Así es la vida

As I type this post from my bed at 6am on Saturday morning as a result of a withstanding case of jet lag, I truly cannot believe that my semester abroad has already come and gone. I looked forward to studying abroad the way some girls look forward to their wedding and the way most people look forward to high school graduation, and now that it's over I'm reminded just how fast life zips by.

My first thoughts regarding being back on American soil and surrounded by English speakers were bitterly cynical, but in my defense I was not in the best place given my grossly long travel day. I thought I would relish hearing English everywhere around me, but instead I found myself inexplicably annoyed about learning via loud phone conversations that Man in the Business Suit Holding a Coffee is not pleased with his coworker Dave who apparently messed up some business deal and Woman with the Black Hair and Pink Purse has a bone to pick with her ex-husband for cancelling her flight. Americans are just so loud!!! My foul mood was perpetuated upon arrival in St. Louis when I discovered that the Qdoba by my house had burned down and I therefore could not eat my first American meal I had been planning on. But, after a long hot shower, sleeping in my own glorious queen-sized bed, lots of ice water, crunchy peanut butter and cuddles with my cat, I can now say I am recovered and therefore ready to reflect upon my semester. I guess you could say I learned a few things...

You can't learn a language without very immensely & very frequently fucking up.

Learning a second language does not come easy to me. Not only am I predisposed to struggle with foreign languages due to my visual learning style and unimpressive audible comprehension but I am also hindered by my personality. I hate being wrong and I hate feeling like one of the less smarter people in the room. While in other aspects of my life I am very laid-back and go-with-the-flow, academics is not one of them; I crave perfection. The inherent problem with this mindset in a foreign language context is that, as I have grown to learn, it is literally impossible to learn a language and improve your understanding of it without fucking up All. The. Time. And you have to be okay with that. As I wrote about in my first blog post about Salamanca, my first real Spanish conversation with someone other than my host mom was with three Italian students who were fluent in Spanish. I had wanted to ask a question directed at all three of them, but was forced to ask the question individually to each boy with the verb conjugation for "tú" (you) because I didn't know how to conjugate for "vosotros" (you all). This is because my Spanish professors at KU had preached we will rarely have to use this verb form conjugation in real life, and therefore I felt I had no reason to learn it. Immediately after asking the same question three times in a row to each boy and feeling like an idiot, I was called out on my inability to use the vosotros form. Needless to say, I memorized it very soon after. Another notable fuck-up consisted of me telling an IES orientation mentor that I was pregnant. I was telling him a story in which I had meant to say was "embarrassing," saying instead "Estoy embarazada," which means "I'm pregnant." I had made the understandable mistake of confusing this word with the real word for embarrassing, "embarazoso." He started cracking up and goodheartedly informed me what I actually said. We laughed and I made sure to remove embarazada from my vocabulary permanently.

Life is about learning to get along with all types of people.

When you study abroad, you are virtually plucked from a life of chosen company where you're constantly surrounded by your best friends and thrown into an environment where potentially you don't have anything in common with anyone except for your decision to study abroad and in my case, study Spanish. Going into this semester, I wasn't friends with anyone in my program except Andie; four months later, I left Salamanca with many incredible new friends from KU and all across the country. A lot of these friends go to KU due to the university's special program in Salamanca, but I didn't know them before and I doubt we would have crossed paths otherwise. I have Salamanca to thank for some amazing new girlfriends. The friends I made this semester I didn't necessarily choose; rather, we just happened to have chosen the same study abroad program. When you choose your friends, you're often drawn to people similar to you—similar interests, hobbies and personalities. A lot of the friends I made this semester are not necessarily similar to me in certain ways, something I find extremely refreshing. This semester reminded me that life is not only about learning to get along with all types of people, but making friends with all types of people.

The world is very small.

It never ceases to amaze me just how small our Earth is, or maybe just inevitably full of remarkable coincidences. It just does't seem likely that a man Andie and I would befriend in Paris would be from Chicago with a wife from Kansas City and brother-in-law a former Phi Delt at KU. But yup, that happened. It doesn't seem likely that a girl we met on our pub crawl in Berlin would be from Kansas City, her sister having graduated in the same class as my boyfriend and having even "dated" him at some point in high school. But that happened too. As we grow older, we meet more people, make more friends and create more connections. Because of this, as a traveler, crossing paths with someone who has a similar background as you or mutual friends will just continue to become more likely. In my opinion this is one of the coolest things about travel—not only do you most importantly meet people from very different cultures and lifestyles as you, but you also open yourself up to the opportunity of meeting people with backgrounds and lives that do resemble your own but somehow by fate you happen to cross paths in a foreign city.

Traveling is not always glamorous.

For every Snapstory of a fancy meal, know that it's likely we skipped lunch in order to afford it and we were so hungry by dinnertime that everyone was snapping at each other and bordering on cannibalism. For every beautiful view in an Instagram post, know that I likely spent around a grueling 12 hours in busses, airports, planes, trains, metros, taxis and on foot just to get there. Behind the scenes of traveling in Europe as a millennial looks like this: waking up at the crack of dawn for a flight because it was the cheapest available, gorging yourself at free breakfasts so you can survive until dinner, always being dehydrated because you can't afford to pay for water at meals, wearing the same outfits over and over again with the occasional purchase at Zara, never feeling clean after showering in a hostel, and sleeping in a room with strangers that more often than not has no outlets and flat pillows (and a special addition for my Salamanca program in particular: gaining weight because your host mom feeds you too much bread). Not exactly what you'd call glamorous. You don't always "find yourself" at 3am in a foreign city like the Tumblr posts and Pinterest boards would suggest. Sometimes you pass out in your shitty hostel bunkbed or Airbnb pull-out couch at 11pm because it's been a long day of tourist attractions, public transportation and over 10 miles of walking on cobblestone. But sometimes, you do find yourself. And at the end of the day, that's what makes traveling worth it.

Growth is not convenient.

This is a revelation one can only have while reflecting upon an experience after it has occurred, because in the moment it is difficult to realize. What I've found is that some of the most inconvenient occurrences and encounters allow you to grow the most. Living with a host family—while I wouldn't have traded it for anything—is full of inconveniences. Our daily schedule revolved around that of Adelaida and Valentin's busy lives, resulting in lunch falling anywhere between 1:30-3pm and dinner 8:30-10pm. Meals were often lengthy affairs too, very different from my life at home where I'm constantly on the go and rarely have five minutes to even sit down to eat. This made it difficult to make plans because we never knew what time we would begin or finish eating. However, while sometimes frustrating at the time, the days I will remember are the ones where even though it felt like we were at the table forever, itching to finish an assignment (or Netflix episode) before our next class, we instead had best conversation with our host sister. I don't remember every single morning that I woke up at 8:25, got dressed, filled my thermos and left the apartment by 8:50 for class, but I do remember the morning Andie and I were late for class because we sat with Adelaida eating breakfast as she talked to us about her very sick mother. I don't remember every single meal we ate, but I remember our last afternoon in Salamanca when Adelaida informed us we were going out to eat for lunch even though we were in our PJ's, hair still wet from showering. As I reflect, some of the best, most real, authentic Spanish conversations I had this semester (and with those, growth—as a Spanish speaker and person) happened at a time that I was inconvenienced and forced to step outside my comfort zone. Growth does not occur when everything goes as planned and you feel comfortable. Growth happens when you let your life mold you, inconvenience you, push you and inspire you.

To the people in my life who helped make this semester incredible...

My parents: Jean & Tony, thank you for recognizing & believing in my love for travel and supporting my dream to study abroad.

Adelaida & my amazing host family: Gracias por compartir tu casa y vidas conmigo. <3

My IES professors: Marta, Ana, Maribel & María Elisa...for fostering my love for the Spanish language & helping me improve immensely. Las idiotas: Andie, Olivia, Addie & Elise...the best group of girls to explore Europe with.

Andie: for being the best friend, roommate & travel/adventure buddy ever.

My boyfriend Cooper: for sending me a package of my favorite American things aka crunchy peanut butter, peanut M&Ms & sour patch kids, even though it got confiscated at the Madrid airport, & for listening to all my crazy stories via FaceTime dates with crappy WiFi.

To Salamanca, España & Europe: You have my heart. Thank you for helping me grow as a person, Spanish speaker and traveler. Thank you for reminding me why I committed to learning a foreign language, enhancing my fascination with different cultures and filling my soul with remarkable adventures and precious memories.

I will conclude with a quote from one of my professors, Maribel, in her final email to us, because I'm obsessed with these words and this message: "No sé quién se inventó esa tontería de la 'pureza', pero lo cierto es que, como habéis aprendido, todos somos mejores y más ricos si nos 'contaminamos' (una palabra que no debería ser negativa en este contexto). Descubrir quién es el otro y dejarlo que se mezcle con nosotros es la mejor manera de saber cosas de nosotros mismos, de nuestra cultura, de cuestionarnos nuestras ideas y principios, y de vivir libres sin miedo a lo desconocido. (Lo peor que se puede hacer es vivir con miedo). ...Los recuerdos bonitos sirven para muchas cosas...en mi opinión, su función más importante es dar calor los domingos por la tarde, o en los momentos tristes. Así pues, que los recuerdos de Salamanca os calienten durante mucho mucho tiempo."

"I do not know who invented such nonsense of 'purity', but the truth is that, as you have learned, we are all better and richer if we 'pollute' ourselves (a word that should not be negative in this context). Discovering who the other is and letting it blend with us is the best way to know things about ourselves, our culture, to question our ideas and principles, and to live free without fear of the unknown. (The worst thing you can do is live in fear). ...Beautiful memories serve many things...in my opinion, its most important function is to be warm on Sunday evenings, or in sad times. So, may the memories of Salamanca warm you for a long time."

P.S.: The title of this blog "Así es la vida" is a phrase my host mom Adelaida often said, meaning "such is life" or "that's life." I like it because it can be used to describe the good things in life and the bad things. Example: I spent all of my life savings this semester and am now utterly broke, but así es la vida. I left a piece of my heart in Salamanca and found bits and pieces of myself all over Europe; así es la vida.