a life abroad

 

as for many people, living abroad has taught me a lot about myself. i began my travels in college with two month-long stints during our school's winter term. the first in madrid, spain and the second here in costa rica. i've always been somewhat of a shy person, not opening up until i feel extremely comfortable, choosing to stay home and watch a movie rather than going out to party, and mostly sticking with my main group of friends since high school. which is why i've been surprised at myself to choose to be so far away from my home.

even though, i myself had chose to move to spain, not knowing a soul and not being at all familiar with my location of cordoba, i felt like i had to do it. it was a very hard transition at first, not knowing where anything was located or how things were done and constantly feeling overwhelmed by the language barrier. however, little by little i became accustomed to the spanish ways of eating, sleeping, socializing, and even talking until my last five months there felt just like i was at home. 

living in costa rica so far has been a similar experience but having paris here as well as his family has made the experience much different. almost everything i do i rely on paris or someone else in his family. even just going to the grocery store down the street i always prefer to wait until paris can come with me so that i dont have to go alone. while the language barrier now is much less apparent i still ask paris to make certain phone calls for me.

i begin working next week and getting ready for that has pretty much forced me to get over my fears of venturing outside of the apartment by myself. so today i got myself ready and ran what seemed like a million errands all around town by myself. i was able to accomplish things in the morning that normally would have taken days if was going to wait for someone to be able to help me. its funny how things so small such as going to the store for school supplies or getting another document for my visa certified seem like such a victory for me today but they do. and i'm darn proud of it.