With less than a month left until I leave this wonderfully crazy city that I now consider to be another home, the only thing to do is everything I possibly can to make the most out of what little time there is left.

There is still so much I want to do, see, and experience, not only in Madrid but also in Spain and even Europe. There’s just one problem: there’s just so little time. Part of me puts blame on the fact that I still have school to go to and work/assignments to worry about finishing. But as I ranted about in my last article, I’m studying abroad, emphasis on studying; its not a vacation – unfortunately.

I know what you’re thinking, there’s a simple solution to this: ‘forget about school, live your life, travel, enjoy, do your work later and just do enough to slide by.’ I have in fact tried that on occasion, but then the work keeps piling up and the anxiety of not getting it all done eats at me and inhibits me from fully enjoying certain things. But maybe that is just a ‘me’ problem.

One of my best friends at Le Moyne, who studied abroad last semester, told me repeatedly that time goes by so quickly and to do as much as I can because before you know it, the semester is over. Of course I believed her and took what she said to heart. When the semester began however, and for the first two months, it still felt like I had so much time left, so I didn’t try to pack my schedule too tightly. But maybe I should have…

I look back at the past 3 months and see where I could’ve taken the opportunity to maybe go out more, explore more and experience more. Other times I like to believe that I did what I could and what was best, which was to not be too high strung about doing everything; to take it one day at a time and relax. Because in reality, you could live in a huge city like Madrid your entire life, and still not experience every little thing it has to offer.

Now, with 24 days left, I find myself thinking: “but what if I’m not ready.” What if I’m not ready to leave all of the friends I’ve made here? What if I’m not ready to go back to living in an English-speaking country? What if I still have more to do and more to see? And then I remember…these questions and so many more, just give me an excuse to come back!