Eight and a Half Weeks

Today is October 21st. In eight and a half weeks, I’ll be leaving  Granada and boarding a plane back home to the United States in time for the holidays. In eight and a half weeks, I won’t know for certain when the next time I will be in Europe will be or the when I’ll see all the people who I’ve met here again. As the day to leave Granada approaches, my thoughts have been surrounded by the idea of time.  

When I was in high school, my physics teacher once tried to explain to us the theory of relativity. Back then, his explanation didn’t make sense to me because I couldn’t comprehend how time could be shorter or longer in one moment as opposed to another. A week was seven days, a day was twenty-four hours, an hour was sixty minutes, and a minute was sixty seconds. It wasn’t till very recently that I finally begun to understand what he was saying.

You know that feeling of sitting in class and in your head you’re thinking that at least forty-five minutes have gone by only to realize that it’s been just ten minutes since the class started? It was in those moments where I first realized how time can seem to stay still. It’s in the everyday moments I experience while abroad that I’ve learned that it can move more quickly than I want it to as well.  

It’s hard to believe I’m nearly halfway through with my semester abroad. In ways it feels like I just arrived to Granada. I’m still meeting new people everyday and discovering new places all around the city. These past two months have been felt like a blur, and yet at the same time, I can see time’s influence in how much I’ve grown accustomed to being here. I don't get lost nearly as often as my first few weeks, and even though my Spanish is still pretty rough, it has vastly improved since September.

While it’s both exciting and a relief to be enjoying myself abroad so much that it feel like no time has passed at all, I do wish that time would slow down just a bit. I want to stop feeling a little sad anytime I find a new place and wonder if I’ll have the opportunity to go back to it or meet a new person and wonder how the relationship will develop in only eight weeks.

Despite my premature nostalgia, I’m more encouraged than ever to live life here to its fullest. Because when your time in a place is fixed, there really isn’t any to lose.

*All photos were taken in favorite spot in Granada (so far) that I hope I can go back to before leaving - Los Cahorros Monachil, Granada*