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This post might border more on journaling than travel blog, but I felt like I should check in and I haven’t been keeping myself busy with anything specifically Buenos Aires.

More accurately, it’s finals time. I spent Tuesday getting photocopies over town (100 pesos worth!!!) for my UBA history final, and now the task at hand is a political economy of Argentina take home final. I’m nearly done but it’s a little slow coming during the end. I can’t believe that all of this work has to be done in the next 13 days. Then on the 19th I’m back to the US– we’re getting to the end of the adventure, folks. I can’t believe it’s been five months.

People keep asking, are you ready to go home? Are you going to miss it?

It’s really an answer in the middle for me– I’m not leaving on the 11th, like some people in the program who are a bit homesick and are changing their flights, but I’m glad I’m not sticking around and traveling for another few weeks. I LOVE this city and I hope I have the opportunity to spend time here in the future, but I’m also excited about what the coming year has to offer me. And what’s that, you might ask?

After three fun weeks of Oregon summer I’ll be heading back to Georgetown for RA training. I’ll be living in a freshman dorm, taking a fun class schedule, enjoying the friendships that have formed over the past two years, and working in UG, the little coffee shop in the middle of campus. Life will be good. It’ll be fall in DC, there will be pumpkins, brunch, the Eastern Market– there will be parties, and boys, and coffee. There will be homework and reading and extensions on papers because sitting and talking with friends was more appealing than getting the paper done. Hopefully there will be a real Christmas tree in Tiggy’s Henly apartment, a little bit of snow on the ground, and a not too stressful finals season.

Buenos Aires has been good to me– it’s helped me figure out more clearly who I am, but at the same time, it’s made me realize that I’m happy with who that person is– who I am, who I’m becoming. It’s a process and this has been an essential step, but it is by no means the only step and certainly not an isolated step either.

Friendships abroad are a little tricky– shaky because even though everyone abroad wants to have friends and get to know the people in the program, it’s not why we’re here. We’re here to travel, to get to know the city, to work on our foreign language skills, and to soak up another culture. When I pack my bags in two weeks I know I’ll only be unpacking them in Oregon for a 21 day period– then in DC I’ll only have a year.

Then who knows. Eventually I’ll be unpacking and putting the suitcase in the closet, not sure when I’ll pull it out again. Buenos Aires has been a great adventure. But it isn’t the only adventure I have ahead of me.

And that’s exciting.