La Despedida (Farewell)

  Well, it has been a long time coming, but as I sit here and write this final blog entry, my time here has finally reached its conclusion with less than 24 hours left here in Spain.  The last three weeks or so I have been aware that this moment was coming, and now it has finally arrived. I tried to prepare myself for this but it is still hard. When I was 16 years old and in high school I had a vision: I would go to Spain, live, work, study, something, but I would live in Spain.  Well I can now say that I have done it. As hard as it is for me to say goodbye, it is just as gratifying, knowing that I have accomplished a dream of mine. Although I can leave with the satisfaction of living out this great experience, I still have more to accomplish. When I reflect on the past 9 or so months, I see the person that I have become, and how this experience has shaped my life, and I feel great about it.  More than anything, my time here has taught me to keep fighting, to keep working hard for what I want and believe. It is now time to take the next step, a new goal awaits.  Let's do this.

Venice

  Italy...Venice...pizza...ahh. Before I begin, I would like to say that Venice is right up at the top of my list of favorite places. I knew that there weren't cars, I knew there were streets of water, and I expected awesome Italian pizza. Well, I found all of that and more in our trip to Venice. After arriving, we didn't walk more than 30 feet before we came across the Gran Canal, which is the main "street". Even though we had seen pictures before, it was still an incredible sight to see, and we had to stop and just soak it in. At that point, I was already sold on the place, and declared it to be one of my favorites. Things just got better. We quickly found a pizza place, and both of us anxious to try real Italian pizza ordered one pizza for each of us, leaving no peice of crust nor string of cheese behind. Yes, the pizza is that good. Just to help you get a better idea of just how good the pizza was, we ate it for literally, every meal. Now, I know you might be thinking, "you went to Italy and only had pizza, no pasta, nothing else!?" That is fair to question, but, when pizza is the best food, as well as the best priced food, you eat pizza. I haver made an adjustment to the old saying, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and changed it to, "when in Italy, eat pizza as the tourists do". But enough about the pizza, let's talk about what else makes Venice awesome.
  I would say one thing that makes this place so cool, is that it is truly a unique place to visit. There is no other place like it, and that alone makes it worth the visit. Aside from that, because Venice is small, and easy to navigate around, we showed up with no plan, well, something like that. Our plan was to have no plan. This worked perfectly, we explored the city, took advantage of the "free" public transportation, and just relaxed. It sounds simple, and it was, that is why the trip was so perfect. One of the highlights of the trip was sitting on a dock, eating awesome Italian ice-cream, and watching the sun set, while gondolas and other boats passed by. Its the simple things in life that should make you happy, and this trip did that for us.