During the first week of December, as I began to pack up my apartment, I realized I was sad to go. I finally really liked my little apartment, and I had finally formed a really strong bond with the many students who were my neighbors.
I felt a wave of sadness when I turned off my refrigerator Sunday morning to let it defrost before the cleaners came Monday morning.The last things left were a stick of butter, a half eaten block of gruyere, four jars of jam, 3 eggs, a carton of orange juice, and, fittingly, a can of heineken and a bottle of litchi champagne.
The apartment was furnished, so it still seemed full even though most of my stuff was gone. But the last few days of getting my apartment packed up were very depressing. When I'm by myself for that many hours with no reason to interact with the world I start closing in on myself.
However, I couldn't wait for $2 beers and $3 hamburgers. For the faces of my oldest and most trusted friends and the familiar sights of our favorite hangouts. For the comfort of waking up to coffee aromas and dishes clinking gently in the kitchen. I couldn't wait to bake Christmas cookies and hear Christmas music in every store. To see the salvation army bell ringers smiling merrily in the freezing cold. For taco bell, for classic 50s, for pancakes and bacon at a diner, for tex-mex, for people who know what "please make it spicy" means, for real fountain soda, for ice in my drinks, and waiters who aren't surly and will try to do a good job in the hopes of more money. For movies in English with no annoying subtitles. To be around friendly strangers who think nothing of telling you their life story while waiting in line at the supermarket. I couldn't wait to wrap Christmas presents and give the gifts I'd accumulated for people throughout the year.
One day, when I was out buying Christmas presents, I asked the sales clerk why one version of an item was on sale, (quel est le raison pour le prix special?) and she replied, "because it's less expensive than it used to be". This was such an idiotic yet logical response (so very Swiss) that I decided it wasn't worth my time to explain what I really meant.
On December 14 when I had my exit inspection for my move out, I wasn't sure what to expect. My friends who had already had theirs said sometimes it took 5 minutes and other times it took an hour. Mine lasted an hour and a half, because the agency insisted on looking through every item on the furnished list to verify it it was really there. We ended up in a short argument about several things, including 2 missing teaspoons, but since I was never given the list of items when I moved in I argued that I could not have possibly known that there should have been 6 teaspoons instead of 4. She also accused me of drilling holes in the bathroom tiles since they had never been marked as a defect on her previous sheet, but when I pointed out to her that there was absolutely no reason why I would have been drilling holes and leaving them exposed, she relented in a huff, but I was obviously not on her good side anymore.
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