woke up around five the next morning, not to a baby crying or people arguing in Polish, but to Ader saying, “Viens dans mes bras.” I went back to sleep until eleven. I didn’t get out of the house until two because I’m completely out of space in the closet and had to organize my massive amounts of clothes. Plus I was enjoying all the un-blocked music videos on youtube. I put my last month of pay in my French bank account, took out a book from the library, and came to Parc George-Brassens to enjoy the sun. I’m not sure yet exactly what’s going to happen over the next few weeks but for the first time in a while I have a genuinely good feeling.

It finally feels like summer! My shoulders are burnt, but in a good way, like crème brûlée. I have to work all weekend, but that means that one day next week I’ll be free. And there are only three weeks left of my German class and of work. I’m already thinking about coming to Munich for a week or so in December, if I survive my first semester of law school. But okay, I’m not going to think about that right now. I have the details of a trip to plan--backpacking through the parts of Germany and Austria that I haven’t seen yet for ten days in July.

To make things interesting my back up credit card expires at the end of June, which means I’m going to have to be really careful to stick to a budget. But I got this. I can definitely stick to eating on 10 Euros a day if I stuff my suitcase with instant noodles, baking chocolate (it’s 1/3 the price of regular chocolate) and the Pringles that make me just nauseous enough to not want to eat so I can skip buying a few meals if need be. Oops, that last piece of information is going to concern a few people. I promise I’ll stop doing this to my body as soon as I get back to the States. I might even start wearing sunscreen if I’m moving to Miami and the sun will no longer be such a rare treat.

Anyway, the first two days of my adventure I’ll be in Salzburg with two friends, then it’s back to Munich for one night. Then I take the bus to Stuttgart by myself. Why Stuttgart? Because it only costs 9 Euros to get there. I spend two nights there and carpool to Dusseldorf for 24 Euros. I’m a little nervous about traveling in a stranger’s car, but not too much because first of all, it’s Germany, plus I know plenty of people who have carpooled without any problem. Then I spend at least two nights in Dusseldorf. Then I don’t have anything booked for the weekend because Ader might still get the weekend off and we could meet somewhere. Then on July seventeenth I fly from Cologne back to Munich. Flying is, bizarrely, the cheapest way to go. Then I’m back in Munich for one night to have a going away party and therefore am not booking a hostel.

Then it’s back to New Jersey at ten in the morning on July eighteenth via Berlin and New York. I’m excited to see my family again, and a hand full of friends. Although my social life is overall better in Germany, muss ich sagen. It’s not so much the quality of individual people but the number of quality of people and their availability. I still don’t know how to feel.

A month from now it’ll be the last day of my German class, and my last day as an au pair. That much I’m happy about, but I will be a little sad to leave Munich. Unlike almost all of my friends from Paris who left at the end of the school year, most of my friends from Munich intend to stay. At least I should have a well-attended goodbye party and places to stay when I come back and visit.

The next four days are going to be long. Julia’s daycare is closed so I’ll be home with her the whole day Thursday and Friday. Then it depends on when Beata gets back from Poland. If it’s before this weekend we’ll probably go to Allgäu, which means working through the weekend and coming back super late on Sunday and being tired for another week. Yay. But I shouldn’t complain too much about work, it’s not that bad. If I do have to work this next weekend I’ll get one day next week or the following weekend off, and then maybe I could take another day trip to somewhere in Bavaria. On Sunday I went to Augsburg with three other au pairs. Even thought the weather didn’t cooperate we had fun. We say the world’s oldest social settlement (http://www.fugger.de/) and some obnoxiously ornate churches. And since we were able to share one ticket, the whole trip only cost 7,50€.

I finally got paid on Monday (I was supposed to get paid May sixteenth). My 260€ were delivered with a promise to get paid on time the next month. We’ll see how that goes. I’m starting to adore Julia more and more. Her imitation of a rooster is literally the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. I also enjoy listening to her count, because she hasn’t yet figured out that numbers go in a particular order. (“One…seven…four…ten!”) It’ll be hard to say goodbye to that peanut. But after I do I might go to Paris for a week to get in a little more time with Ader before we don’t see each other again in person until maybe--cringe--December. And now that there is a Chipotle in Paris, one more week there just seems all the more appealing.

But if Ader’s going to be on a business trip that week then I’ll spend my days off visiting the parts of Germany I haven’t seen yet—Hamburg, Cologne, Essen and maybe Dortmund. When I get back I have a list of people I need to visit with, shows I need to catch up on, and things to eat. I’ve kind of given up hope on Rutgers. True, it would be way cheaper and closer to my friends and family, but I’ve gotten very used to the idea of the eternal summer in Miami.