A new normal

I have been home for a little more than two weeks... and it really seems like so much longer than that. Granada was a dream, a good one, but still it almost doesn't seem like it happened. The program directors told us at the beginning of the program when we returned home we would remember only the greatest times of our experience, and that is true. I don't think I will forget the extremely frustrating moments I endured, but they seem a bit muddled now. I look back on my time in Granada as a very fond memory. I think because the outcome was so great, and what I have learned from my experience is extremely positive, now that it's over that is what stands out the most. At first, my main interest and reason for being in Spain, was for Spanish, to improve my ability to use the language. That's why it was so frustrating for me, because that is all I was basing my experience on. By the time I left I had really learned to appreciate my time in Spain, because it might be the only time I get. I really focused on living my life the way I wanted to, sometimes in English, and sometimes in Spanish. Obviously, my Spanish was still important, is still important, but so was/is my relation with other people, and myself.

I dream in Spanish now, not every dream, but some. When I first got home I woke up not really recognizing where I was, in my room and in Idaho. I would think I woke up late and try to decide which way was the fastest way to walk to school, I could clearly route my way through the streets of Granada, passing by very recognizable sights. It still seems so real. I don't think I have quite grasped the concept that I don't know when I'll be able to go back to Granada, I feel like I might be back there tomorrow. I don't want the images of my favorite plaza, the views I witnessed every day on my walk to school, my host mom cooking dinner and welcoming me home, or the mighty Alhambra decorating the Granada city scape, to fade from my mind. I love Granada, and I'm sad I might never live there again, but someday I will go back.

I have adjusted pretty easily to my life in Idaho, because it is so usual to me. (Although it has been kind of strange not speaking Spanish.) I have lived my typical day thousands of times, in the house where I grew up. However, my life in Granada became a new "normal" for me. It is very strange to know I will never go back to exactly that, the life I knew for five months. But now, that normal has become a part of me, and I am different because of it. My outlook is different, and Granada will stay with me forever.