una güerita en españa

i find it amazing how even when you know four months will go by fast, four months goes by and you wonder how they could have possibly gone by that fast. or how much things could stay so much the same. i am envious of people who study abroad and find a new self in their new place; i won´t pretend to feel that drastically changed by my own experience, although i have loved it here.

i had wished to feel somehow at least more mature, more independent, more a future, free-me by the time i left here, but i think i clearly just do not do well with the whole forward motion thing (i am allowing myself the small displacement of blame in this case that my time in barcelona did not exactly start off under the kind of circumstances that inspire moving away from the comfort of family or friendfamily). but i´m not sure i mind. i have learned about myself and as a mini-self test this studying abroad as taught me that yes, peace corps would be difficult and painful and yes, it will always be hard for me to "let go," but also that yes, i am always still me and as long as there is work for me to do and things for me to learn i will never be bored enough to be too lonely.

i am sad to leave barcelona, especially just as the city is starting to wake up from the winter. most of all, i will miss the language so much. i have loved speaking it every day and learning new words and listening to myself hold fluent (albeit short) conversations in this language i have been missing since i stopped speaking it so many years ago. i have loved the chance to watch NCIS in spanish, listen to the news in spanish, gossip in spanish, give directions in spanish, learn in spanish. loved loved loved.

i am also sad to leave churros y xocolata, pa amb tomaquet, paella wine siesta sundays, menta infusiones, metro people watching, walking everywhere all the time, doble mejilla besos, guapa guapa, sun shining off gaudi roofs, street musicians, traveling every weekend, bakeries, flower shops, spending days wandering and without hardly saying a word to anyone, the little man at the gym who calls me guapisima. but i am so glad to go home and i am so looking forward to san diego summer loveliness!!