Plans for home

I thought I would update you all on the rest of my plans for the trip. I´ve decided to return to the states before my original return date of November 26th. I will be returning to the US on the 8th of November where I will spend about 10 days in NYC before returning to seattle on November 17th.

As you probably gathered from my early blogs I had a hard time adjusting to life as a solo traveler in a country where I didn´t know the language. It was at this point that I started to consider cutting my trip short. Originally I didn´t think I´d make it this long (at one point I had tentative plans to come home on October 18th). But as I got my "traveling legs" I´ve kept changing my mind and extending my time here. I´m proud to say that over the last 6 weeks I´ve really grown to love traveling alone and everytime I do something with ease that was stressful those first few weeks I can´t help but smile.

But I´ve seen most of spain and portugal at this point and I´ve done it slowly, at the pace I wanted to. I strongly considered branching off to the rest of Europe (london, paris, amsterdam) but it seems like it would sort of be tacked on. What I wanted from this trip is to get to know a region of Europe well and I feel I´ve done that.

I´m on a four month leave of absense from work to figure out where I want my life to go and I´ve figured out a lot while traveling, but now it´s time to go back and assess what I´ve learned. I´d like to spend some time at the coast, and relax in seattle.

I´m really looking forward to my last two weeks here. I´ll be spending tomorrow night in Porto before spending a week in Lisbon and a week in Madrid before I leave. In all I will have spent 8 weeks (ocho semanas) in spain. I think that´s pretty good for a first trip alone.