The Final Countdown

Today was an incredibly bittersweet day for me.

Today marks the last day that our class will be together under the instruction of Jose and Nuria, our amazing though slightly insane professors. We still have a week of travel time and then finals, but we will never be sitting together in that room again with these two people who have taught us so much more than Spanish.

Twenty days from now I will be on an airplane crossing the Atlantic Ocean for my home, and this is the first day that it has crossed my mind that Spain might be a home of mine as well.

It's so cliche-- "I studied abroad and it changed my life. I wish I was there now."

In all honesty, I was so busy viewing this as the best vacation of my life that I almost missed the fact that there are people here in Avila that I love. I didn't want to be that sentimental or condescending girl who left her heart in another country far superior to the cultural illiterate United States. Without noticing it, I became that girl who is crying one moment because of how much she is going to miss her European friends and laughing the next because of how blessed she has been to know them.

With its odd customs, uncomfortable social norms, confusing city structures, and foreign language wrapped in layers of incomprehensible accents, Spain seemed like an exciting place to visit but too strange a place to call home.

How silly of me. Home isn't a place. It's people who love you <3

So this is me refusing to say goodbye, my loves. I plan on enjoying every moment with you these last twenty days in Europe. Know that you have changed me and that, God willing, we will see each other again. If it doesn't happen in this world, we know it will in the next. So there is no good bye--

There is only "hasta luego" . . . see you later.