Well, y’all, this is it. I leave for Madrid tomorrow morning, and then I’m homeward bound. These past two weeks have been all about wrapping everything up- my family and I went to Barcelona, finals came and went, and all of a sudden I’m packing!
On Thursday, we celebrated Nochevieja. The university students of Salamanca and other students from Spain and around Europe gather in Plaza Mayor to celebrate the end of the year. It’s like the Spanish version of New Year’s Eve in Times Square. In the minute before midnight, everyone counts down from 12, and with each number, you have to eat a gummy grape candy for good luck. The Plaza was lit with colorful purple, pink, red, and green lights, and everyone was cheering and hugging. Then everyone goes out for a night of partying. Sadly, our friends from the other schools were leaving the next morning (shout-out to Colby and Georgetown), so Nochevieja was good-bye to them.
Friday was the day to say our farewells to Salamanca, our Spanish home-away-from-home. Fittingly, the weather was rainy, because as my friend Julie said, “Salamanca was crying for us.” We ran around taking last photos, gathering the souvenir presents we still needed, and then we went out for our final tapas and wine and walked through Plaza Mayor. Leaving here is bittersweet: unlike leaving Amherst during breaks, I doubt I’ll ever come back here. There are so many other marvelous cities to visit! And honestly, I won’t see most of the people I met here. Thinking about this makes me sad, so I’m going to change the subject.
I will, however, share the last few snippets of advice that I’ve thought about while getting ready to head back to America:
–Seize all of your opportunities; if there is something you want to do, don’t put it off, do it when you can. This sounds like a fuddy-duddy “profound” statement, but I’m talking about small things too. My group of friends had some small things on our bucket list that we had the chance to do earlier in the semester and didn’t seize it, and then we ran out of time this week.
Schoolwork is important, but so are the Real Life experiences, like your friends, eating delicious food, etc. The problem with the school schedule is that right when you want to be savoring your last few days with friends, you have finals and papers. At a certain point, you have to take a step back and have a little fun, at a minimum just to recharge your battery. Instead of having a rushed dinner at Val, take the time to actually eat and relax. In order to do this, maybe you have to sacrifice a gossipy work group for some solo study time, but it’s worth it. Some mornings, I had to sit alone and work during my break, but that meant that in the afternoon I could sit leisurely in the Plaza, eating an empanada with a friend.
Try to do lots of new things, with lots of enthusiasm. I was a straight-up stress ball before I came to Salamanca; convinced I had made a terrible mistake in choosing to study abroad and convinced I would never survive until Christmas. But being here made me realize how silly that was- there is so much to see and do in the world! And although good-byes and change are some of my least favorite things, I am glad I had the chance to come here and meet all of these people, even if only for 3.5 months. I am excited for Atlanta and Amherst, but this was a wonderful adventure and I’m sad to see it end.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Amherst chapter.