Faith, Life, and Lessons

You know, humans seem to always seek familiarity. It’s incredibly easy to make expat friends here in the city because as soon as you hear someone speaking English, you have an opportunity. I’ve made multiple friends by simply hearing English and asking where they were from. One thing leads to another and next thing you know you’re making plans weekend plans with people you met on the metro. Life is random like that. If you feel like an outsider in society, it becomes incredibly easy- even necessary- to find others like yourself. To not have to explain everything. Even outside of nationality, I’ve realized today that this drive towards comfort and familiarity also becomes apparent in the spheres of age and life experience. Although many of the new friends I'm making here are not American, they're still very similar to me. We’re all college students just trying to understand the world and its inhabitants. However, while sitting on a bench and reading for about an hour and a half ...

Well, for those who don't know, this past week was my first of eight weeks working in Madrid, Spain! I'm working with an international company called Endeavor. Endeavor seeks to support entrepreneurs in growing their companies, stimulating the economy, creating jobs, and ultimately alleviating poverty. Since Endeavor's Madrid office has only been open for a bit over a year, it's still quite small, and it's been both interesting and enlightening to get started there. My co-workers are also very welcoming, and it's been fun getting to know them whilst communicating in "Spanglish." Speaking of language, it's been quite a jolt for my poor brain to fire up those dusty Spanish neurons, since I hadn't been practicing for a bit over a year beside a few periodic conversations. Needless to say, I'm fully immersed now, and it's all coming back to me. I've also had some precious time with my previous host family, and I even got to attend my sis...