Two weeks ago, I experienced the most emotionally difficult day of my life thus far.  As I looked out the window at the grey cloudy skies of Bucharest, I was preparing to say goodbye to a person who means the world to me.  My year in Europe has finished, due entirely to my current lack of funds.  Expecting it for several months didn’t lessen the blow; in fact, it was worse than I had imagined.  Over the last 13 months, I’ve done things that I didn’t think were even possible.  This special person repeatedly told me how brave I had been, and I guess I should be proud of myself for that: for admitting my fears and smacking them like a game of whack-a-mole.

After the initial flight from Bucharest to Warsaw, in which I was feverish and in a permanent state of catatonia, I realized something:  one year ago, my journey had begun at Warsaw Chopin Airport, and here I was again, gazing at my last European sunset (at least for a while).  While the United States is my home, I’ve had a traveler’s itch for a long time and, now that it’s scratched, I cannot pretend that I’m ready to stay in my country.  As I said, I’ve completely run out of money, and I’ve had to retort to the easiest and most logical option, while still allowing myself to have an adventure: teach English again, this time in South Korea.

Four hours into my second flight (8.5 hours to Chicago), I found myself utilizing the sick bag for the first time ever.  I continued to feel ill for the remainder of the flight, and was unable to sleep despite having the best seat Economy Class offers.  Somewhere over the Norwegian Sea and Greenland, I noticed that the sky was completely black on the right side of the plane, while the left displayed a seemingly endless beautiful sunset.  Yes, I know this can easily be explained by basic science, but it felt like a type of sign to me.  I don’t know how long it will take me to stop being sad, but I think he would tell me to look at those things as the past and the future, the not-so-easy times and the moments I’ll cherish for my entire light.  Feeling a bit inspired, I began to think about my best and worst memories from the last 13 months.  Here’s what made the cut.

Rock climbing,

Romania

Overcoming my semi-irrational fear of birds (kind of),

Bratislava

Getting too drunk,

Playing with piglets

Learning to make this,

Turkish Mercimek Kofte

And this,

Pesto cream sauce

Tasting this,

Bryndzove Halusky: the National dish of Slovakia

And not showering for…a long time… in mid-summer,

Dirty Pirate

After cycling up unexpected mountains,

Sweating after yet another mountains

Meeting up with an old friend,

Finding my college friend in Amsterdam

And making innumerable new ones.

New Friends in Romania

New Friends in Turkey

New Friends on a Boat

New Friends in Poland

This has been the best year of my life thus far, and I can’t thank everyone that helped me along the way enough.  It was inspiring, terrifying, dizzying, and love-filled, and I couldn’t have hoped for anything more.  It’s been real, Europe.  Until next time.