Classic thoughts are running through my head: I feel like I just got here. I feel like I’ve been here for so long.  I can’t wait to be home.  I don’t want to leave here.

It’s crazy to think it’s all coming to an end.  I up and left my favorite place on earth for a whole semester and lived in a foreign country, outside the La Jolla bubble, outside the Oxford bubble.  I lived in a foreign country.

Honestly, it’s been a surreal, amazing, outrageous unforgettable 5 months.  I’m not saying it was always easy, but that life.  I couldn’t be more thankful for everything I have had the opportunity to do here, the people I have been able to meet.  The people always make a place what it is. 

And this place will always be ours.  The place where we embraced every second of this culture, every second of this language, every second of our youth.  This place will always be to us something completely different than it is to anyone else.  So even when we scatter ourselves back across the United States, we will always have these 5 months.  We will always have Buenos Aires.

When things boil down to the wire, everyone does a little retrospective analysis.  So here’s mine:  I’ve only noticed in the past few weeks how much time I spend alone in this country.  I walk alone to and from school, I generally do errands alone and I’ve probably sat for coffee more times alone than I have with a friend.

In oxford, I’ll arrive a half hour early to class if it means I can walk to campus with Chrissy.  I’ll starve until Dunn runs out of food too before I go to the market by myself.  I’ll wait until Bain is ready to work out just so I know shes somewhere in the same building, and I’ll sit at King a cubicle away from Amanda or Jenna, even when I have no homework, just to take study breaks.  I prefer doing things at school with all my favorite people around me.

Don’t get me wrong my friends here are wonderful but we just live our lives more independently.  We are all scattered about the city with some sort of public transportation between us so out outings are usually more planned than spontaneous.  I busy myself in a book or with homework on solo coffee outings. I people watch, blatantly fascinated.  In the US I capture my ever-leeting thoughts through texts to friends or tweets when they’re comical; here my thoughts just come and go staying true to my space-cadet nature.

I don’t doubt for a second that next year in Ox I will continue to do every waking activity with my people by my side, but I know now that I’m capable of solitude.  I think I always disliked being alone because I thought it inherently implied loneliness but I’ve never found myself lonely in this city.  It’s empowering in a sense, and maybe the most valuable thing I’ve gotten out of being abroad.  I have more of a sense of security in myself, my intelligence, and my ability to handle foreign situations.  So while I’ll always prefer having a partner in crime, it’s comforting to know my own strength and be able to trust my own instincts.

…look at me growing as person through my inernational experience.  Worth every penny mom & dad…

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I’ve come to love when people use the phrase “ganas.”  Asking “tienes ganas” to do something is like asking if you feel like doing something.

My host mom is all about giving into your ganas.  She always says: “Si tenes ganas de salir, sali.  Si tenes ganas de quedar en casa, queda.”

random, I know.  But I just had ganas to share that with you.