The beauty of Northern Spain is something I am truly going to miss. The first weekend after we arrived we visited the “Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa,” one of Spain’s loveliest national parks as well as the first, after being founded in 1918. We took a bus with the university we are attending, la Universidad de Oviedo, as part of our few excursions, and as we rode up an everlasting slope we caught glimpse of the breathtaking mountains around us. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had only seen sights like this in movies and National Geographic. Being a city boy from St. Louis, the highest structures I’ve ever encountered are the semi-tall buildings downtown.

Once we arrived, we hiked up to on of two lakes in the mountainous region, and as soon as the lake was in sight, i froze in place. It was the kind of sight that would trick you into believing you had found heaven. Not to mention, the scenery was made ever more so tranquil by the addition of calm bulls, which I hadn’t though existed. If you would’ve told me that I would be walking between friendly bulls and alongside a lake so clean that you aren’t even allowed to touch it, I wouldn’t have believed you in a million years. Yet, there I was doing exactly just that. A few of my classmates wanted to scale a bit of the mountain, and since “when in Spain,” we went for it. I have to admit, initially, I was terrified, but I willed myself up one of the peaks, and man, was it worth it. I felt like I was a piece of nature, like I could reach up and stain my hands blue from the sky. It was beyond beautiful to look at the world from a mere peak on the side of a mountain, and it got me wondering – what would it be like to climb even further in life?