This post was written about three weeks ago. Sorry that it's late everyone! I had been pretty busy.
The fact that my journey on this wonderful experience is
soon over is heartbreaking. I have so many memories here in this beautiful
country. Amazing ones, and quite a bit of horrible ones. There is so much that
has happened between the time I left my little town of Lutz, Florida and now.
It’s going to be hard to leave this place where I have such an abundance of
memories, friends, and family.
At this very moment, I’m on a train back from Madrid to my
town. I’m coming back from the end of the year Rotary trip, where 36 other
amazing exchange students and I went on a bus tour across the south of Spain
and Portugal. It was eleven days of non-stop excitement and learning. It was a
time to deepen relationships with friends- connections that I know will last a
lifetime; it was a time to learn a plethora of things that I didn’t know about
the country that I have been living in for the past year. All in all, it was a
time to connect deeply with everything around me- people, countries, culture,
landscapes, food, architecture, and much, much more.
Now that I’m at the end of my exchange, I can judge how much
my Spanish has improved. It blows my mind when I read back on things I had
written in school, or reread early conversations with friends over social
networking sites. I think to myself, how could I have not known how to say “do
you know” in Spanish?? Or that I didn’t know how to say “I’m sorry”, or things
like that. It really is unbelievable. Now, there are very few things that I
can’t say or understand. I can say anything I want to, without having to stop
and think about correct grammar or pronunciation. I’m actually having a lot
more problems with my English than my Spanish. Thank God for autocorrect, or
this report would look like a second grader wrote it. I guess that that happens
to everyone though, when they go to a foreign country for a year and speak very
little English. I’m happy with my language skills, but everyday I still try to
improve it as much as I can.
To be honest, I’m more scared to return home than I was even
to come here to Spain. It’s the most terrifying thing… I really haven’t kept in
contact with people back home, so I have no idea what I’m about to walk into. And
it’s going to be pretty hard leaving a country, and a life, that I know so well
and love.
