Back in Spain, and it feels so good.  From the moment of disembarking the plane, the familiarity and warm recognition of Madrid had me all smiles from ear to ear.  I didn’t take long to be quickly reminded of why I fell in love with Spain.

It was here that completely flipped my perspective to world I thought was possible.  As I was walking through the streets, my head kept flashing back to various memories and moments.  Los recuerdos de mi primera vez.

Three years ago I came for a six week pstudy abroad, and ended up staying for a year.  I’ve been trotting the globe ever since.

I dropped out of school with one semester left to graduate, and began working on a Spanish startup (later finished with online classes fortunately).

It was a mixture of developing an intense passion for foreign languages, the feeling of pushing my boundaries and comfort zone for the first time, and quite frankly, just feeling more alive than ever before.

As I was walking through the city again and recollecting moments, I overheard various conversations, and the recognition of Spanish was very comforting.  Having been living in Greece for the past month with the communication abilities of a drunk toddler, it was refreshing to come back to something familiar.

I feel very confident with my Spanish these days, and it was nice being able to dive back it without feeling like I missed a beat.  It’s such a seductive language — it pulls you in and charms your pants off.  The georgeous features of the Madrileñas certainly doesn’t hurt the language attraction 😉

Mix that with Spain’s awesome culture and carefee lifestyle, and you can clearly see why so many people choose to come visit.

It was here that opened my eyes to the power of language; here where I found the seductive charm of foreign accents; here where I discovered new obsessions for travel; here where I began to develop a sense of purpose for tearing down cultural barriers, and recognizing commonalities that make us human.

My alter ego, Pepe, re-emerges once more.  I feel reminded of the mission I set off on three years ago, and the endless sense of wonder this place filled me with.  You have stolen my heart once more, España.