After this past weekend, I am pretty much done with my semester abroad in terms of academia. I have just under two weeks left, and really, there is not much left that I am required to do. It is increasingly becoming a weird feeling. I see my parents for the first time in months, and many of the people here I may never see again. The end crept up so fast, as I assume it did for everyone else abroad. If I…
In less than 10 days I will be leaving Madrid. I can’t believe how quickly this semester has gone by. I can’t say that I’m not excited to be going home, though. I’m leaving Spain when the program ends on December 20th like everyone else, and then I fly out of London on Christmas Eve and arrive home to California that same evening because of the time difference. This is the longest I have ever been away from home and…
So I guess this is it. My time abroad is pretty much over. For the past two weeks, I’ve been sitting in my room, writing my papers, and trying not to reflect on a trip, a semester, a “stage of my life” that hasn’t actually ended yet. Going abroad really has been puzzling for me. And to reinforce the cliché, it’s not just where I am, but the people I’ve surrounded myself with and the lifestyle that I have crafted…
I’ve come to my last blog post and realize that I’ve had yet to post about the beautiful city, which I’ve lived in these past four months. Roma, Italy is a place I’ve grown to love, not for the wonderful historical and tourist-heavy opportunities it promises, but for its God-awful bus service, businesses that are never open between the hours of 12pm-3pm, crazy Italians, crazy Americans, aggressive selfie-stick vendors, and the food. The food the food the food. I won’t…
It’s now December, which means that winter has officially settled on the city, which means drinking more tea and whiskey to warm up. Fortunately, there are plenty of tea shops and pubs to accommodate pretty much everyone in the city, even if every person spontaneously decided to get tea or whiskey at the exact same moment. Scotland really likes its tea and whiskey. I’ve become addicted to tea and biscuits, which I think is a promising sign of assimilating to…
72 hours until the longest summer of my life is over. 72 hours until I am snuggled in quilts and flannel, protected from the freeze and snow. 72 hours until I am home to Kansas comforts and Mom and Dad. 72 hours until I am separated from my new family of 21 sisters and brothers. 72 hours. I know I should not measure nor limit these last few moments in numbers but the urgency is overwhelming. This experience that has…
A Recipe for Thanksgiving in Paris Wake up on Thanksgiving Day to the distinctive sound of your backup emergency alarm (Demi Lovato). Roll over, reach for your phone through the tangle of your green sheets. It’s just a little before noon. Realize that you have, once more, missed your Thursday morning drawing class. Console yourself with the fact that, as a God-fearing American, no one could possibly expect you to go to class when you should be celebrating the…