Thoughts...

I thought the same as my friend Brianne. She is studying abroad in Paris at the moment, and tries to keep a blogspot as well. She said in her last post that she had intended to write here every week about the experiences she had, the people she's met, and the overall emotions felt while studying abroad. I had intended to do this as well, but life here just goes by so fast.

We are already into November. It seems as though life here goes 5 times as fast as that in New York. I feel as though I just arrived in Spain, but I am leaving in a month and a few days. I am truly going to miss it here. I have started creating a life here. I have friends here; I have my usual places that I frequent; I absolutely love my host family and their pup. I know I am not a Madriñena at heart (VISC CATALUNYA!!), but I honestly do love Madrid.

The NYU Madrid staff was completely correct. They described your time here in phases:

Phase One - Overall happiness. You are in a new place and want to explore.
Phase Two - Overall hatred. Things here are too different for you. You hate the lifestyle, etc.
Phase Three - Back to happiness. You cope with your situation and begin to realize you actually do love it. Unfortunately, it takes you the majority of the time to come to this conclusion.

I am at this phase. But, alas, I leave in a month and back to a world that seems to foreign.

I love my home. I miss my family more that I ever have. I can tell the amount of stress each one has in their everyday life excluding the worrying about me and it worries me. Seeing them for only 6 hours was probably not helpful. Although I miss them, I don't think I can every return to Memphis to live. I feel at home there because my family is there. I would not be happy returning there for the rest of my life.

I guess I have Italy to look forward too, but again I bet I will have the same phases there. Nevertheless, I am definitely going to come visit Spain next semester!

¡VIVA ESPAÑA!