So, as I sit here to write this I have three weeks left. How has the time gone by so fast? I remember yesterday boarding the plane on my way over to Spain. I cannot believe four months has blown by.
Looking back on those four months, I couldn’t be happier. I got to travel, I made AMAZING friends, I ate the best food and I laughed more than I ever have before. Studying abroad has always been an interest of mine, yet I never understood the impact it would have on me until I got over here. I am forever grateful to this country, the city of Barcelona and to all of its beautiful people. They have welcomed me in with open arms and made it possible for me to call this place my home.
I will leave here in three weeks and I will leave behind the best experience of my entire life. I have grown intellectually and morally. I have been faced with challenges that at the time seemed impossible, yet somehow made it through. Sometimes, the littlest frustrations become times when you laugh uncontrollably. There is a story I would like to share that explains what I mean perfectly:
One night, I had made myself a salad for dinner in my apartment. As I was about to eat, I remembered how some girls were talking about having patios on the roof of their building to sit out on, and I thought how great of an idea that was. So I make my salad, and hop in the elevator trying to see if we have a roof on my building. Well, as I am standing in the elevator, an old woman enters as well. She starts speaking to me in Spanish, so I am trying to respond in Spanish (something I have been working on getting better at). Anyways, I try to explain I am looking for the roof, except I don’t know how to say roof. So as I am trying to use context clues about how I just want to eat my salad with a view, she starts getting excited, like she knows what I am talking about, and she starts pressing elevator buttons. At this time, I am thinking, “oh great! There is a roof.”
Not quite. We end up taking the elevator back to the bottom floor, where she takes my arm and literally drags me off the elevator. We quickly move outside, where she starts going to all the cafes and stores around my house yelling at them for something that I quickly learned meant “ice.” I am then trying to explain to her that, no, I don’t need ice I need the roof. Well, that was a mistake; she only got more excited and kept going to more places screaming for ice. At this point, it was very clear to me that she was not going to understand me and I was not going to understand her. So, I thought to myself for a minute. There were two options: be annoyed I had been dragged up and down my street looking for ice when I just wanted to eat my salad on the roof, or play along.
Well, I decided to play along. The next thing I know, I can’t stop laughing. Uncontrollable laughter is spilling out of me, causing confusion for this poor woman. Lucky enough, the next store we went into, the owner spoke both English and Spanish. Once the story had been cleared up between the lady, this storeowner, and I, we were all laughing to the point of tears. We all finally could understand each other and it was the best feeling in the world.
Get out there and explore what the world has to offer while you are young and able. You wont regret it.
