Bye-bye!

I got on the train leaving Charles de Gaulle airport and I cried. I felt sad knowing that, with MM now on a plane back to Canada, I was, once again, very far from the people who cared about me.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have met Michael for three reasons. First, our meeting was very much by chance. If it hadn’t been for Couchsurfing.com and our friends who told us about it, our lives would have never crossed. Second reason is that MM arrived in my life at the time when I most needed a friend. The holidays were over, Polish gone; I felt isolated and alone. The grey tyranny of Parisian winter was pulling me down and school started taking a heavy toll. MM’s appearance on the scene changed everything for the better. And for this I am immeasurably grateful. Third reason, and more than anything else, he is an extraordinary individual. Kind, genuine, hilarious. Not a moment spent together that wasn’t brilliant.

Our first meeting was at a dingy rock bar in Bastille. By our third meeting shortly thereafter, it felt to me that we had been best friends for half a lifetime. We talked endlessly about our growing and mutual hatred of French universities, made tacos in maid’s rooms and generally annoyed my roommate. We helped each other through the many horrible curveballs the city threw at us, drank wine by the Seine and never stopped laughing at the “France” episode of Ab Fab, no matter how many times we watched it.

MM, I owe a lot to you, and, as the Golden Girls once put it, “Thank you for being a friend.” See you at Christmas!