Goodbye Russia

By now, it's Friday.  I've been gone for several days now, hoping that it won't hurt as much to write this up with some distance and time.  Didn't really work.

The wonderful thing about this study abroad was that I made so many friends, and gained a family.  Yes, it was halfway around the globe.  Yes, it was in another language.  But when it came time to leave, the tears came streaming down my face.

I didn't want to leave my city, I didn't want my friends to scatter back to the four corners of America, and I didn't want to say goodbye to Yulia Georgievna and her husband, Vladimir Nikolaevich.  My host family had become such a big part of my life that I couldn't bear to leave them, and I seriously dreaded when the taxi would show up and I'd be forced to say goodbye, possibly forever.  It was all the harder because my host mom was also fighting tears.  To try to make us both stop crying, she looked me in the eye and smiled and said that I'd be coming back in the future.  And next time I'd bring my mom and my dad and my boyfriend and my brother, yes, even Ben can come.

So tears still streaming down my face, but now with a little smile, I got in the cab and my life in St. Petersburg was left behind.  A couple hours later I was on a plane, flying off to England to meet my aunt and uncle and cousins.

Thus, my time in Russia has come to an end.  No amount of words here can describe the thrilling feeling of living abroad in another culture, in another language, and becoming immersed in it.  I can't force my emotions into words, either written or spoken, to describe my time in Russia.  Just know that it was challenging, it was enlightening, and you come back not quite the same person as when you left.

And I wouldn't trade it for the world.