Chao for now

Three month have come and gone. So have my friends. The majority of the students that came to Veritas with me this January were only going to be here for three months. This weekend I had to say good bye to them.

To say the least, it was weird. Sure, I've only known them for three months, which is minuscule compared to my friendships from home. But see it from this angle: Mark Twain once wrote, "The best way to find out if you like people or hate them is to travel with them." Traveling with someone is how you get to know them. You find out how to push their buttons as they are pushing yours. Yes, sometimes while traveling with my friends, I was going to scream, just as I'm sure I made them want to scream. But these trips together were where I grew the most with these people. We always ran into problems, such as injuries, hostels with questionable beds, buses without seats, or even just having no idea where we were. It was in these moments where we eventually had the most laughs. Our two favorite sayings were "I promise we'll laugh about this some day" and "There isn't anything you can do about it, so just take it".  When I look back at my time with my friends, I am so grateful for it all, both the ugly and beautiful moments. Like how after every time at the beach, we all almost always ended up completely fried. Or when Brittany gave us a show we'll never forget. Or when Chelsea and I spent a whole bus ride in accents. When Josh, Shelby and I had wars of pick up lines. When Rosie and I made a pact at the beginning that we would hold each other's hand whenever we could, and did. Or the night that we spent just sitting in the hostel rooms taking crazy pictures. Or every single bus ride that always ended up with Shelby, my eternal bus buddy, and me completely car sick.  Or the time I bruised my tailbone jumping from a waterfall and needed my friends to just promise me it would be funny some day. Or just all of the nights we've spent looking at the stars in disbelief that we were in Costa Rica.

This weekend has been just a parade of good byes. So, now that they are gone, you can understand how empty San Jose feels. Its a weird feeling knowing that about 50 of the people that I am used to seeing every single day are no longer here. Thank God, though, that we all decided that it isn't goodbye, its just chao for now.