For the last three days of my European tour I returned to Valladolid, the city in Spain where i spent a year teaching English. It's very close to Salamanca, so I figured I should pay it a visit since it was only a bus ride away. It was really nice to reunite with a couple of friends and to see some of my old students, but on my last day there, I was left feeling unsettled. It's a strange feeling being back in a city you once called home and simultaneously feeling out of place, like you no longer belong. Physically, everything looks the same, but romances have dissipated, friends have moved away and you're left with the memories of how things used to be. You realize that even though the plazas and streets still look the same, in fact, everything else has changed. However, it's moments like this that can give us the best lesson, if we are willing to look for it. I believe that people and places come into our life for a reason, and although they will always be a part of our history it's OK to leave them in the past. To be grateful for what we learned and where it took us but to close that chapter of our lives and begin the next one. And so, as I boarded the train to Salamanca I couldn't help but smile. Although one chapter was painfully coming to an end, another amazing chapter was just beginning. And as they say "There's a reason why the windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror. Where you're going is far more important than what you've left behind"
A few years I studied Spanish for a summer in Costa Rica, and one of the girls I met at my school has become one of my very best friends. We were in Costa Rica at the same time, for the same amount of time (I definitely think this was fate) and we just clicked right away. We had so much fun over those four weeks but unfortunately lived on opposite coasts so we never saw one another. One day, she messaged me saying she was planning a trip to South America and asked if I wanted to join her. My immediate answer was YES! Hands down yes. Did I care that I already had a big trip planned that year? No. Did I care that it would be a stretch financially? Nope! Did I care that I was a maid of honor in my sister's wedding weeks after I got back? Absolutely not! (Sorry Kier) For months we spent hours on the phone together; a mix of catching up and planning for our trip. Although we hadn't seen each other in 5 years I was so excited to meet up and take on another part of the world together...
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