Coming back to the U.S. from the most incredible experience of my life has been bittersweet. On the one hand, I missed my family and friends a ton while I was away, and am so happy to have them so close, as opposed to being time zones and an ocean apart. On the other, I think about how just a few weeks ago I was living, what felt like, a whole different life? speaking Spanish everyday and traveling somewhere new just about every weekend. I saw and experienced some pretty amazing things, like paragliding through the sky above Interlaken, Switzerland or hiking several miles in between all 5 towns that make up Cinque Terre, Italy. But still, when I find myself being asked by people I haven?t seen in months, ?what was your favorite part?,? I can?t help but immediately think of the friendships. Mariana and Anna were pretty much strangers to me in the fall of 2022. We all were marketing students at Mays Business School, but it wasn?t until signing up for this semester abroad, that we met. We were all set to go to Madrid, Spain and looking for roommates and a place to live.
We met for coffee at Sweet Eugene?s and decided right then and there that we would do this together! From that day on, I prayed for the 3 of us; that our friendship would be a blessing to us all. Over the course of our 5 months abroad, we practically lived on top of each other in a pretty little apartment located in the heart of the city, navigated foreign countries, language barriers, transportation, school, and our real, personal lives back in the U.S., and we became each others home away from home. It really didn?t take long for these ?strangers? to become some of my best friends. We laughed and cried and grew together. They were by far the best thing that happened to me while I was abroad and I know they will stick by my side for a long, long time, even now that we?re back home. I am forever changed for the better by my time abroad, but more so by the friendships that came with it.
