Full Circle

It has been a hectic two weeks filled with final exams, ‘see-ya-laters’, last hurrahs and many goodbyes. Two years have come and gone, I am graduated from SUMC, yet I find myself sitting in the exact spot where it all began. I sit writing at the same desk, in the very room that I lived in two years ago when I first moved in with my senora Maria Victoria; only this time, I understand her stories and am able to appreciate her great sense of humor. Now, I am the one who translates for visitors instead of the other way around. I can tell that she recognizes changes in me from when she first found me: the nervous, naive girl with too much luggage and too few Spanish skills. When I told Victoria, over dinner one night, about the Flamenco course that I had decided to take during the month of May she insisted that I come ‘home’ and stay with her. So while nearly everyone else has gone home to their families for summer, here I am; pretty much the last one left in the city, sleeping in my old room and re-living the ‘Spain’ that I experienced during my first few months here; but this time I have a new outlook on my surroundings that have become so familiar and I am able to view it all with a more seasoned and experienced head on my shoulders.