Home for the Holidays

Just wanted to tell everyone that I've made it home and I am enjoying it immensely! Some baggage issues - I still am missing one and had to wait in the airport way too long looking for it/reporting it - made it a little stressful, but it is so nice to see my family, my house, and the things I know. I'm having a good time driving around, eating delicious American food, drinking diet CHERRY pepsi (they don't have this in Europe), and relaxing in my pajamas. Unfortunately I am missing ALL of my jeans and ALL of my underwear because those are in the other bag... so it looks like I may have to go up to the mall today.

Leaving Alicante was quite the sad experience. Truthfully, I wasn't sad to leave my home-stay family, but it was the friends I gained that made the semester great. We had a final closing ceremony that was really nice and then a great group of people went out that evening to just sit around and chat and say good-bye. A couple of people definitely made me shed some tears when I said good-bye to them and I only hope I will get to see them in the US! It is amazing how close you can get to people in four months; the shared experiences and feelings of frustration at time and excitement at others.

I'll also miss speaking Spanish! Although I am still not perfect at it, I enjoy speaking it and always learning. In writing this I realized I wrote and had to fix over 5 words of my blog entry that I originally wrote in Spanish. I hope I get to keep working at it, although being in South Africa for the spring won't help and I think I already have a full schedule for senior year finishing up requirements that I have to do since I've been abroad. I am sure I'll have many times when it will come in handy.

There were definitely good and bad parts of my trip, but overall it was a great experience for me and I'll remember it forever. Studying abroad is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing, something that is unlike normal traveling and allows you such an opportunity to really emerge yourself in a culture that you can't otherwise do. I'm really, really grateful to have had the opportunity!

Now it is time to enjoy the holidays and also to prepare myself for South Africa. I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! As I did for Spain, I'll probably keep a separate blog for South Africa, but I will link it to this account so I will be sure to publish the link to it when I get around to creating it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Enjoy being with your family! =)