Hasta Luego, España

My bags are packed, but my heart aches.  As I sit here staring at my packed bags, double checking my flight departure times for all three legs of my journey home, I still cannot fully process that I will be leaving Spain tomorrow.  These past three months have been so surreal, so dreamlike...and yet I have never felt so alive.

Just to recap on this past week: Sunday we went to our last church meeting in our beloved Spanish branch of Alcalá.  Luckily for us, our last sacrament meeting was the primary program! I could not have picked a more perfect sendoff than a chorus of small Spanish children singing primary songs and reciting scriptures in the Spanish language, it overwhelmed me with joy.  As I said goodbye to Marisol and Anita, two of the adult women I had grown very close to over the semester, we exchanged emails and promised to write each other in our second languages (I will write them in Spanish, and they will write me in English).  We also said goodbye to Annabel, Profe Meredith's wife, and enjoyed a wonderful evening of treats and shared memories of the semester.

With my "diploma" and my Chilean
literature teacher, Ana

Monday was our last religion class, and rather than having a final exam we were sent off with a heartwarming lesson about our impact that each of us has in the history of the gospel.  Tuesday and Wednesday we took our finals, which were difficult but didn't prove to impact our grades too harshly.  Our professors love us, and they seemed to take into consideration that we have been studying in a foreign country in a completely different language for the last three months.  Thursday we had our graduation ceremony and each received diplomas for completing our semester successfully.  It was slightly cheesy, but anyone who knows me knows how much of a sucker for cheesy things I am, so I ate it all up.  This graduation ceremony was also the last time that our entire study abroad group was officially together, so a lot of hugs, heartfelt goodbyes, and besitos were exchanged.  Spending three months together in a foreign country can bring together even the most polar opposite personality types, and although it will be fun to run into people on campus and have reunions in the future, things will never be the same as when we were here as eighteen college girls studying in Spain.

I took advantage of every opportunity I could to go to Madrid this week, anticipating how much I would miss it and not wanting to waste a moment of the precious time I still had left.  The only thing that stopped me from going to Madrid every day this week was the strike on Wednesday afternoon, and I made the best of the lack of public transportation availability by going to our favorite tapas bar right here in Alcalá with a big group of friends.  I did some last minute souvenir shopping, I stocked up on my favorite candies, I pondered "La Guernica" in the Reina Sofia, and I saw "Lo Imposible" in the Spanish movie theater Callao.  Lo Imposible is the Spanish version of "The Impossible," a movie that depicts the true story of a Spanish family that experienced the tsunami in Thailand in 2004. The family is depicted as English, but the family that it really happened to is Spanish and the director Juan Antonio Bayona is Spanish as well.  This movie won't be coming out until December in the United States, but when it does, WATCH IT.  It is one of the most enlightening and heart wrenching movies I have ever seen; it was extremely well written and instilled a surprising amount of fear, nausea, sadness, and pain within me that completely opened my eyes to the true meaning of the phrase natural disaster.  

As I exited the theater and walked down the streets of Gran Via and into the metro entrance of Puerta Del Sol for the last time, a slight panic suddenly gripped my heart.  I wanted to freeze this moment in time, enhance my hearing, my vision, my sense of smell...anything to ensure that I would never truly forget the city of Madrid.  This past week has given me many opportunities to contemplate the sights I have seen, the things I have done, the foods I have tasted, and more than anything, the person I have become.  I would not trade the experiences and education I have gained in my study abroad experience in Spain for the world.  Traveling to Europe has forced me out of my comfort zone, tested my courage and commitment, and molded me into a better woman.

There are many Spanish customs that I long to embrace for the rest of my life, but right now I have a special appreciation for this custom in particular; Spaniards never say goodbye, they only ever say see you later.  From the shopkeepers in Barcelona to the tapas bar cooks in San Sebastian to our loving and caring professors at Alcalingua, nobody once ever said "¡Adios!", it was always "¡Hasta luego!"  It is with that, my friends, that I bid my dear Spain a heartfelt "hasta luego," for I know that nothing can stop me from coming back.