In the beginning of May, my dear friend and housemate Sparrow and I flew to Dublin for a quick weekend in the Motherland.

Buenos Aires was a city I knew I would visit the moment I was accepted and enrolled to this program. I had no idea what to expect but I really wanted to visit my friend and that I wanted to continue exploring South America.

So I've been home for about a week now, and I still not exactly sure what I can say about my return. I've been putting off this post, waiting for something, like obvious symptoms of "reverse culture shock" or missing a huge part of my weekly routine that doesn't exist here at home, but I don't think anything like that has actually happened. So far, it seems like I wasn't gone for too long. Life at home hasn't changed, so I'm not sure what kind of differences I should be looking for or noticing.

Routine. Some of us are bound to it with steel wire. Others float free, each day existing as a blank canvas. 

Isn't living on another continent for four months a way of breaking routine? An escape from the mundane schedules we find ourselves stuck too at home?

Why is it that when we spend significant time in one place we find ourselves falling into a routine? Is it comfort? Is it familiarity? Is it habit?

Maybe routine is a good thing, acting as a guide for us each day, ensuring were productive and oriented.

Alas, I’ve made it to my penultimate blog post, the last post I’ll write while physically in Madrid. It’s been a whirlwind of a week and a half since my last post, full of LOTS of rain, two finals (one to go!) and a decent amount of packing.

Saturday, May 14^th, 2016

Alhamar, Granada

Rome is home to some of the greatest sports teams and events in the entire world. Most importantly, it is home to the A.S.

Thursday, May 4^th, was something known as “Father’s Day” here in Berlin. This is not to be confused with American Father’s Day, where kids give their dads presents and everyone goes out to dinner or whatever. This is German Father’s Day, when middle-aged men get flat-out wasted and disappoint their families. I think it’s also a religious holiday or something. Anyway, I didn’t have school.

At the end of April, I went with my “Renaissance and its Classical Heritage” class to Florence for a day long field study. My professor, Prof.

As the semester comes to a close (in fact we just had our goodbye dinner and a ride on a party bus called a Chiva), the weekends became a little more homework and hanging out with friends/family oriented rather than travel oriented. After the earthquake there was a period where no one really wanted to travel or do much at all, which is very reasonable. After bleeding my funds all semester it is probably good that I will have some money left for my upcoming trip to Peru. BUT I still managed to get some camping and hiking in!