POST SCRIPTUM

C’est fini.
We just came back from checking the nets out on the lake with my father, my little brother (1,5 years old) and my aunt. I gutted the two whitefish we caught and we put them in the freezer.

Concretely, it’s over, my year in Paris. I know where I have been for a year, the people I have known, the places I’ve memorized, the paths I’ve taken from one place to another, and I know all this of the place I have come to now too. Logically it should all be neatly arranged in my mind, in a kind of linear continum of sequences. But, at least for the time being, it’s all scrambled up, displaced symbols, like flashes from unconnected places and people. I guess it will take time, and then, if past experience has told me anything, my year abroad will be like a dream – in the sense that it will be a vivid experience, completely disconnected from my ’real’ life, possibly never to have happened. And after all, in a sense it will be, as almost all the people i befriended, won’t be in Paris if I ever go back there. But I also know those people will be out there to meet, in new places to discover. So be prepared, I seriously intend to visit as many of you as possible in the years to come. And of course, you are warmly welcome to visit Finland.

My last week in Paris was nice, even though it was a bit of a hassle, since I left the norwegian house a little earlier so i would pay only half the month’s rent, and lived at Gonzalo’s house outside Paris. On Friday I had a going away party, which, loyal to tradition, ended at the Hideout bar. On saturday I went to see the Rolling Stones with Gonzalo, where some frenchies (eight of them) wanted to kick our asses. That kind of killed the mood, until Sympathy for the Devil came. What a show; you could feel the heat from the flames all the way to our spot.
I spent my last day saying goodbyes to some of the people I’d met during the year, which was horrible as always. I guess they don’t have good social models on how to do that.

When I came back to Finland, my mother, sisters and Niki were there to greet me with a finnish dinner. After that we hit the bars, and at 4AM in Molly Malone’s I pogoed on my glasses which miraculously survived, even though somewhat deformed. BTW, I am typing this on my computer, so I got it fixed (for errr... 550e). I spent midsummerfest on an island owned by my friend with some 20 people. Going into a smokesauna after a year was reviving. And now, I am at our summerplace. It felt like home to swim on the placid lake with an aura of light after midnight.

Peace to you all
Until next time,
Niklas