Preface: I know I've been getting all nostalgic on this blog thing. I haven't really said much here since I got home but to be honest, being away is a good 70% of what I think about. Yes, I know that's not healthy but it is what it is. I never really got a chance to process my fall semester abroad, I was just thrown back into everyday American life and was expected to deal with it. Within days, it became the ever repeated joke at Westmont that 'the poor poor Euro Sem students can't adjust to life back at school, boo hoo. Can't handle dorms over 5star hotels?' I know it seems crazy, but you try having absolutely no identity of who you are because you're a new person in a new place every four days. So if you don't want to hear about my nostalgia, just look at the pretty pictures and smile.
The rest: Damn. 300 days since I got that plane that began the best experience of my life thus far. When I started this post about 10 seconds ago I thought this was going to be a "omg I can't believe it's been that long, it feel like just yesterday I was having beer #1 of 1000" post, but honestly it doesn't feel like yesterday. It feels just about as long as it's been, about a year. I still remember the best part about that day was the feeling of total and complete independence that carried on through the entire semester. I was flying alone, I had to figure out where the hell to go on my own. I met up with my sister on day one, but to be real she can't navigate to save her life. How she gets around San Francisco day in and day out is beyond me. (But I have to stress how awesome she was as a travel partner... slowest walker in the history of the world, I literally watched snails outpace here - not joking. But it forced me to slow down and take everything in and I am eternally grateful to her for that.)
I truly miss those days of complete independence, when nobody thought they had to tell me what to do - I just did it because nobody was there to tell me what the hell to do! I got back here and I'm treated like a child, not just by my family but by perfect strangers! I'm 20 years old and you'd think I was 16 by the way strangers treat me sometimes. Nobody does that in Europe, if anything kids are treated too much like adults and not the other way around. That's probably one of the reasons I hate shaving my beard, I'm better respected by adults when I have it. It's really weird talking about adults that way seeing as I'm just a few months away from being regarded as one here (age wise).
I've missed living on my own, I'm so excited to have the opportunity to do it again right now while living at my grandpa's house for May term. Seeing as he wakes up before me (and I get up at 7), is taking his hours long afternoon nap by the time I get back from class, then is in bed before 8 - I'm usually alone, and I love it. I better start getting used to it, two years and I get thrown out onto the streets.
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