I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello

So here I am-4 ½ months after leaving the comfort and familiarity of Wisconsin for a foreign country that half my relatives thought was in Africa (in case you are still wondering, it’s in South America) reflecting on what a crazy ride it’s been. Looking back now I can honestly admit I was scared to death to come down here, live in a culture completely different from my own and be away from my family and friends for so long. Now that it is nearly over, however, I have absolutely no regrets. It seems so surreal that it really happened—and that I survived to tell the tale. Not only did I survive, but I thrived.

I did things I never imagined I could, saw things I never thought I would, and made some amazing friends along the way. I zip-lined through a cloud forest canopy and had a blast dancing the night away to salsa and reggaeton music in a discoteca (and if you know me, you know dancing is not really my thing). I swam with sea lions and rode a horse near an erupting volcano. I hiked until my legs couldn’t move any more just to reach that mystical place called Machu Picchu. I ate guinea pig, enough rice to feed a small African nation, way too much ice cream, and tested the stretchability of my jeans. I stayed with an indigenous tribe in the middle of the jungle and found out just how much mutant jungle mosquitoes hate me. I repelled down waterfalls, drank more varieties of fruit juice than I knew existed, and learned enough Ecuadorian curses to shock even my brother. I saw my fair share of telenovelas (Ecuadorian soap operas) and learned that Enrique Iglesias is apparently still pretty hot. I probably spent more time on a crazy bus praying that I would live to see my 21st birthday than actually studying and yet finally managed to read the pride and joy of Spanish literature, Don Quijote.

And all of these memories I shared with people that came to be some very dear friends. We laughed together about the latest host family happenings and complained about USFQ eliteness and not being able to breathe when walking down the street. We spent countless hours on busses and even more pouring over our Lonely Planet guides to find the cheapest hostels to stay at or the best restaurants to eat in. We danced together, shared a few glasses of wine and protected one another from creepy Ecuadorian guys. It’s crazy how close you can get to some people in so short a time. Maybe it was this crazy country on the equator that brought a bunch of like-minded people together to study and travel that made us bond so quickly. Maybe it was partly because we were all foreigners and were going through so many of the same things. Maybe it was the fact that sometimes only another American could truly understand your frustration with eating mounds of rice everyday or getting whistled and hooted at relentlessly. C.S. Lewis said, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." Whatever it was, it brought me some amazing new friends with whom I made some unforgettable new memories. I know that my experience here would have been a lot different, and probably would have sucked royally, without them and I’m so thankful that we shared these few months together.

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend - Robert Louis Stevenson