15 days until the next great adventure.

15 days until Alex and I part ways. He'll head back to the States and I'll head to the French countryside for a bit.

We're currently in Barcelona, and tomorrow we leave for Madrid.

I turn 25 in one week. And all I ask for my birthday is that you have and enjoy some Taco Bell, on May 9th. That would be the best gift ever. :)

We're still having a great time. But I think in some ways we're ready for what's next. For Alex, the land of the free and the home of the brave, complete with free refills, Taco Bell, good friends and loved ones. For me, a time of some very cool and highly recommended communities where I get the chance to volunteer, meet some incredible kids, go back to Italy for a while, go to the French countryside, go back up to Scotland, and hopefully be completely ready for the path and graduate study I'll pursue when I do finally return to the States. We'll see how it all plays out... :)

For Alex the trip is almost over, at least the trip abroad. J.M. Barrie said, in his tale Peter Pan, "To live will be a great adventure."

For me, I haven't even hit the halfway point for being abroad yet.

Unbelievable.

It's funny to me to think how life goes on, even when we may feel the world should stop turning because of an event or circumstance. Someone dies, and the rest of the world gets up the next morning and drives to work and goes about their business as if they're unaware that our world has stopped. Someone leaves/moves, and even though they're missed, we carry on, we go about our days. 9/11 happens in the States, and Texas still has their football games and practices. The London Underground is bombed, and the British still carry on, business as usual, by riding the Tube, as if nothing happened. It's not insensitive, and it's not just the sorrowful moments. It's actually quite brilliant. For if the world stopped turning every time an event of great magnitude occured, at the macro or micro level, nothing would ever get done, there would be no force of time pulling forward the grieving/healing process, and we'd all have a bit of metaphysical whiplash from the world constantly slamming on the brakes.

Alex and I, we've certainly changed. We may not be aware of how we've changed, or that we've changed at all, but after visiting over 50 cities in 2.5 months, meeting a handful of people in each country, and sharing in meals, laughs, and adventures with those people and the various cities, a person can't go through such things and not come out the other end different than how he or she went in. Absolutely unavoidable.

And yet, you've changed too. You've had days and seen things and had experiences that we haven't been able to share in with you. Life has carried on back home even though we weren't there to live it with you.

When we return home, you may think our stories are more exciting to hear and tell. But I beg to differ, because where you were, life was happening and people were interacting and transportation was necessary and not always predictable...and we're going to want to hear about it.

We promise to tell you our stories, and hopefully avoid too much embellishment. Hopefully up until this point you've felt like you've been able to join in some of our experiences. But you should tell us yours too. Because we're coming home, to reinsert ourselves back into your lives, and we have every intention of having just as much fun in the day to day, as we had here in Europe, living the alleged "adventurous" life. Because I agree with J.M. Barrie. I think, among the people that we love and cherish and have missed ever so much, the people we can't wait to get home to, to laugh with and hug once again, to meet at Starbucks, Taco Bell, or anywhere conducive for some phenomenal conversation, to watch hours of tv series marathons and movies with and live the daily life with - to be back among our people and living, that is the next great adventure.

Personally, I am so looking forward to it. :)

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." - Lin Yutang

"I should like to spend the whole of my in life travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.” – William Hazlitt

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” – George Moore