Rebecca
I guess I don't want to write anything profound for my statement. What am I thinking on the last day? Well, a bunch of things. I'm trying to realize it's the end; trying to comprehend that this will be our last day as a group, and our last day living our lives as we have been used to for the past 75 days. We have seen each other 24 hours a day for two and a half months, and after today that will all be gone; we will each go our separate ways and return to life as we are used to it in the States, or go on to new and different things. Either way, this segment of our lives is ending, and that's an event that is beyond our ability to truly understand. But you have to try, in order to prepare yourself to move on.
As I am writing this, we are all here in the hotel. I can hear someone knocking on a door down the hall; others are going to get lunch; our stuff is everywhere, and needs to be packed. We are running around finishing laundry, buying gifts, throwing stuff out. Doors are open, and the lazy Sunday afternoon air is blowing through the halls. This is how we have lived for this moment of our lives, and in a blink it will all change. Our lives will become more than our frame packs, laptops and dirty clothes; we will reenter the world of a dorm room, a car, jobs. All of the complications that are life will come back to us, as soon as we venture back out of this hiatus; this oasis of time to just enjoy a country in the hectic and complex lives we all lead.
So I guess on our last day of the trip, that's what I am thinking about. That it's been great: absolutely one of the best times of my life, but amazing in an objective sense as well. For seventy-five days, my life was to wake up, put on comfortable clothes, eat breakfast and enjoy outside. Go to a new place in the world. See something I've never seen, and drive by some beautiful scenery to get there. Learn about an ancient people and a modern people. Eat lunch on the road, and exist with only a frame pack. And the simplicity of that existence is perhaps something I will never have again. As we each grow, and acquire all the resposibilities that come with that growth, life is constantly more complex; amazing because of that complexity, but lacking in the simplicity that we each enjoyed as children. And in some ways, I think this trip has provided me with the mental preparation I needed to fully move forward into that world. It has given me one last chance to have a simple existence: to have all of my responsibility in the world confined to what I can carry, and that has been something I have tried to cherish. As I look towards my senior year of college, I know life will be upon me before I know it. But somewhere inside, I know that now I'm more prepared.
So thanks for a great opportunity, thank you to the group for experiencing the trip with me, and thanks to the Greeks for making our time here so much more interesting. And in conclusion, a tribute to Giorgos, Sarah Jones, Kari, Katie and Anais: "I love football. I love the ladies. I so much like the ladies."
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