Possibility

I have been thinking a lot about community lately. Being the liberal peace-loving hippie I am, community means a lot to me. I left my strong community in downtown Columbia to live abroad this year and sometimes I wonder why I gave up that family. What I didn't anticipate was what my community would look like in Madrid. I knew I would have one, but I expected it to focus around a café like my community in Columbia did. I expected it to be made up of madrileños and Spanish students.

Instead I find myself in a community of Erasmus students from all over Europe and our meeting place changes every night. I went out for a drink tonight with one of the first people I got to know in Madrid. Giovanni, this Italian guy that I thought looked so cool with his Ray-Bans. He has lived in several places and told me tonight about how he has the travel bug and wants to leave Madrid.

I knew living here would change me, but I didn't anticipate finding this international community. Tonight Giovanni and I marveled over how unique it was to have a community that isn't defined by a place. In fact, the opposite: The international community is defined by travel and being in a place that is strange to you.

The verdict is still out on whether or not I will catch the travel bug and spend my years bartending in foreign languages. But it is a romantic idea. Though I could pass my years on the corner of 9th and Cherry very peacefully, I might learn Italian and French and live in Argentina photographing for a magazine or in Uganda working in an Irish pub.