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Palabra del día: Home
The word of the day is in English because I'm in the US now, and did you know that in the US people speak English?  It was a bit of a shock for me.  I've actually been having some trouble understanding people speaking English on the street because I'm expecting them to speak in Spanish or Italian.  And don't even get me started on those strange Boston accents.
Frase: In the words of Dorothy, there's no place like home.

Comida del día: At the end of my trip to Italy I went to two jazz festivals: one was an hour outside of Rome in a little town called Collescipoli, and the other was wayyy up north almost in Switzerland in a town called Ambria.  In Italy, every region and sometimes even every town has its own culinary specialties, which of course always include a signature pasta dish, so I'm going to explain the pasta specialties that I encountered at the two jazz festivals.  And then I'm not going to talk about (or eat) pasta again for a very, very long time because unlike Italian people, I've learned that I have a pasta limit which I definitely surpassed by the end of my trip.

Pasta #1: Gnocchetti from Collescipoli are tiny versions of potato gnocchi served with a sauce of beans, tomatoes and meat (or senza meat for vegetarians).  I'm not going to include a photo because gnocchetti basically looks like little pellets covered in a gray-brown sauce... much better to eat than to look at!

Pasta #2: Combine northern European food with Italian food and you get pizzocheri, which are long, flat buckwheat noodles covered in a butter and cheese sauce, often mixed with potatoes and cabbage.  No olive oil necessary for the hearty diet of northern Italy!  Although, there was still an abundance of olive trees in the area.

Fotos del día: One of the best parts of being home is that after 10 months, I finally got to see Rosie again!

After 20 hours of traveling, Rosie and her wagging tail were the perfect greeting when I finally arrived home.

And there's no better place to recover from jetlag than the hammock in the backyard:

It's nice to be home.  I'm guessing this feeling will last about another week and then I'll be bored out of my mind and wishing I could go back to Europe and tackle my ever-growing list of places I want to go.  You would think that after 10 months in Europe I would have seen everything I wanted to see, but my list is actually longer than before, since the more I traveled the more places I found out about  and the more places I realized I wanted to go back to.  But for now, I'm finally sick of traveling and I'm content to stay at home for a while with the company of my dog and my hammock (and my parents, of course).

Since this is my last post and my year abroad is finally over, I was thinking that I would talk about some of the year's highlights.  Then I tried to think of highlights, and I just couldn't decide.  I've had one amazing adventure after another and to try to pick out the best ones is impossible.  However, I realized that what connects the numerous best parts of the past 10 months has been the people I've met. I've seen so many beautiful views, famous artwork and historical sights, heard some great music, and eaten the best food ever, but when I think back on all of the places I've been, I think not only about the things I've seen but also about the people that I enjoyed these things with.

The Moroccan countryside is definitely one of the most beautiful places I went this year.

And I'll never forget the gorgeous views of the reservoir of Iznájar!

I'm returning home from my year abroad with hundreds of photos, some nice new clothes, and a brand new handmade Italian leather bag, but the best souveniers are my new friends from Spain, Italy, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, France, China, and all over the US.  I've been surprised by how quickly I met people, how friendly and welcoming they were right from the start, and how many invitations I've gotten to go to people's houses (and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that if you get an invitation to go to someone's house, always go!)

It's great to have friends from all over the world, but at the same time there's a downside because I don't know when or if I will ever see these people again, and staying in touch is difficult when you're in different time zones.  I hope that we will see each other again, but whether or not we do, I learned so much and enjoyed the time I spent with each and every person I met, whether we knew each other for a few days, a few weeks, or 10 months.  Something that I will take with me back to WashU is that everyone has something to say, whether they live halfway around the world from you or right next door, and you never know what you will learn if you just take the time to listen.

Speaking of a few days, I was surprised by how quickly I made friends while traveling.  I think that sometimes when people know their time together is limited, they put in extra effort to get to know each other faster.  The Ambria jazz festival was a perfect example.  This was my last stop in Italy before returning home, and I had the opportunity to play three gigs at the festival, watch some great concerts, see some beautiful views, eat some delicious food, and meet some really nice people.  All in all, it was a perfect weekend and a perfect way to end my time in Italy.

I loved having the opportunity to perform with these talented professional musicians.  It was challenging for me but they were very encouraging and I learned a lot from the experience.

I found the perfect place to practice on the balcony of the house where I stayed!

Me with my friend Cabin and my new Italian host mom eating breakfast on our last morning.  Franca really did act like our mother for three days and insists that we come back next year and stay with her again.  Hopefully I will do just that!

The last concert of the weekend was at an ecotourism farm, so we got to play for ostriches as well as people.  I was a bit surprised to see that there was ostrich paté on the brunch menu!

Throughout the three days at the festival, I had the opportunity to get to know all of the people involved.  On both days, the organizer of the festival hosted the musicians, students, and organizers of the festival at his house for a delicious four course lunch that his wife and her friend prepared.  The food was of course amazing, with my personal highlight being the dessert of homemade tiramisu with peaches.  But, although this may be hard to believe coming from someone who loves dessert a little bit too much, the real highlight of the festival was not actually the dessert.  Instead,  it was the chance to talk to musicians from Italy and Germany, and to get to know people who live in these small towns in Northern Italy full of olive trees, apple trees, mountains and not much else.

My new friends from the Ambria Jazz festival

I left the weekend with a feeling that I had become a part of this small but special community, despite the fact that I live thousands of miles away and only visited for three days.  This wasn't the first time this year that I felt welcomed.  In fact, everywhere I went this year I was thrilled to find people who included me in their lives and provided me with a feeling of home, despite the fact that I was thousands of miles away from my real home.  I got this feeling when I played with the band in Granada,

and when I went to Christmas with (very) extended family in France, 

and when I did my internship at the elementary school in Granada,

Hiking with my bosses

and of course with these chicas bonitas,

and when I hung out in the Party Piso.

International dinner

These communities were what really made my year special. I'm thankful to everyone in them for including me, and going forward I'm going to try to always extend the same hospitality that I received to new people that I meet.

And now I have a few final adventures to share with you.  Before the Ambria Festival and after leaving Florence, I went to the JazzIt Festival just south of Rome, which had views like this:

At the festival we played in three concerts, one of them on a stage that looked like this:

Then, we stayed for one night at an ancient monastery, which now functions as a hotel, but based on the UFOs we saw while stargazing there is definitely some sort of spiritual magic left there (and yes, they were definitely UFOs and no, they were not airplanes or space-stations or rocket ships or anything else realistic that you might find in the sky).

The monastery looked like this:

And had views like this:

On the way to the monastery we stopped at this waterfall:

And then we spent two nights relaxing in a small town called San Gemini, and went to see some Roman ruins near there:

Two jazz festivals, a giant waterfall, a magical monastery, Roman ruins, new friends...I can't think of a better way to have spent my last week in Europe.  In fact, I still can't believe that the things I'm describing are actually my real life.

And now here I am, nearing the end of my last blog post.  If anyone wants to see more photos from this year, I am happy to give a private showing the next time we see each other (and I would love to see you - it's been a while!).  I would also like to mention that if you are planning to go to any of the cities I visited this year, I have a detailed list of recommendations for each one and I would be more than happy to share them with you.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog this year and I want to thank everyone who was interested enough in my life to follow it.  I sort of wish I could continue to keep a blog, but I'm guessing that not even my most devoted readers (I think my mom and my aunt Anita win that competition!) would care enough about me to want to read about how many episodes of Orange is the New Black I've watched.  But hopefully this isn't the end of my travel adventures, and hopefully after staying at home for at least a year (first I need to recover from jetlag, then finish college, then we'll see) I'll have the chance to continue to explore the places on my ever growing list of places to see.