A picture of the Birmingham skyline from my flight.
I’ve just completed my first week back at home in the States and settled back into my routine with relative ease, minus the jet lag that ruled my first few days. While my routine is generally the same, I find myself dropping little aspects from my life in Madrid back into my life in Alabama. I make cafe con leche every morning now, closing my eyes and imagining myself not in my room but in the cafeteria of the Universidad de Nebrija campus, interacting with the baristas who most definitely came to know me as the girl who came in each day and ordered her coffee cold and with ice. I move through people in the supermarket and resist the instantaneous urge to whisper “perdona,” as I shuffle by them. I feel myself wishing that I could walk down the block and hear all the disjointed city noise. Everything at home is so spread out, and although I’ve always loved the “wide open spaces” of where I’m from, Madrid, for all of its bustle and congestion, felt vast, too. One thing that this trip has given me is a remarkable new confidence. I’m more confident in the words I speak with others, reminding myself that if I could push out of my comfort zone and speak to people in a different language, then I can speak to others in my home country with less introverted apprehension. I felt so bold abroad; I didn’t know I had that boldness within me, and I think my trip to Madrid was the experience that coaxed it out of me. I miss Madrid so much already, and I cannot wait until I have another opportunity to go back. For any future study abroad students reading, whether you plan to go to Madrid or anywhere else, my advice to you is simple: do it. Take the plunge. You will not regret or believe just how your perspective and your worldview will be expanded. When you study abroad, you realize just how big this world really is. And, ironically, that realization doesn’t make you feel smaller. It just makes you feel stronger and more interconnected with people from your home country, with the people in your host country, and with humanity in general.