I am back from Spain, completely and totally in love with the country. I spoke more Spanish than ever before, saw countryside more beautiful than I could ever imagine, ate strange and incredible meals (paella, oxtail stew, lamb and chicken couscous, Galician octopus), made it into Morocco…. I essentially had the time of my life. Studying abroad over there is no longer a question of ‘if’ — now it is merely a matter of ‘when.’

I took a fair number of pictures, and in accordance to the general rule of thumb wound up with one or two decent shots for every thirty or so attempts. I managed to leave two 2-gigabyte cards at home, so I was limited by a 512-megabyte card, but like everything else in life, it all worked out in the end.

Some of my personal favorites:

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During bus rides from city to city, I found plenty of time to read, and managed to work through several books recommended to me by fellow bloggers — I feel I should continue the trend and urge people to definitely consider Never Eat Alone and The Starfish and the Spider, two incredible works that are as timely and significant as they are simply interesting reads.

I encourage everybody to find some way, some how to get out of the country and travel at some point in their life. Books, movies, the National Geographic channel… they do a decent job at presenting other cultures and foreign lands while you sit in the security of your home, but NOTHING compares to boarding a flight bound for a country half a world away. The rest of the world is all too easy to miss if you live a static life, and there is too much to see and experience for anyone to refuse to pursue some means of traveling to a different part of Earth.