The first time I “studied” abroad I was 6 and in the first grade. My parents had decided to move our family from San Juan Capistrano, California to Guadalajara, Mexico so that my dad could attend medical school while my mom stayed home with me and my 3-year-old sister, Amanda. Much to my mother’s chagrin, this, in addition to the several moves we made in our “med-school pilgrimage,” planted a gypsy seed in me to explore the world.

In my junior year of college, I hopped on over t0 Barcelona, Spain. Then, in 2004 I went to study in Santiago, Chile for a couple of months before going to Auckland, New Zealand on a Rotary Scholarship for a year. The continents, nationalities, cultures, and languages varied at each place, and I was very blessed each time to make friends that I still keep in touch with today, thanks to Email and Internet chat. However, something was always missing. It was that indescribable feeling that I never knew passing Gaudi’s beautiful, architectural structures, underneath the shadow of the Andes, or in the waters at Piha. I realized it was that feeling of being home.

Summit of The Kepler Track, New Zealand

I was lucky to be able to move back near my family in Dana Point after I returned from Auckland and live with my little sister. Even though we have both moved to San Diego recently, albeit to different neighborhoods, I am still able to see her and my family in Orange County frequently. But, now that I have been in Europe for more than a month, I truly ache for what I think I was looking for all along: home.

Home is only a concept that I have begun to understand. It is a night I set aside to get together with my sister and cousins for pizza and a movie. It is my niece’s deep, infectious laugh and the way my Abuelita says to each of us girls in her thick Ecuadorian accent, “Your eyes are eXAct to me.”  Home is sitting with my mom, gossiping over her home-made, Cadillac margaritas that knock any girl off her chair. It is the walks my dad and I take under the pink and orange dusk sky of Bakersfield, as we talk about vague philosophies of life.  It is waking up to Patch’s big, honky lab nose in my face.  And home is laughing with joy that I have never known before, when I lean back into Seth’s arms. As cheesy as it may sound, I have finally learned that home is where the heart is, and I am looking forward to going back with all that my heart is made of.