It's just incredible the speed at which time flies! It's already the 15th day of June and which means only 15 days to go back to PUNE!!!

But at this very moment am in such a mixture of emotions... Almost 9 months have passed since I left Pune to come to Bourges, France. The first month of feeling sad of having left behind all the near and dear ones thousands of miles away was soon over with the mesmirising discoveries of beautiful French cities, maginificent country side, cheeses and wines!! The first ever trip to Lyon with Preets gave me a fair idea of how my holidays were gonna be in France! I had only one motive in mind, use to the most this stay in France... discover new cities, countries and experience the thrill of doing everything on my own. I always had this on my mind that such an opportunity may never come along... And I am happy that decided to bear this attitude! It really helped me!

Just after starting the discoveries came the depressing yet fascinating winter! The winter in France and for that matter in all over Europe this year was very harsh. The most harsh winter in past 30 years... People were telling me that I had not chosen the best year to visit France!! It was that bad! Before coming to Bourges the lowest temperatures I had experienced was 6.20 degree celcius in Pune! Here on the normal winter day the temperature would be 1 degree celcius and on the worst day it would go down uptill -16!!! The initial sickness, toothaches and headaches made me hate that cold like anything and I cried and longed to go back to home!! But then slowly I got used to the cold, the darkness and the dullness that I even started liking it! France has been a place of a lot of "first times" for me!! The first ever snow fall, the charm of "white beauty", the first freezing experience of '-' temperatures, the first ever true Chirstmas celebrations, the first shopping at "Marche de Noël", the first participation in the kool and awesome French family reunions which are always followed by long meals and gifts proved my decision of not going back to India in December all the more correct! After the French fun it was time for some Puneri fun with Kedar and Aashish. Along with this the discovery of French citites continued!

Brest, one of the western most cities of France was deeply affected by the world wars. Unlike the other French cities which I had visited so far, Brest was totally different. It didn't have all those medevial churches and small, cute houses. It was quite modern. It's one of the important French ports. The nice parks, good bus system and a different and sauvage paysage really impressed me...Along with the usual siteseeing what we were more interested was in having fun together! It was after almost 2-3 years that the Friends from Pune were meeting, but in France!! This Brest trip gave the enough tonic to survive for the next cold months of Jan and Feb!

As the only importat step for my next years admission at one of the best universities in France and probaly in the world, I gave one real tough exam to taste my proficiency in French language... the DALF C1. This killer exam really took it's toll on my health! The stress, the tension, the expenses, the difficulty of the exam and all the going to Paris stuff was so exhausting that I fell sick! Oh well, of course the excitement of the most awesome trip so far got me back on track! Suisse, Italy and Greece were calling us!!

I shall upadte about the trip later in detail... :)