I’ve had some of the most incredible experiences since coming to study abroad in Sevilla: traveling around eight countries, eating the most fantastic and sometimes “interesting” food and getting really lost, both linguistically and physically. But while everywhere I’ve gone has been amazing (who could not have fun in Amsterdam, or not fall in love with the Greek Islands?), I don’t think that my study abroad experience would have been even close to as wonderful as it was had I not made the friends that I did.
Obviously I Facebook stalked everyone in my program when the list of people came out, but while I’ve gotten pretty adept at Facebook stalking during my years at Northwestern, I should have learned by now that you can only learn so much about people from the very select items they put online, and it is nearly impossible to determine who your friends will be before you meet in person. So I didn’t know until living in Sevilla for a few weeks that I would become incredibly close to the most fabulous women ever (not that I’m biased).
Upon arriving in Spain, I was really anxious about making friends right away. I thought I was over the high school Mean Girls obsession of hanging with the “cool” crowd (let’s be real — I go to Northwestern, so there is no way that I ever will be supremely cool in the typical sense), but I was still preoccupied with finding a group of friends with whom I could relate and have a good time.
Luckily for me, my roommate, Christine, turned out to be one of these people, which I pretty much figured out on the first night. I arrived to Sevilla a day late because of weather delays. Although I’d come with three other girls, of course I was freaking out about everyone else already being best friends by the time we got there. So after orientation, even though I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, I decided it was crucial for me to go out with everyone in the program. Stupid idea. I got somewhat dolled up (using copious amounts of cover-up to hide my under-eye bags) and made my way out with Christine and some neighbor program members. We met up with about fifteen other people, and went to a popular bar street. I didn’t hang out with Christine very much, but we stayed with the same group. I tried so hard to mingle and make new friends, but it just wasn’t happening. We finally ended up at a lounge where I almost spilled about five peoples’ drinks since I kept nodding off onto the table. Christine noticed my zombieness and came to my rescue. Even though I mildly protested, she insisted we get in a cab and go home — the smartest thing I’d done all day.
Since then, she’s witnessed many other dumb decisions I’ve made, but generally we manage to do reckless things together (although we’ve both gotten much better at surviving on zero sleep). I don’t know many other people who would sneak into our host brother’s room at 4:00 a.m. while he’s still out, look for the internet router and come close to leaving evidence of our snooping in the form of Nutella and peanut butter fingerprints from the feast we’d consume while plotting our escapade, or who would pregame our hangout with the same (very awkward) host brother and his friends to make ourselves less nervous, but having it backfire once they started insisting we drink beer with them, then whiskey (then I don’t quite remember …), or who would spray my hair in the shower with red and yellow hair dye to make me into fire, then stick with me during my weird klepto moments later in the night (although she did benefit from the beer I appropriated at a bar), or who would laugh at me when my iPod almost died by melted Cadbury egg, but then have the same thing happen to her computer, or who would help me design my future bridesmaids’ dresses at 5:30 a.m. on the street so she would look awesome in it when she’s in my wedding years from now.
I knew Karlee before coming to Spain since we’re in the same sorority. But while I always thought she was really cool and nice, I’d never gotten to be super close with her. But that completely changed with Spain. She was one of the three who got stuck in the US because of January weather. When we learned our flight was cancelled the day before we were supposed to leave, we probably talked more in those 24 hours than we had in the past two years we’d known each other. I stayed over at her house the night before our re-booked flight (since she lives fifteen minutes from the airport, while I live 2 ½ hours away), and my parents didn’t want to drive me home at 4:30 a.m. I was afraid it would be awkward, since we weren’t very close, and when my dad overestimated the driving time to get to her house, I made him wait at Starbucks with me until the time I’d told her we would arrive. But as soon as I got there we started bonding. We talked all afternoon and into the night. It helped that we had the common bond of our sorority, and of course Spain, to babble about, but I knew we had more in common that could turn into real friendship when we were waiting in JFK together, looking out for the other two girls from our program who also had missed the group flight. We both hard-core checked out every girl who could be within five years of our age and finally decided to text them, since we’d gotten their numbers from our program director earlier. We definitely bonded in our awkwardness of crafting the perfect text, and then in our realization that telling them that Karlee was “half standing” made it a little awkward for Karlee, since we didn’t know how she had been half standing, or why we said that. So she teetered difficultly over the chair in a half crouch as I tried to scan the crowd for girls looking for a half-stander while cracking up.
Since then, Karlee and I have taken every class in Spain together, meaning we spend almost every minute of the day together, since we have lots of odd breaks between classes, during which we like to watch people and pigeons, buy supplies for our nights out or shop for ice cream or stuffed toy bulls. I’m so mad at myself for not getting to know her better freshman year, but we’re going to make up for it senior year. There’s nobody else with whom I could have had a thirty-minute discussion about carrier pigeons, deciding that we should get one for our apartments at Northwestern, name him Xavier, and train it to dodge flaming arrows, or double-fisted champagne flutes, since we were afraid we’d run out, even though the bartender loved us and brought us never-ending bottles. We accidentally murdered a royal peahen with chocolate, dressed up in traditional Spanish hats, fake mustaches and pretended to get drunk and have a brown in class, or made numerous plans for the summer and senior year, including making our friends at Northwestern cake during finals week so they don’t hate us and the fact that we have nothing to do (but watch out, we may make rum cake so they’ll loosen up and do nothing with us) and hanging out with each other all the time when a lot of our friends from home can’t stand our Spain stories anymore.
I didn’t really talk to Meredith until a few weeks into being in Sevilla. But as soon as I did, as Karlee likes to say, it went from zero to friendship. I remember we went with her and a few other people for churros (and how can you not bond over churros con chocolate?) and I was immediately taken with her ever-ebullient personality. But I remember I knew we would be close later that night, as we were going out, when I informed her I was writing a blog for North by Northwestern about Spain, and she both gave me my first story idea and was incredibly amused and genuinely interested in the fact that I’d also written Carnal Knowledge blogs for NBN a year earlier. The next day, when I saw her at orientation, she told me she’d read all of the blogs, and from then on we’ve had a never-ending dialogue about anything and everything relating to sexual health.
Even though Meredith is the friendliest person ever, and could have hung out with anybody at all in our program, since the first time we spent time together, the zero to friendship has rung true. Thank goodness, because I have never had a dull moment around her. I don’t know who else would have spiced up a night by volunteering me to participate in a show in Amsterdam, gotten all of us to as many places as we went and acting as the incredible group travel agent. She pulled me ¾ of the way onto her lap at a theme park water ride to help me avoid the huge waterfall on my side (although that failed miserably and we all got soaked), and then had me on her lap again as she, Karlee and I tried to squeeze in a bucket on a merry-go-round designed for one to two small children. We also shared a “special” moment during our last night and simultaneously decide that Karlee had to document that moment.
So moral of the story, I don’t have any idea what my study abroad experience would have been like without these friends. It didn’t take long for Meredith to coin us as the Fearsome Foursome, and I have no doubt that we will continue to be fearsome together way past leaving Spain. We began our love fest in Barcelona together, making friends with waiters and preferring a 70-year-old’s sleep schedule to going out, and furthered our relationship every day in Sevilla until we reached the epitome of our love in Chiclana, when our group took a trip to the beach there together. We came prepared with wine, and after Meredith and Karlee skinny-dipped both because they’re crazy (it was 50 degrees!) and wanted to get us privacy for beach bonding. We stayed out on the sand until the early morning, sharing our most embarrassing moments, our disasters and successes in love and some of our most intense fears and secrets. Not surprisingly (although I was a little shocked in the first moment of waking), we all crammed into one bed together that night, cuddled and slept until breakfast. We’ve only gotten closer since, traveling together, picking up each other’s verbal tics, going out together, but most of the time just hanging out in the sun and shade.
My boyfriend has accused me more than once of changing my sexuality while abroad because of the way I talk about my friends. But he just doesn’t understand how quickly or intensely we bonded (or how many intensely romantic situations we’ve experienced together — how can you not fall in love with someone after you bond over innumerable bottles of wine, rolls of Principes and the most beautiful sunsets every week?). But even though Spain is ending for me, as cheesy as it is, I know these friendships never will. Because I don’t think of us as just the FF, but as the FFF, and the third F’s the charm: Fearsome Foursome Forever.