Many of my posts are written about my travels during the 2019-2020 school year. I was studying abroad in Madrid and got the amazing opportunity to travel to nine other countries and about 13 other municipalities in Spain. I had the life of a unuiversity student from Monday to Thursday, with homework, tests, assignments and early morning classes, but Friday to Sunday I was on a bus, a train, or a plane to explore someplace new. I always seemed to have a bag packed and settled into a routine of weekends away. When this came to a standstill in March 2020, it was a difficult adjustment. I had just unlocked my wanderlust and now I had to manage months of confinement.
The pandemic encouraged me to explore new places closer to home, hikes and national or provincial parks I had never visited before. Though I am grateful for this time and the new experiences I’ve had, the driving and exploring doesn’t scratch the same itch as getting on a plane to a new country with a different language, currency and culture.
It was during this time that my blog emerged and I began to share my experiences at home and abroad. While my life looks very different than it did in 2019, I still mourn the freedom to travel and explore I had during university.
The most heartbreaking part about saying goodbye to this part of my life was definitely the friends I had to leave behind. The shock of our situation (being called home by our countries and universities and boarding a plan in the span of 48 hours), made the permanence of our goodbye less comprehendable. We all had hopes of the situation remaining temporary. But as I sit here writing this in 2024, I realize it has been nearly 4 years since I have been to what I once regarded as home. The depth of the friendships I made abroad have managed to stay with me beyond through the past years of long distance calls and mismatched timezones.
I am finally planning a return to Europe this year, and I look forward to reuniting with a few of my close friends from abroad. For anyone reading this who is on the fence about studying away from home, I couldn’t encourage you more to take that leap. And for those of us who have, and are missing that life dearly, take a moment to reach out to your exchange friends today and keep that relationship strong.
