Hello, stranger.

In pure honesty, I'm not really sad about this. You'd expect me to be sad, right? Well, no. Maybe I'm just being a good little "trooper," but this realization wasn't a sad one. But since I can't see anyone describing me as a "good little trooper," and you probably know that, I should explain this point. :)

Some of you already know that I've had a really hard time here. Depression, illness, unhappiness, what have you. I took it pretty well, or as well as I could. I mean, I'm in Barcelona -- I'm not going to spend all of my time feeling sorry for myself! So as I leave, I'm glad to be going because I feel like I'm finally getting away from all the (for lack of a better word) crap that plagued me but I don't want anyone to think that I hate this place. No. I think Barcelona is a fantastic city. You should visit it, if you haven't already. And if you have, you should visit it again because I promise you its changed! It's a city I could never live in, but its definitely a place I'd like to come back and visit (like, when the Sagrada Familia is finished?)

So, I made the decision to come back in the beginning of February, and just in time too, as that was when classes were being chosen for spring term. Maybe you'll find this interesting, or maybe you won't, but the hardest part about getting everything sorted out to come home was convincing people that I was doing it for a reason others deemed "acceptable." I have been in the "all my byself" camp since I first became vocal, so you can imagine how much I appreciated being clotheslined by that nasty little surprise. The decision was hard enough, I don't need everyone else passing judgement on it and I'm not going to change my mind just because you said so... sigh... suffice it to say that I can talk for a long time about the expectations -- both acknowledged and assumed -- that are associated with studying abroad. (And I don't suggest you do this unless you really, really want to know.) Unfortunately, I have to admit that I would have rather experienced the nuances of being a study abroad student in a different way, but what can you do? Experience is experience, and I'm just hoping that I'm better off for it.

Being criticized for wanting to come home early made me wary of yelling my news from the rooftops, so to speak, so please don't be offended if I didn't tell you I was coming back. Very few people knew, and I would have kept it that way, but people talk and well, as one person told me, "the cat is out of the bag." Sums it up rather well, I think.

So, here I am, still in Barcelona. Its been cold here these last couple of days, but given that I was on the beach on Saturday and my family is probably still slogging through icy, grey slush, I'm not to the point of complaining. I have my final exams next week, (if you've read about my experience with last term's finals, you should know that these are looking much more daunting) on March 12th and 13th. I have until the 16th to get my fill of Barcelona, the people in it, and to purge my belongings of stuff I can't fit in my luggage because on the morning of the 17th, I fly to Paris! :) I have 5 days in the City of Lights and the sneaking suspicion that my experience there will give me reason to call it the City of Croissants. (I'm very excited about the prospect of unchecked overindulgence in French baked goods.) But don't worry, I'll do all the other touristy things that are basically required of a trip to Paris. I will crawl into BCN again on the 21st, very late at night and probably exhausted. But I'll only be able to sleep until noon (no later!) because I have three extremely important tasks:
1. unpack from Paris and re-pack for home
2. finish last-minute errands (gifts, things I wanted to take pictures of, etc)
3. say goodbye!

After all of that, I have to be ready to leave at 6am for the airport. I'll fly from BCN to Zurich, and then onto Chicago. Counting from the time I leave my apartment in BCN to the time I will probably arrive at home, I will have been traveling for 22 hours. Here's hoping I manage to sleep on the plane!

written by  achavero on March 6, 2008 from Barcelona, Spain
from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona
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