1 month

I realized today as I was taking my usual half hour walk to class (down the mountain for 10 blocks, across the bridge for five blocks, then back up the mountain another five blocks), past the street venders who I now recognize by face, and who know that I, the gringa, will walk by and who say the same things to me every morning about my legs and hair, that I've been here a whole month.

The main way that I noticed this was seeing dogs in a junk yard that I consistently walk by. I remember on my first morning, two puppies playing together in a pen in the corner. Every morning I look for the puppies and usually they are running around the area playing, or sitting in their pen, resting their heads on the chainlinks of the fence, watching me go by. Today as I looked over to see the puppies, I realized they are no longer puppies. Or, perhaps more realistically, in the last month they have grown so much you no longer feel the need to cock your head and start talking in a googely voice when you look at them.

I quickly added up the dates and realized that I've been here for exactly one month - or that exactly one month ago I left Minneapolis. In the end, my time studying abroad is nothing compared to the whole semseter most students are gone, but given my recent circumstances and my burning desire to just be done with college, I've chosen the right trip for me. Six weeks hardly feels like any time at all in the long run and I'm sure when this is all over I'll look back and tell you all it was very short and that more time could have been used better. However for now I still have two weeks remaining. One minute it feels like time flies by, the next I feel the weight of two more weeks on my shoulders and feel tired.

Either way, two weeks from now I will be home, and resting there, and looking back on everything I chose to do here regardless of my emotional state, sounds like the best thing I can possibly do when that time comes.