Exactly one month ago today I was on a plane flying across the Atlantic to my new home in Lyon, France. The most shocking aspect of studying abroad is not the language, or the culture, or getting lost and deciding you will never find your way home because you don’t have internet (I was only one block away from my apartment, as it turns out). The most shocking part of study abroad is that, somehow, three months from now I will have to pack up my bags and leave behind a city that I have come to love.

Now, a little background on myself so that you understand where I started. The reason I am studying in France is because it is a huge goal of mine to graduate trilingual (English, Spanish and, now, French). I had studied French for a total of 12 months before arriving in France, which means my French was (if I’m being very generous) elementary. Therefor, coming into France, I wanted to be challenged like never before. Well, when I took the placement test here, I was placed into a class of people who have studied for years, have lived in French speaking places and who are very close to being fluent. Challenge acquired. Furthermore, I am living in an apartment building that is filled with French students in an area that is far from the tourist sites. Did I mention that I wanted a challenge? For the past three weeks, I struggled to keep up in class, struggled to order food at the restaurants, struggled to figure out lease agreements, and then struggled a bit more.

Let me share some embarrassing moments so you can understand where I started. I once ordered two croissants and I thought I heard the woman behind the counter say “douze (twelze) euros”. I was very confused why it costed so much, but nevertheless handed over a ten-euro bill and a coin worth two euros in order to pay the total. Imagine my surprise when the woman stared at me for a solid minute, and then proceeded to hand the ten-euro bill back to me. What she had actually said was “deux (two) euros. Yes, I tried to pay six times the amount for croissants. One time, I tried to buy groceries and then realized they don’t hand out plastic bags here, so I walked half a mile home with groceries in my arms. Furthermore, I cannot even count the amount of times somebody said something in French and I just had to stare at them for a minute because all I could think was “I honestly didn’t hear a single word that I recognized.”

Today, however, was special. Today, I emailed my apartment manager (in French!) to figure out how to pay rent. I went to the office and had a conversation that lasted a whole three minutes (in French!) to figure out how to pay rent. I went to my favorite boulangerie (bakery) and ordered my food for the day (in French!). Here’s the best part, the moment that made today even more incredible: After paying for my bread, the woman behind the counter said “À demain (see you tomorrow)!” After four weeks of getting lost (physically and in-translation) the fact that my favorite baker recognized me as a regular at their store made me positively giddy. In my mind, there have never been two finer words that “À demain” spoken to me. For four weeks, Lyon has been a challenge of ultimate proportions, and although I have no doubt it will continue to be a challenge, those two words also made Lyon feel just a little like home.

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