So, I lied, it wasn't my last blog after all. But this one is: I'm disconnecting the computer right after this so I can pack up all the hardware we rented from the phone and internet company. Just a note to say that in addition to lying about the number of blog entries, my last entry was also mistaken about Magdalene's conscious feelings about coming back (though I had thought she was indeed sad but didn't know it). She's sad actually, and she knows it. She doesn't want to come back (except to see her good friends). She loves Nantes, she loves her friends here, she loves her new French life frequenting cafés and little restaurants, going to the movies in the afternoon, and discussing deep ideas at every opportunity, even if it leads to loud barking fights. My little French heart beats joyfully when she says so, and when the other three spontaneously speak to me in French instead of English because that inferior language cannot express the complicated and subtle thing they mean. I'm going to miss a lot of things, but I think most of all the way the entire culture (the language, the way of greeting one another with kisses, the length of the meals, the way everyone loves to talk--but also listen) encourages you to become close to other people, many of them.

Ok, that's it, this speechifying is over, I say goodbye now to this blog's imagined and real audience. But that's only to see most of you in the flesh soon.