Mi Último Día En España

How does one even begin to take four months of adventures and friends and a new home and say goodbye? You don't. Thankfully we are blessed with memories  to keep the good and bad times close and friends, if they are friends will never leave you. I have been blessed with both in my time here in my second home Granada, Spain. I can remember back to the week before I left for Spain. Then I was feeling the same way I am now. I was nervous about coming here. It would be a new country, full of new people that don't speak the same language as I do. I was not ready to say goodbye to my job, my friends and my family. Yet when I got here, God put my mind at ease. I was instantly assured that I was making the right decision by being here. I was blessed to be placed into a home with a mother that loved me and treated me as her own son without even knowing me. I was able to attend a school where they looked after my needs and cared about how I was adjusting to a new lifestyle and country. I took classes that fostered my interests in the culture and language in which I was living in. I was able to meet 80+ amazing Americans that were feeling the same way I was. From them, I was blessed to make friends and even best friends that I will never forget. We spent time together growing as individuals and as a group. We learned more about the culture and language then we ever could have done back in the United States. We learned how each other worked and how to tell when one of us was having a bad day and how to cheer each other up. We gained spanish friends that we incorporated into our group. These amazing people taught us about their lifestyles and what it means to be a "Granadino". We had the opportunity to meet other people from all over Europe and Africa that we became friends with as well. We traveled throughout two continents and multiple countries. We gained experiences that are invaluable. 

So how do you take four months of memories and friends and say goodbye? You don't. You look back through this long hallway that has lead you through the land of opportunity and you watch this do close only to see a new and better one opening ahead of you. Do you stand there wishing for the old door to open up and contemplating being static and not walking through this new door? No. Instead you take what life has given you, memories and friends and you march through that door. You march through it knowing that you are a bigger and better person and that you are blessed by having spent time behind this first door. You keep your memories and friends close in hopes of making new ones and new adventures. Life is full of doors that you can either open or close. I am thankful that I chose to open " la puerta a España", for this door has lead me to many wonderful things. Now I cannot wait to see what new door God will place in front of me. I cannot wait to see what blessings lie ahead. 

Spain has treated me well and there comes a time when one must say goodbye. But not in Spain, you never say goodbye, not even on your death bed, because hopefully one day we will all be reunited in Heaven. Instead you say "Hasta Luego", because we will see each other again. So in the fashion of a granadino I say, hasta luego IES. Hasta luego España. Hasta luego my second home. Hasta luego mis amigos. 

Nathan Kelley December 19, 2012 IES Abroad Granada, Spain