At the moment a crazy man in Denver opened fire and killed 12 moviegoers at the midnight showing of Batman, I was sleeping in a rustic farmhouse in rural Sweden, a country that is perhaps the political polar opposite of the U.S. (in the Western world, at least). Sweden is a prime example of socialism at its best, and many conversations around the breakfast table with Janne and Anna were spent discussing the lifestyles and politics between our two respective countries.
The cost of living in Sweden is high. You must spend 6 euros just for a one-way ticket on a city bus, and forget about going out to more than the occassional club and drinks on a student budget. But the quality of life in the Scandanavian country seems close to perfect. People pay a high price--nearly 50% taxes--but get so much in return. Janne was mindblown by the fact that Obama´s healthcare initiative even wound up in the courts in the first place--isn´t it simple? If someone gets sick, they should have a universal right to treatment. In Sweden, even luxuries like braces, which cost upwards of 5,000 dollars in the States, are included in the coverage. People generally get at least 4 weeks of vacation a year, not including sick days--and that´s ordinary workers, not CEOs. Parents get 400 days of maternity leave, compared to about 2 minutes of maternity leave in the U.S. Anna feels comfortable letting her young girl rome around the neighborhood or even closer to central Stockholm alone because the city is so safe. There´s not even any poisonous animals to fear in Sweden´s nature! It´s merely ¨suggested¨ that you go to the hospital after a snake bite.
In the car on a drive to the city the song ¨Fuck You¨ by Gnarls Barkley came on the radio, undubbed. I had heard the U.S.´s version ¨Forget You¨ for so long that I forgot it wasn´t the original, but it´s not censored in Sweden. And while flipping through the channels one night we landed on ¨The British Sex Survey,¨ basically a show for teens unveiling everything about sex and puberty in explicit--and I mean very explicit--detail. And this was public TV! The U.S. can´t seem to produce a movie these days without suggestive material, but I´m positive that if this show were even proposed to a network in the States, some conservative Christian group would put an end to it before they even finished pronouncing the title.
So after discussing all this, we hear news of the shooting in Denver. Conversation turns to gun laws. It´s absolutely tiring trying to understand or rationalize U.S. policies after so much time spent in countries with lower crime rates, stronger social safety nets, and arguably higher quality of life for a large percentage of the population. Our country refuses to curse on the air and views anything outwardly relating to sex as sinful, but we think it´s constitutional to uphold a 300+ year law that no longer applies in today´s modern context. How many more Columbines or Virginia Tech´s or Denver Theaters will happen until people realize that this isn´t normal? It´s not normal to hear every so often about this type of tragedy. It´s not something we just accept as a hazard of society. Some places don´t have to listen to presidential addresses lamenting the loss of innocent lives, because these places don´t see the rationale behind selling deadly weapons to civilians. The right to feel secure in your own neighborhood, to grow up without loosing a family member to homicide, to watch the opening show of Batman with your friends without risking your life should be valued above the forefathers´ belief in the right to bear arms.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Sweden
When I think of my nine days in Sweden I still remain awestruck by the unbelievable hospitality that Luc and I experienced. We stayed with Luc´s mom´s friend Anna and her family just outside of Stockholm for seven days and Luc´s very distant Swedish relatives in a rural village for two. Never in my life have I felt so well taken care of--pampered really--by strangers. Many experiences, trips and cities may blend into one as time goes by, but I will always remember Sweden for the two families that took us in and treated us as their own. After 11 months without living with my family, I truly felt like I was home.
This hospitality began the minute Luc and I stepped off the plane, when Anna came to personally pick us up at the tiny Ryanair airport about an hour and a half from their house. There´s a bus we could have easily taken to the city center, but Anna insisted on coming to get us herself. We arrived at their charming house and were greeted by her husband Janne and their two kids, William and Maja, and we all sat down to teh first of many amazing homecooked meals, peacefully eating and chatting on the porch. In the week that followed, the family devoted all of their time to us--and this was during their vacation time, when they could have been relaxing and enjoying their time off work in solitude. They showed us the beautiful old town of Stockholm, situated in an archipelago on the Baltic Sea; we took a ferry ride to a remote island (and they even insisted on paying for our ferry tickets) and had a picnic and swam in the frigid water, which was the farthest North I´ve ever swam; we explored the vast nature reserve outside their house while picking wild blueberries for a pie Anna made us later--not sure if it gets more quaint than that. I´ll always remember Sweden for providing me with exposure therapy for my irrational slug phobia--I´ve never seen so many massive snails and brown banana slugs in my life as I did in the 2 kilometers we walked in the woods, and I still get queasy thinking about Anna stomping them with her boots so I wouldn´t have to see them alive. Not sure if that was worse or not....Anyway, I paid a high emotional price for playing hunter-gatherer for a day.
One rainy day (of which there were many--everyone we met quickly informed us it was the rainiest summer since the 17th century) we visited the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a huge ship that sank in the waters of Stockholm only a few hundred meters after it first set sail in the 1600s. Steven Spielberg is making a movie of it right now, but how he plans on making it as good as The Titanic is beyond me. When it cleared up that same day we visited Skansen, a sort of recreated old Swedish village complete with the typical red and white houses, windmills, and even Scandinavian animals like moose, brown bears, and lynx. There was a free concert that evening, so Anna and Janne--as one would only expect of them at this point--whipped out a delicious picnic, and we ate and listened to music and watched the sun go down (around 10:30 this time of year) over the water.
As if hosting us and spending every waking hour entertaining us wasn´t enough, Janne and Anna went above and beyond. They invited us for dinner at their friend´s house one night, where I tried barbecued horse--in all seriousness, my new favorite red meat. They cooked us every meal like we were in a 5 star restaurant, treated us to ice cream and pizza when we were out, and drove us everywhere. After I said how much I missed my favorite comfort food, Mac n Cheese, they surprised me with a box of it. And on the last night when Luc and I went out to a club in Stockholm, Janne insisted--despite our numerous protests that we would take the bus--on picking us up downtown at any hour of the night. Every time I thought the level of graciousness couldn´t get any higher, they somehow managed to beat their own hospitality record.
In the middle of the week Luc and I took a train two hours north to Dalarna, which could not have been less similar to Stockholm. Luc´s distant relatives--whom he had never met--picked us up at the train station and brought us to their beautiful home in basically the middle of no where. This part of sweden is very rural, with vast green landscapes dotted with red farmhouses, lakes, and fields of yellow flowers. It was unbelievably gorgeous and so remote, a huge change from the city we had just left. Luc´s relatives, Kersti and Bo and their children, Joanna and Johannes (could they have chosen more similar names?) were also incredibly welcoming, and despite their poor English we managed some conversation. They told us about their family and work, and I couldn´t believe how different it was from anything I am used to. The parents are from the same town that they live in now, where the population is probably under 1,000. They have lived together since they were 16. Bo drives trucks for a living and Kersti works in a gas station. The daughter, who is just 16, has already moved in with her 22-year-old boyfriend. All the relatives live in a 5-mile radius. Perhaps what surprised me most, however, is that this family had a beautiful house, land, 2 cars, a tractor, had traveled a lot within Europe, had sent their daughter to the U.S. two summers ago, had plans for the children to go to college, and seemed genuinely happy with what I saw as such a simple life. A family with the saem background and means of income in the U.S. would hardly be as fortunate. In Sweden, even blue-collar jobs provide their workers with a very liveable life, whereas an American family in their situation would be struggling to survive.
Our stay in Dalarn was very relaxing, as would be expected in a place where most houses are vacation homes for Stockholmites trying to excape the hustle and bustle of the city. We visited a moose farm, drove for hours through the beautiful countryside, ate delicious food (a theme of this trip), and met many of Luc´s relatives. Everyone was so warm and welcoming. On the last day we went to the town´s annual tractor parade. I always thought that if I were to have the most redneck experience of my life it would probably occur in Texas or Oklahoma, never while visiting Sweden. But there I was, riding in the back of Bo´s tractor surrounded by hundreds of other tractors carrying eager hordes of people of all ages. We followed the parade through town, and it seemed like the whole population in 20 square miles came out to watch the event.
Although our stay in Dalarn was nice, Luc and I were very eager to get back to city life, and especially to Anna and Janne, who were beginning to feel like a mix between older siblings and parents. They greeted us at the station and brought us home to a risotto feast, as though welcoming us home after a year abroad. Our last day in Stockholm we spent exploring a nearby castle and, even better, practicing driving stick-shift on Janne´s Mercedes. Am I painting a clear enough picture of how cool this man is? He was eager to loan out his Mercedez Benz to two people who not only have never driven manual, but haven´t even driven automatic in almost a year. Needless to say, I stalled more than a dozen times, but I consider it a success that no one was killed during my time behind the wheel.
After one last breakfast/feast of homemade Swedish pancakes, Anna and Janne drove us to the airport bus the next day, and I knew that I was saying goodbye to some very special people. I felt so at home with them, and I was about to start nine days of travel alone through northern Spain, which made it even harder to leave the comforts of family. To top it all off, Anna burst into tears when saying goodbye to us. In just 9 days we went from strangers to real friends. I really hope to see them all if and when they next visit California, and it feels great to know I´ll always (as they told me countless times) be welcomed in Sweden.
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| Stockholm |
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| Part of the old town |
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| Anna collecting berries |
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| Too much nature |
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| Boat ride to the island |
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| Picnic on the island |
As if hosting us and spending every waking hour entertaining us wasn´t enough, Janne and Anna went above and beyond. They invited us for dinner at their friend´s house one night, where I tried barbecued horse--in all seriousness, my new favorite red meat. They cooked us every meal like we were in a 5 star restaurant, treated us to ice cream and pizza when we were out, and drove us everywhere. After I said how much I missed my favorite comfort food, Mac n Cheese, they surprised me with a box of it. And on the last night when Luc and I went out to a club in Stockholm, Janne insisted--despite our numerous protests that we would take the bus--on picking us up downtown at any hour of the night. Every time I thought the level of graciousness couldn´t get any higher, they somehow managed to beat their own hospitality record.
In the middle of the week Luc and I took a train two hours north to Dalarna, which could not have been less similar to Stockholm. Luc´s distant relatives--whom he had never met--picked us up at the train station and brought us to their beautiful home in basically the middle of no where. This part of sweden is very rural, with vast green landscapes dotted with red farmhouses, lakes, and fields of yellow flowers. It was unbelievably gorgeous and so remote, a huge change from the city we had just left. Luc´s relatives, Kersti and Bo and their children, Joanna and Johannes (could they have chosen more similar names?) were also incredibly welcoming, and despite their poor English we managed some conversation. They told us about their family and work, and I couldn´t believe how different it was from anything I am used to. The parents are from the same town that they live in now, where the population is probably under 1,000. They have lived together since they were 16. Bo drives trucks for a living and Kersti works in a gas station. The daughter, who is just 16, has already moved in with her 22-year-old boyfriend. All the relatives live in a 5-mile radius. Perhaps what surprised me most, however, is that this family had a beautiful house, land, 2 cars, a tractor, had traveled a lot within Europe, had sent their daughter to the U.S. two summers ago, had plans for the children to go to college, and seemed genuinely happy with what I saw as such a simple life. A family with the saem background and means of income in the U.S. would hardly be as fortunate. In Sweden, even blue-collar jobs provide their workers with a very liveable life, whereas an American family in their situation would be struggling to survive.
Our stay in Dalarn was very relaxing, as would be expected in a place where most houses are vacation homes for Stockholmites trying to excape the hustle and bustle of the city. We visited a moose farm, drove for hours through the beautiful countryside, ate delicious food (a theme of this trip), and met many of Luc´s relatives. Everyone was so warm and welcoming. On the last day we went to the town´s annual tractor parade. I always thought that if I were to have the most redneck experience of my life it would probably occur in Texas or Oklahoma, never while visiting Sweden. But there I was, riding in the back of Bo´s tractor surrounded by hundreds of other tractors carrying eager hordes of people of all ages. We followed the parade through town, and it seemed like the whole population in 20 square miles came out to watch the event.
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| Incredible Swedish countryside |
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| View from the house we were staying in |
After one last breakfast/feast of homemade Swedish pancakes, Anna and Janne drove us to the airport bus the next day, and I knew that I was saying goodbye to some very special people. I felt so at home with them, and I was about to start nine days of travel alone through northern Spain, which made it even harder to leave the comforts of family. To top it all off, Anna burst into tears when saying goodbye to us. In just 9 days we went from strangers to real friends. I really hope to see them all if and when they next visit California, and it feels great to know I´ll always (as they told me countless times) be welcomed in Sweden.
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| Anna and Janne, adoptive parents |
Switzerland
(These titles are becoming less and less creative as the clock in this internet cafe keeps ticking.)
The day after my last exam I left before sunrise to catch a flight to Switzerland, since my Swiss neighbor Cecile invited me and her roommates Emily and Luc to stay with her for a few days. They had all finished finals well before me, so I met them for the last days of their stay. I was in Switzerland five years ago and it was one of my favorite countries I´ve ever been to, so it was great to have the opportunity to go back. Cecile lives right outside of Lugano on the Swiss-Italian border, and we explored the lakeside city after they picked me up from the train station the first afternoon. Later we had drinks in a plaza, and one look at the prices in this incredibly rich country broke my Granada bubble--2 euros for a beer and tapa in my Spanish home is more like a dream than a reality in any other European city.
When we arrived at Cecile´s house later I was absolutely blown away. She basically lives in an Italian villa overlooking all of the lake and mountains. Her parents were so welcoming, and although I've sort of considered my whole year in Granada as a break from reality, my time at Cecile´s was a true vacation. All the days sort of blended into one, so here´s a rundown of my time in paradise:
Sleep in (in my own room) until 10:30 am; have breakfast and coffee on the garden terrace overlooking the lake; swim and sunbathe down at the lake; come home to Cecile´s parents´ homemade delicacies--fresh pesto lasana, meatballs and tabouli, caprese salad, wine, etc. Pick blueberries and raspberries from their huge garden and make a berry crisp for dessert; head to Grandma´s pool and tennis courts during the afternoon; have drinks on the lake in the evening with Cecile´s friends; more homemade feasts for dinner. I felt so relaxed and pampered the time that it was hard to believe I was visiting a friend instead of being on my honeymoon.
One of the nights we went to a free concert in Lugano (probably the only thing that has ever, or will ever, be free in Lugano) by a world-famous violinist. Although I wouldn´t call myself a classical music fan, it was the most incredible playing I´ve ever heard. However, the man was like the Lady Gaga of classical, dressed in outrageous costumes and doing over-the-top theatrics throughout the whole set, to the point where I experienced that uncomfortable awkwardness when you feel just plain sorry for the performer because you wonder if they have any friends or if they repel everyone they meet with their unbearable personality.
On the last night Cecile´s friend Davide drove us all to Milan so we could have a nice time together before our flight left early Saturday morning. We went to drinks and aperativos by the river, and later to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The saddest part of the trip came that night when it was time to say goodbye to Cecile and Emily, some of my closest friends this year in Granada. But I´m confident I´ll see them again, either in Europe or California, so it was only a temporary goodbye.
Then Luc and I headed to the Milan airport at 4 a.m. to catch our flight to Sweden!
The day after my last exam I left before sunrise to catch a flight to Switzerland, since my Swiss neighbor Cecile invited me and her roommates Emily and Luc to stay with her for a few days. They had all finished finals well before me, so I met them for the last days of their stay. I was in Switzerland five years ago and it was one of my favorite countries I´ve ever been to, so it was great to have the opportunity to go back. Cecile lives right outside of Lugano on the Swiss-Italian border, and we explored the lakeside city after they picked me up from the train station the first afternoon. Later we had drinks in a plaza, and one look at the prices in this incredibly rich country broke my Granada bubble--2 euros for a beer and tapa in my Spanish home is more like a dream than a reality in any other European city.
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| Lake Lugano |
Sleep in (in my own room) until 10:30 am; have breakfast and coffee on the garden terrace overlooking the lake; swim and sunbathe down at the lake; come home to Cecile´s parents´ homemade delicacies--fresh pesto lasana, meatballs and tabouli, caprese salad, wine, etc. Pick blueberries and raspberries from their huge garden and make a berry crisp for dessert; head to Grandma´s pool and tennis courts during the afternoon; have drinks on the lake in the evening with Cecile´s friends; more homemade feasts for dinner. I felt so relaxed and pampered the time that it was hard to believe I was visiting a friend instead of being on my honeymoon.
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| Emily and Luc picking berries |
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| The view from Cecile's house |
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| Cecile's mom's pesto lasaña |
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| Lunch on the terrace |
On the last night Cecile´s friend Davide drove us all to Milan so we could have a nice time together before our flight left early Saturday morning. We went to drinks and aperativos by the river, and later to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The saddest part of the trip came that night when it was time to say goodbye to Cecile and Emily, some of my closest friends this year in Granada. But I´m confident I´ll see them again, either in Europe or California, so it was only a temporary goodbye.
Then Luc and I headed to the Milan airport at 4 a.m. to catch our flight to Sweden!
Finals
All of June and part of July was taken up by a blur of studying, tests, and sleeplessly warm nights. I decided I wasn´t eager to repeat last semester´s experience of failing my final exam, so I overcompensated this time around, and studied possibly more than I even would at UCSB. The library became a sort of social watering hole, to the point where I would take the bus to campus, spend two meager hours divided between sporadic studying and watching Youtube clips; then an hour at the dining halls for lunch followed by a Javi-mandated 45 minute coffee break. Around 3 o´clock we would return to a few hours of studying before the library closed, where about half the time I spent digesting a food coma. In the evenings we would usually have the brilliant idea of cracking open a bottle of wine on my terrace in order to study more, but how much are you really taking in after three glasses? With a daily schedule more or less like this, it´s no wonder it took six weeks to adequately prepare for four finals. It was the most studying without studying that I´ve ever done in my life, but I guess that goes in keeping with this whole year. Anyway, I´m very pleased with the end results, and maybe I could go as far as to say that tipsy studying on the terrace leads to excellence.
Scattered in between my exams were a number of other social breaks--Javi´s band´s concert, BBQs, birthdays, tapas, midnight ice creams at the foot of the Alhambra, and a visit to the beach to say goodbye to some friends just two days before my hardest final. Although the coast was great, the stomach flu/food poisoning I developed afterwards was not, and between spending all Saturday at the beach and all Sunday in bed with a fever, I walked pale and nauseous into my Monday morning exam feeling somewhat less than prepared. Luckily the class was Contrastive Linguistics between English and Spanish, so I already had a 50% chance of passing merely thanks to growing up speaking English.
However, coming down with the flu two days before leaving Granada for a month-long trip meant that I couldn´t visit my favorite places or say as many goodbyes as I would have liked. I´ll be back for one afternoon in August so I´ll have to cram in all my ´´lasts´´ then!
Scattered in between my exams were a number of other social breaks--Javi´s band´s concert, BBQs, birthdays, tapas, midnight ice creams at the foot of the Alhambra, and a visit to the beach to say goodbye to some friends just two days before my hardest final. Although the coast was great, the stomach flu/food poisoning I developed afterwards was not, and between spending all Saturday at the beach and all Sunday in bed with a fever, I walked pale and nauseous into my Monday morning exam feeling somewhat less than prepared. Luckily the class was Contrastive Linguistics between English and Spanish, so I already had a 50% chance of passing merely thanks to growing up speaking English.
However, coming down with the flu two days before leaving Granada for a month-long trip meant that I couldn´t visit my favorite places or say as many goodbyes as I would have liked. I´ll be back for one afternoon in August so I´ll have to cram in all my ´´lasts´´ then!
Germany
As a reward for finishing three out
of four finals, I took a week-long break to Germany to visit one of my best
friends growing up, Kaila, who is studying for the year in Tübingen (south-west
Germany). The flight over with Lufthansa was the true definition of luxury
after spending too much time on Ryanair this year. For a trip of less than
three hours they offered me a meal and wine or beer, which of course I accepted
eagerly even though all I truly wanted was water, which shows me how messed up
the U.S.’s drinking law is—deprivation apparently leads to hoarding….
On Saturday we went to a huge
outdoor swimming pool since it was ridiculously hot for German standards (although basically chilly for Granada´s), and
spent the whole day lounging, swimming, and hanging out with some of Kaila’s
California friends. That night turned into the biggest thunderstorm I have ever
seen, with lightening every two seconds, but somehow we still managed to get
out the door and meet Kaila’s program director/friend Jan for some drinks. He
works in the California State University office, which also shares space with
the Tufts office, and on this particular weekend the Tufts Dean of Admissions
happened to be visiting, and also came to drinks with Jan. If I were a millionaire Tufts would have been my first choice school in a heartbeat, and
here I found myself in the tiny town of Tübingen with the Dean of Admissions
buying me rounds.
(Side note: Spain won the Euro-cup while I was in Tübingen, which is great except that it occurred on one of the few occasions that I was OUTSIDE of the country. Also all the Germans were still depressed from Germany’s loss to Italy. I’m sure the atmosphere would have been a little more thrilling in Granada, but I’ll take a week trip to Germany if it means missing the game!)
I arrived in Munich in the night
and met my couchsurfing host Baran in the train stop. Although I’ve never done
couchsurfing alone and had some reservations, Baran and I immediately hit it
off and it turned out to be pretty fun. On Thursday he showed me all around
Munich, including the beautiful English Garden where we ate a traditional
German meal in a beer garden. I don’t know how people can say portion sizes are
huge in America if they’ve ever set foot in Bavaria—in one sitting people were
eating pretzels bigger than my head, towers of meat dripping with sauce, and
multiple liters of beer.
We walked around for a while longer
and then headed to the Isar river to sit and relax. The river served as a
perfect fridge to chill our beers, and people lined the shores, waded, drank
and juggled while the sun set. That night we went to another beer garden to
watch the Germany vs. Italy Eurocup game, but Germany lost so it was a pretty
somber atmosphere.
Throughout the day Baran tried to teach me some German in preparation for next year, and I think it´s safe to say that if it took me 8 years to become fluent in Spanish, i´ll probably have grandchildren before I master German. The words are longer than I have breath to pronounce, and trying to make the ´ch´ sound in the back of my throat came out more similar to gagging than the pronunciation of an actual letter.
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| Baran and me in the English Garden |
The next day I took a long bus ride
to Tübingen, and it was so great to reunite with Kaila after almost a year.
She’s having an equally amazing time studying abroad, so it was so much fun to
catch up and share stories. I immediately fell in love with Tübingen, which is
a pretty small city (even smaller than Granada) and has such charming buildings
and parks. That night I got some beers with her roommate Miles and his sister
Milena, who was visiting as well.
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| Beautiful Tübingen |
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| Riverfront island |
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| Milena, Kaila, and me |
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| Smelling that fresh Tübingen air |
It rained every subsequent day of
my stay in Germany, but I still had a fantastic time since the trip was really
about the people I was with. Kaila, Miles, Milena and I baked, made elaborate
meals (Greek stuffed tomatoes and fajitas), played cards, and drank amazing
German beer (I will never drink a Bud’s light ever again). I think I spent 90%
of the trip laughing, which, now that I think of it, is how I spend the
majority of my time when I’m with Kaila or any member of the Wanberg family.
We managed to do a lot of
sight-seeing as well when the rain cleared up occasionally, and the beautiful
town is nestled in luscious green hills. All the buildings have red rooves and
I think I would have probably died from its quaintness if I had been there during
Christmas.
I reluctantly returned to Granada´s final exams and heat after such a wonderful week. In fact, during the flight it became clear that I was almost back in Spain when Lufthansa decided to serve us none other than packaged strips of ham. I missed pretzels and sausage already....
(Side note: Spain won the Euro-cup while I was in Tübingen, which is great except that it occurred on one of the few occasions that I was OUTSIDE of the country. Also all the Germans were still depressed from Germany’s loss to Italy. I’m sure the atmosphere would have been a little more thrilling in Granada, but I’ll take a week trip to Germany if it means missing the game!)
Friday, July 6, 2012
Quick Update
I have been a terrible blogger lately, since for some reason this country thinks it's a great idea to have an entire month and a half of final exams. I have four this semester and they happened to be spread out through the entire exam period, meaning I started studying in late May and don't finish until July 9th. June basically consisted of spending the day in the library with friends (with very extensive coffee and lunch breaks) and unwinding with more friends and wine on the terrace at night--meaning studying has still managed to be a ridiculously social affair, as this is still Spain after all. Of course, a highlight of such spread-out exams was that I had two weeks in between my third and fourth and thus took a trip to Germany (post to come, although at the rate I'm going it could take a while....).
With exactly one month left in Europe, I'm experiencing the strangest emotions. I feel like I could break down in tears at any moment thinking about leaving, but it's also surreal to see Granada transforming into the place that it was when I first came: hot and empty, except for the throngs of tourists. Since it's such a university city and most students have already finished exams, the place is definitely starting to clear out, and an odd and lonely feeling remains. I only have a couple more days in this amazing city, and I walk by my favorite places now with such nostalgia, remembering the many times over the year that I went to a certain tapas bar, sat and people-watched in my favorite plaza, strolled by the river or was awed by the Alhambra lit up at night. But the other part of me is so eager to get out of here and start my month-long trip through Switzerland, Sweden and Northern Spain, and I'm emotionally drained from saying goodbyes to people who have made my stay here incredible, and who I might possibly never see again. (Depressing, but realistic). To study abroad they prep you for cultural differences, cuisine, what to pack, and how to greet with two kisses; but they neglect to prepare you on how to leave it all after a year.
When I said goodbye to my program director Inma yesterday, she put it best: I'll be back one day for sure, so this is not adios but rather hasta luego.
With exactly one month left in Europe, I'm experiencing the strangest emotions. I feel like I could break down in tears at any moment thinking about leaving, but it's also surreal to see Granada transforming into the place that it was when I first came: hot and empty, except for the throngs of tourists. Since it's such a university city and most students have already finished exams, the place is definitely starting to clear out, and an odd and lonely feeling remains. I only have a couple more days in this amazing city, and I walk by my favorite places now with such nostalgia, remembering the many times over the year that I went to a certain tapas bar, sat and people-watched in my favorite plaza, strolled by the river or was awed by the Alhambra lit up at night. But the other part of me is so eager to get out of here and start my month-long trip through Switzerland, Sweden and Northern Spain, and I'm emotionally drained from saying goodbyes to people who have made my stay here incredible, and who I might possibly never see again. (Depressing, but realistic). To study abroad they prep you for cultural differences, cuisine, what to pack, and how to greet with two kisses; but they neglect to prepare you on how to leave it all after a year.
When I said goodbye to my program director Inma yesterday, she put it best: I'll be back one day for sure, so this is not adios but rather hasta luego.
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