Sometimes, my study abroad experience in Granada, Spain last semester can feel like something I made up. I don't believe I hiked through Sierra Nevada and Cabo de Gata and rode a camel in Morocco. The fact that I spent almost five months in a completely different country speaking a different language is beyond me, or even the fact that I had the courage to leave everything so familiar and venture out into so much unknown.
Alongside the fact that it felt like some wild sense of "Inception" related mind-games, something planted into my brain at some point in time, it's also strange being back at my home institution and not seeing any of the people who I actually went to school with abroad. I'll see people in passing that remind me of my program members and be hit with this strange pang of confusion, excitement, and sadness that the person I saw was not at all the person I knew.
A few weekends ago, however, I had a friend who I met in Spain come and visit me here at Brandeis. Standing across the street in Boston, amidst the crowd of random people and random chaos, I recognized a face I thought I'd only seen in dreams. It was refreshing to see my friend again and nice to reconnect in the U.S. -- although a bit strange that we had both come from the same place and never saw the other in that place until that moment. The welcoming, excitement filled hug was more than a "hi, again, I've missed you" but a "wow, those five amazing, mind-blowing months of my life really were real".
Study abroad will always be something I long for, as I write this it is something that I long for, tomorrow it will be, four months from now it will be. I'm grateful for the experience and proud of myself for taking the huge step to go abroad, despite all of my fears and also encouraging other students of color to do the same.
Sometimes stressing over upcoming finals and finances and just general college life can make things feel like it's all too much, but I'm glad for the weekends with good friends from good times in beautiful places and for the memories to divulge in that will always be with me.
