Coming Home

In less than one week, I will leave Spain. I will arrive in OKC at 11 PM on Saturday the 7th, if the flight is on time. Before that I will be meeting Joel in Dublin and we shall see the sites and fly to New York together. There I will meet Mom and she and I will fly back to Oklahoma while Joel flies back to Vermont. It's hard to imagine that my time here is almost over.

This past year I have(in no particular order):

• Walked through Park Guell (by architect Antoni Gaudi) in Barcelona (and plan on doing it again on Monday with my sister!)
  
• Overheard (and understood) or participated in conversations in four different languages all in one day
• Learned to make authentic Indian curry and chapati to go on the side
• Fallen down a few steps on a four century-old bell tower
• Hung every load of laundry out to dry either on my roof or in my balcony
• Had a roof to hang clothes on
• Packed up a rain-drenched tent about three or four times
• Been given a free pastry along with a cup of hot chocolate in a city known as the end of a pilgrimage centuries of years old
• Seen ruins and artifacts less than two miles from where they were found, that date from the 3rd or 4th century B.C.
• Taken a picture of the Sistine Chapel (bird's eye view)
  
• Spent the night on a cliff overlooking the Ionian Sea
• Translated from English into Spanish a short message during a church service
• Walked along the Mediterranean on the way home from class
• Ridden in a horse drawn carriage in Sorrento, alongside my fiance (the day after he proposed)
  
• Eaten a potluck meal at a small church in Rome after having arrived at the church 10 minutes before the morning service started
• Slept in an airport
• Not slept in Florence while stuck there overnight after missing a train to Bologna
• Taken a class on baroque art
• Seen many of the major works that I studied in that class, in various museums
• Spent 8 hours in the Prado
• Gotten a 5 out of 10 as my final grade in a class (but it's a passing grade!)
• Had to come to grips with the fact that I will never see my maternal grandparents again until I arrive in heaven
• Participated in a televised interview
• Played a card game with four Australians (and Joel) on a train from Paris to Venice
• Learned a bit about patience, even if maybe only in waiting for buses instead of being able to go where I want to go when I want to go
• Eaten rabbit
• Cooked rabbit
• Bought non-refrigerated milk
• Played volleyball on the beach various Sundays after church (and after lunch, of course)
• Introduced peanut butter into the lives of a handful of europeans (and ranch dressing!)
• Attended a church service in the first protestant church building ever built in Spain
• Learned humility, forgotten humility, learned more humility...
• Developed an interesting accent in English where I over-aspirate and h's or wh's
• Missed home
• Wondered what "home" is to me
• Baked yeast bread from scratch

And a lot of other things....but I have to get ready to go to the beach. Have a lovely day and I'll see a lot of you soon!