Valentine's weekend in Bombay

{Sara, Corinne, and me at Juhu Beach}

It might be because I was born there (back before it even became Mumbai!), but of the many places I've visited in India, Bombay is without a doubt my favorite. The food and shopping are unparalleled, a ton of my family is there, and when the heat or traffic aren't overwhelming you, the city is perfect. Needless to say, Bombay is home for me in a very unique way, and various parts of the city hold incredible sentimental value to me. There's my first home, my Nani's (maternal grandmother) place where I've spent so many summers, the beach I used to visit as a kid, and so much more. I've wanted to go back with some friends from GW for a while now but coordinating vacation schedules and financing expensive flights from the U.S. isn't exactly easy to accomplish on a college student's budget and lifestyle. So when I found friends from my CIEE Abroad Program who were interested in visiting Bombay, I jumped at the chance to show them around.

Although I was in Bombay for a few days before my study abroad orientation in Hyderabad, I knew I wanted to go back. All four of my grandparents are currently there and seeing them is reason enough for a weekend trip to the city. But when I thought about how fun it would be to show some friends around the city I call home, I got even more excited. So this past weekend, my friends Corinne and Sara and I flew down to Bombay for a trip I think of as my most productive visit to any city, ever. My friends and I certainly ate our way through the city, and the suitcase that was half empty on my flight there and full on my return to Hyderabad is a testament to the six kurtis, two tops, and two dresses I managed to buy. Beyond that, my three major goals for the weekend were to show my friends my city, spend time with my family, and visit places that held sentimental value for me. By some miracle we managed to accomplish all of that and then some in only two and a half days.

{one of the many dishes we had for dinner}

After we reached Bombay Friday afternoon, my friends and I headed to my Nani's house with the help of my Mama (maternal uncle). We had an amazing lunch, after which Sara headed down to Kala Ghoda and Corrine and I played cards with my cousin and Mami (maternal aunt) before heading out for some shopping with my Nani. After picking up some kurtis and fun pants from the street stalls, we headed back home to see my Ba (paternal grandmother). The four of us then visited two temples that I had gone to as a child before going to another uncle's house to see my Dada (paternal grandfather), who had recently broken his leg. We then met up with yet another uncle—and I low-key blessed his motorcycle and got some amazing ice cream, nbd—before heading to dinner. The travel hadn't been great on my stomach and I was feeling a little off, but some relentless goading by my Mami assured that I had a very filling dinner. We shared plates of pizza, dahi puri, kati roll, and the coolest pav bhaji I've tasted (the bhaji had cheese and the pav was fried with some sort of masala!) and somehow I still managed to say yes to dessert. I looked at Corinne and offered the justification of, "If not now then when?" and am definitely glad I did because the malai gola we shared was insane and definitely better than anything I've found in Hyderabad. I swear, Bombay food is just incomparable. 

The next morning, Nani, Corinne, and I attempted to fit in some more shopping, but found the stores to be closed and settled for some fresh coconut water instead. My cousin came home from a class he had, and my Nani, Mami, cousin, Corinne, and I headed to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. I've always seen the park from the windows at my Nani's place, but have either never been there or had gone when I was really young so I was looking forward to the visit. After a short rickshaw ride, we walked through, ate some fruit, and went on a short safari ride to see some tigers. We also saw some monkeys and deer on our visit! Nani, Corinne, and I then headed to see my mom's old house, the home she had lived from birth till marriage. 

For obvious reasons, visiting India and especially Bombay always reminds me of where I come from. More than being about my ethnic or national origin, Bombay makes me think of my early childhood, my parents' youth, the life I could have led and almost did. It makes me appreciate my parents on a very conscious level, which I don't do often enough. It makes me think about the family I wish I was closer to, the family I'm grateful to be close to, the family I only see every few years, the family that makes coming to India feel like home time and time again.

I'm so lucky to still have all four grandparents with me, and every time I hop on a plane or bus or car and say goodbye, I worry about whether that goodbye is as final as I fear it to be. Maybe this is a bit heavy to be sharing on such a public platform, but I think it's important to value what you have and to be appreciative of and grateful for every moment you have with the ones you love, in the places you love. So it that sense, going to Bombay has always felt like coming home to my family, and leaving has always been doubly difficult.

And Bombay means even more to me. For as long as I can remember, I've been working on a balance between Indian and American. It wasn't until recently that I was able to conceptualize it as a spectrum rather than a binary distinction or a hyphenated identity. Because I'm not hyphenated. I'm me. I'm both, I'm whole. I feel so connected to India and Bombay in a way that I don't think I'll ever feel with my small town in New Jersey, in a way I don't think I even want to feel with New Jersey. And as much as I love, love D.C., I know I won't be there after graduation. It's not where my field is, and so it'll forever be the place I spent my college years, the place I grew into myself a little bit more and learned to live and love and accept in ways I didn't think possible. But Bombay. Bombay will always be home. Do you know how weird it is to leave a place for six and a half years and return and have some things change completely and others stay the same and feel wholly and completely happy to have what you have and be who you are and stand where you stand?

One of the biggest benefits of learning new languages is finding ways of expressing those teeny tiny intricacies of the human experience that you didn't know how to convey. If you're a native Spanish speaker, the phrase, "me emociona," might not mean much to you. It might be something you grew up hearing and repeating. But for someone who feels so strongly about so many things, for a writer who is frustrated with the inability to describe wholly and fully and truly every feeling and thought and experience, the phrase, "me emociona," works wonders. Because that's what Bombay does to me. That's what Madrid does to me. That's what being around people I love and being in places I love and feeling truly myself does to me. 

So when I visited my mom's old house, and when I thought about where both of my parents have come from and where they are now in a way that relates to but goes beyond the standard immigrant family, American Dream story, I was emotioned. I saw my mom's old neighbors, faces I didn't recognize at all, faces of people who expressed such warmth and a sense of community and a desire to express such genuine kindness for a person they didn't know at all, I was emotioned. When I thought about what I have to leave behind each time I leave India and the time that passes between each trip and what moving back here would be like and how both India and America are home but in a way neither of them are, I was emotioned. 

The Coldplay-Beyoncé video that recently came out frustrates me for such a wide host of reasons, but one of the major ones is the lack of representation that South Asians and particularly Indian-Americans face. I'm currently working on a post regarding that, but for now I'm just going to say that the Indian-American experience is one that is so complicated, has so many layers and valences that reflect a lot about India and America and the way we as the people of either or both countries believe and think and behave. It's one that holds so much value as an academic discourse, as a literary and artistic diaspora, as a reflection of the government and politics of both countries. Seeing such a reductive representation of India through the Western lens—and seeing the lack of regard for the misrepresentation that some people excuse because it's a music video or because it's Coldplay or because it's Beyoncé, and so on is just so disheartening and so painful in ways that I myself am still struggling to come to terms with. India is so beautiful, but dancing street children and Holi and a painful-to-see appropriation of our many dance forms are not the reasons why.

And that is what I thought about on the rickshaw ride from my maternal grandparents' old home to their current one.

After a quick rest at Nani's place, Corinne and I headed to my cousin Jhanavi's apartment with two other cousins. From there, we met up with Sara and spent some time at Juhu Beach, a place that holds a lot of sentimental value for me for a host of different reasons, before heading out to dinner. At dinner, the topic of the Coldplay music video came up again and I was amazed at how much Jhanavi related to my frustration. As an Indian-Omani who is going to college in Bombay, Jhanavi knows exactly what it is to be of two worlds, to be an "in-betweener," as she calls it. 

I find that my local friends and family here don't share my frustration with the way Indians and India are represented in this video, and maybe that's because many of them have no way of knowing what being an Indian-American in 2016 means, of truly knowing how the lack or representation and misrepresentation feel when you spend the majority of your life in a Western setting. I haven't explored the topic enough with my family in the U.S. to know their stance, but even among many (although certainly, certainly not all) of my Indian-American friends, I often feel like I'm the only one who cares or at least the only one who cares this much. It's pretty isolating, and many of the friends I've made through this abroad program have provided the support and comfort through the fact that they share my frustrations, that they know where I'm coming from. Put very simply, they get it and when I saw that my cousin got it too, I was ecstatic and even relieved. I'm not alone. Someone else cares, too. And even if we're the only one's having this conversation, it's okay. Twenty years ago, this conversation might not have even happened. Maybe twenty years from now, it might not need to.

We spent our last day in Bombay in the best way possible: shopping and eating. After my cousin and I visited a great-aunt of ours, we met up with our friends for some shopping and lunch in Lokhandwala. My last trip to India was the summer before my freshman year of high school (yikes!) and my cousin Riya and I pretty much spent our entire summer shopping and dancing (we took a pretty wild Salsa/Bollywood/Bhangra/Raas-Garba dance class that summer). We visited Lokhandwala a ton that summer, and the first place we stopped at this time around was a stall that I've seen pretty much every time I can remember being in Bombay. I got a little obnoxiously excited, especially for a stall that only sells cheap trinkets. But before I came to India, I'd been hearing people talk about how much India has changed in the recent years and it's so comforting to see how so much is still the same.

After walking around a bit, we stopped by lunch and got classic Bombay food. My personal favorite was the Bisleri pani puri, 20% because it was the first Bombay pani puri I'd had in years and 80% because I knew it wouldn't make me sick. I also had bites of my friends' pav bhaji and dahi puri before ordering a pretty good royal falooda. I've been in India for a month and a half and really don't anticipate getting sick of having Indian food every day. If anything, I'm worried about how I'm going to be in D.C. without my thrice-a-day cups of chai and such. Guess I'll finally have to learn how to cook Indian food.

{mediocre-at-best iPhone shot of our view from the plane}

Our flight back was bittersweet. It was late enough that all the city lights had turned on, and as our plane rose we were above a thin layer of black clouds with the city and black Indian Ocean below us. Above, we could see a few stars and it seemed like a perfect, albeit reluctant, end to an even better weekend. It was one of those things where photos don't capture the beauty, so you'll just have to take my word for the fact that it was breathtaking. 

I want to travel to so many places throughout and close to India while I'm studying abroad here and I initially wasn't sure that I'd get time to go to Bombay again before heading to Oman and then going back to the Dirty Jerz. But after this weekend, I'm determined to make time. This city is just so amazing and although I'll never let six and a half years pass in between my trips there, I know I have to visit it one last time before the next.

Here are a few more photos of our trip, as well as a video I made of one-second clips from our weekend. Enjoy!

{food on food on food}

{pre-Bombay selfie}

{lunch at Nani's}

{Mami makes the best chai}

{walking around Borivali}

{Corinne and her new Vespa}

{living in a constant state of only remembering to take photos after having a bite}

{nariyal pani}

{malai gola feat. photobomber}

{fennel seeds!}

{spot the tiger}

{dahi chaat for lunch}

{Nani's building}

{falooda for dessert}

{me and my valentines}

{rickshaw selfie}

{Corinne meets the fam}

{ice cream at Naturals}

{#candid}

{natural park feat. a sign I can actually read now}

{malai gola}

{flowers + trees+ pretty walls}

{juhu}

{Nani and fruit}

15 Things I'll Miss About Madrid

Tomorrow is my last day in Madrid, the end of best summer I've had yet. Knowing that it's almost over makes me think of all that I'm sad to say goodbye to. Here are 15 things I'll miss about Madrid.

1. The free time. I've read so much while I've been here and finally got around to starting Game of Thrones. And when you spend three hours a day sitting on or waiting for a bus or train you have free time to sit and think and reflect, which I hardly get to do during the school year. If I'm at my internship I think about work and otherwise I am constantly thinking about school or homework or my to-do list. It's nice being completely stress-free for a change.

{window}

2. The weather. The lack of humidity in Madrid is well worth the heat, especially for my hair. And the incredibly hot summers here are always better than winter. I love fall, but it doesn't make me happy to let this go.

{gardens}

3. The location. Madrid is in the center of Spain, so it's easy traveling to other cities or to Portugal, and the rest of Europe is a relatively short flight away. I visited thirteen cities in twelve weeks, and value this more than I can explain.

{playa}

4. The people. Madrileños are known for being abiertos, open and welcoming. They are so friendly, especially when compared to the experiences I've had in many other European countries, and they're one of the biggest things I love about this city.

{palacio}

5. 100 Montaditos. I'll miss this chain of cheap eats. How am I going to get a jarra of cervesa and a mini sandwich for less than $3 at home?!

{la Reina Sofía}

6. La Reina Sofía. This museum is one of my favorite spots in the entire city and I've visited it nearly ten times in these past twelve weeks. It's absolutely beautiful and I'll miss escaping the heat for a couple hours in its endless halls.

{Picasso forever}

7. Speaking Spanish every day. I've practiced my Spanish so much here and I definitely think I've improved. And living in Madrid goes so much beyond what you can learn in a classroom; the lingo, the jokes, the culture—I learned all of that here and I'm sad I won't get the same level and type of knowledge back at school. 

{my life in Spain}

8. The streets. Madrid's architecture is absolutely gorgeous and often varies from one barrio to the next. There's beauty everywhere I go and I love it.

{catedral}

9. The balance between city and nature. Madrid has more trees than people and the mountains that surround the region provide a gorgeous escape. I'm not just looking at concrete all day and since I'm happier around nature, I've appreciated this so much. The summer also brings with it brilliant blue skies and I've loved watching clouds pass while just sitting in the park. Beyond this, Madrileños value plantlife more than Americans, and homes often have dozens and dozens of beautiful plants. And getting to see the stars here at night is nothing compared to what I can see at home. 

{cascadita}

10. Cheek kisses. Here in Madrid, we greet each other with two cheek kisses and while this made me nervous when I first arrived (I was convinced I was going to do it wrong somehow!), I've come to love how sweet the gesture is. A friend and I were people watching a few weeks back and saw two groups greet each other. Every person in the group cheek-kissed every other in a group of maybe ten, and it was endearing to see them all take the effort out to personally great each other. 

{Plaza de España}

11. Having a pool. In a city this hot everyone has access to a pool in the summer, whether it be in their backyard or in a community. As someone who never had a pool as a kid, having access to one now has been so much fun, whether I'm spending hours playing with the kids or even just floating around and listening to music by myself.

{dedos}

12. The cost of living. Madrid is incredibly cheap when compared to Washington, D.C. or even my small town in New Jersey. I've been eating out, traveling, and shopping so much more than I can back in the States and am not completely thrilled about going back to being a broke college kid.

{recorriendo}

13. Learning something new every day. My weekly posts don't cover the full extent of how much Spain has taught me. I can't possibly write down every new word and phrase and cultural difference and similarity and moment that has made me grow, and this experience goes beyond what words can convey.

{la luz}

14. Not being obsessed with time and productivity. I know that the relaxed nature of my life this summer has been due in part to the au pair role and dynamic, but there's no denying the fact that Spaniards are better at looking at things such as time, schedules, leisure, and productivity. There's a greater emphasis on living a balanced lifestyle here, while my life in D.C. features the constant pressure of needing to be productive. If I'm not working or studying, you can bet I'm planning my to-do list in my head, trying to tackle all the things I feel like I absolutely have to get done. The only time that pushy little voice in my head shuts up is when I'm distracted by Netflix or a night out with friends. I'm going to miss this sense of leisurely fulfillment, when your days aren't packed completely to the point where you're constantly worried about fitting everything into the few hours you have in a day, but you still have enough to do so that you're not bored or unsatisfied or restless or unfulfilled.

{una de las cuatro torres}

15. My family. I have been so incredibly fortunate to find a host family that is as incredibly kind, welcoming, and considerate as mine. They are all so warm-hearted and I've felt completely at home here. I value my relationship with them so much and while it makes me incredibly sad to think that I won't get to see them every day anymore, I know I have a visit from them to look forward to.

{tonterías}

Ultimately, I'm reminded how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so difficult. Hope you are enjoying the last days of summer as well!

~ V

Week 8: Three Things I Learned This Week in Spain

This past week I decided to take a break from travel and to instead focus on better appreciating the city around me. I enjoyed a relaxing weekend, several days in the pool, and spending time with friends. Here's what I learned:

{Puerta de Sol}

1. The best way to learn a language. I started learning Spanish my freshman year of high school, and with the exception of summer breaks and my first semester of college, I've been learning it since. While I still don't think I'm completely fluent, studying a language for six years makes a huge difference, and I hoped that coming here would help even more. However, I spent the first several weeks I was here kind of frustrated with my Spanish and feeling like I had hit a bit of a plateau; after learning all the necessary grammar in school, all I really needed to work on was my accent and the difference between the Spanish you speak in class and colloquial Spanish. But in between practicing with my host parents and speaking with strangers in the city, I didn't feel like I was improving at all. After coming back from Italy, I realized my Spanish really was quite good, and that the first four weeks in Spain actually did make a small difference. Since starting my language exchange, I've developed more confidence in my ability to speak the language and I've even learned a bit of slang that I would never have learned in a classroom. That being said, I think the best way to learn a language is with a balance. I've learned Hindi and Gujarati only from family and movies—never in a classroom—so there's only so much I know, only so many nuances of grammar and vocabulary and structure that I'm able to understand. At the same time, there's a limit to how much understanding that a classroom environment can provide you with when you're learning a new language, and coming here has helped me to realize that.

{gluten-free cupcakes from Celicioso}

2. A new reason to appreciate Spanish. Last summer, I went to Honduras with some family friends and while I was there, I spoke a bit of Spanish with one of the locals. He was incredibly kind and patient with my limited abilities, and even complimented my accent. I was confused at the time; as a non-native speaker, I don't really have an accent that binds itself to any Spanish-speaking country and I've always felt that if I want to be considered fluent, I have to speak as a native speaker would. Javier, my language-exchange friend, has complimented my Spanish multiple times, and each time, I tell him how I still don't feel like I speak well enough and that I still think my accent needs work. 

I've always been fascinated by the diversity of the accents that accompany the Spanish accent, especially that of the Castilian accent here in Spain, and I've tried to recreate that lisp of the letter Z and that harsher, throaty sound that comes with the letter J. But conversations with my host parents and Javier have made me realize that my accent isn't "wrong," nor would it be more "right" if it was traditionally Cuban or Mexican or Castilian or whatever. When you speak a language that's been spoken for thousands of years across over twenty different countries, there isn't one right way to speak. Sure there are differences that mark you as more correct in one country than another, differences that involve diction and pronunciation and even the way you address others (tú versus usted), and while for many these differences mark country of origin or nationality, for me they mark my history: I use "vale" because I've lived in Spain, I will use usted (once I'm back in America) because that's what my teachers have taught me to do, I will manipulate my accent to reflect what I find aesthetically appealing or colloquial effective or even personally significant. When you speak the Spanish language, you get to appreciate all these nuances and intricacies and that makes me love it even more.

{sometimes sunsets hurt because they involve pie bombs}

3. Why sunsets hurt. I've only mention this in passing, but the sunsets here are amazing. I saw a sunrise on a trip I went on with my AP Biology class in my junior year of high school that I still remember. It was the first sunrise I'd seen over the water, without any buildings to mar the horizon, and I still remember the way the clouds brought out certain shades of pink and orange and yellow in the sky, and the way the sky and its reflection in the water changed from before the sun had even begun to rise to a whole hour after. Photos don't do sights like these justice so you try snapping a couple pictures but ultimately you just give up and appreciate the view in front of you, trying to commit it to memory. 

That was nearly four years ago and now, if I time my bus ride home just right (the sun sets around 9:30-9:45), I can catch the most beautiful skies nearly every night. And I've been here long enough to realize that the views are different leading up to and after the summer solstice so that you end up with a whole spectrum of sunsets, each with a spectrum of colors itself. You have rainbow sunsets, where the surrounding mountains appear to be a dark indigo and the sky right by them is a bright red, which bleeds into an orange, with becomes a yellow and in between this and the blues you get at the very top, there's a small strip of subtle green. Then you have your cotton candy sunsets, where if you have the right type of clouds (cirrostratus for all you physical geography nerds out there), the setting sun creates strips of bright orangish pink that contrast with the neutral blues, and even the Cuatro Torres reflect a bit of the pink as well. The sunsets here are beautiful in the way that makes your heart hurt because you know you can't take them for granted, that you won't be seeing them forever, that these skylines and spectrums are not yours to keep. And don't even get me started on the starry nights.

{view from my evening run}

I'm starting to really miss D.C. and can't wait to go back and move into my new dorm. I have so much to look forward to during this next year, but I only have four weeks left in Spain and I intend to make them count. I'm planning weekends to Lisbon, Granada, and Sevilla and am meeting some new friends soon. Enjoy the rest of your week!

{shopping on Gran Vía}

~ V

Read also:Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7

Week 7: Six Things I Learned This Week in Spain

As usual, when you learn to let go and stop forcing things to work a certain way, everything sort of falls into place. This week I decided to let things happen without planning too much, and the results were pretty great. I went to my first flamenco show and had a great night out with some girls, I spent a day being productive and working on internship applications at a cute cafe in the city, and I started a language exchange with Javier, a man here in Madrid trying to improve his English. It's sometimes nice to see where things take you rather than planning your days down to the minute, which is what I usually do. Here's what I learned this week:

{Dolce Vita}

1. NARS' Dolce Vita is amazing. (I'm kind of cheating here, since this has nothing to do with Spain, but when an airline loses your luggage and all your (new) makeup inside it, you justify going shopping.) One of my favorite writers/bloggers/instagram accounts is Ella Ceron, a self-proclaimed kale and cookie equal opportunist. She's incredibly bold and inspiring, not only in her professional work and expertise regarding all things Kanye, Kardashian, and Drake, but also in her personal posts on body image, life with disordered eating, being a woman, etc. She wrote a post a few months ago about lipstick that kind of stuck with me (read it, it's fantastic) and inspired my recent purchase. I've worn this shade every day since I bought it and am definitely incorporating it into my makeup routine. 

{la Reina Sofía}

2. What homesickness feels like. For the first time in these past seven weeks, I felt homesick. I was feeling kind of blehh, which is the exact word I used to describe my mindset to a friend, and really needed someone to talk to. I couldn't help but think that if I was back home, I could just drive over to Alana's house and pick her up and drive around and get ice cream. Instead, I had to settle for instant messages and time zones and scheduled Skype sessions. While I wouldn't consider leaving early for even a second, it's nice to remember that I have a home and a family and friends who I consider family, all who will make leaving Spain in just five short weeks so much easier.

{garlic naan & paneer masala}

3. Indian food in Madrid is a joke. I took myself out to dinner on Sunday, desperately craving paneer and in need of a little bit of #treatyoself. I did my research on Yelp beforehand trying to find the best Indian restaurant in the area, but the most highly rated place also happened to be the worst Indian food I've had in my entire life. Ever. Needless to say, I'll be waiting until I'm back on American soil to try any Indian food again.

{flamenco dancer}

4. Flamenco is totally underrated and inspiring. Word to the wise: if you're ever feeling jaded in Spain go to your first flamenco show. Remind yourself what it is to feel small and insignificant and inexperienced and incapable and inferior in the best way possible. Think about how much you're going to miss Spain when you leave. How much it has become a part of you. How much its identity had aligned with your own, just as you knew it would and then in some unexpected ways as well. Remind yourself what it is to feel something and remind yourself how silly it is that you ever forgot. 

{gorgeous library}

5. It's the little things in life. This week, I had one of the best days I've had yet. The weather wasn't stiflingly hot (for once), all my favorite Drake songs played even though my iPod was on shuffle, I had my favorite breakfast, I wore my favorite t shirt dress and Birkentocks, I had new lipstick to complement my stellar hair day, I had my first language exchange, and best of all—I didn't miss my bus. This may sound trivial but this is the first time I've made my bus without planning well ahead of time. I made my metro in between transferring lines and didn't have to wait 9 minutes for the next train and the doors closed right as I got on and when I got off I was right in front of the escalators to exit and had exactly 4 minutes to get my bus so I didn't have to rush or wait too long AND HOW GREAT IS THAT. From the outside looking in, all of this probably sounds trivial and unexciting, but my grin on the metro when I realized I was going to make my bus is proof enough that the simple joys in life are worth appreciating, too.

{card & cat}

6. The joy of receiving a letter in the mail. When I was younger, my cousin in Georgia and I would send letters to each other after she moved from New Jersey in the fourth grade. But with cell phones and Facebook, all of that stopped, so it had been years since I received real mail. My roommate is studying abroad in Japan during this upcoming school year (and is going to have an amazing time), and wrote goodbye letters to the rest of us in the room, and I just received mine in the mail this morning. With the amount of time that had passed since she mailed the letter, we both assumed it had gotten lost in the mail, so when I woke up this morning and found a white envelope with my name on it, I actually screamed from excitement. I read the card with the kind of giddy excitement you get over birthday presents when you’re nine or when you receive surprise flowers from someone you really care about. It’s amazing how a simple piece of paper can make you so happy, but there I was, standing in the entryway reading this card over and over and laughing at the jokes and doodles and crying not only at how much I’m going to miss my roommate, but also at how happy I was to have her in my life, to have someone who valued our friendship as much as I did, and cared enough to send a card and cat photo 3,781 miles away. It’s cliche at this point to lament the fact that we no longer send each other handwritten letters, especially considering that I’m part of the generation that hardly did that anyway. But I’ve decided to start sending my friends mail; if you can make someone so happy, so easily, then why wouldn’t you? 

I'm looking forward to this week and hope you enjoy yours!

~ V

Read also: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6